EXECUTIONS: BRING BACK THE ROPE?

Death by hanging is quick, painless and cheap, and it has not been outlawed by the Supreme Court

There has been a groundswell of opposition to the death penalty since Oklahoma botched the well-deserved execution of Clayton Lockett for shooting a young woman and having her buried alive.

Death penalty opponents within the U.S. have succeeded in getting several states to abolish capital punishment. There are 18 states and the District of Columbia that do not have capital punishment. Among the latest states to abolish the death penalty are New Jersey (2007), New York (2007), New Mexico (2009), Illinois (2011), Connecticut (2012) and Maryland (2013). For all practical purposes, California is without capital punishment because the state’s courts have left more than 740 brutal murderers stranded on its death row.

The death penalty abolitionists have been somewhat moribund since Maryland abolished capital punishment. Instead of the usual malarkey about the immorality and ineffectiveness of state sponsored executions, they concentrated on the high costs involved in fighting the never-ending appeals filed by lawyers for the condemned.

When the abolitionists realized they could not overturn capital punishment in Texas, Florida and most of the other states that have retained the death penalty, they turned to emulating their European like-minded allies. The Europeans have successfully pressured pharmaceutical companies into cutting off the supply of execution drugs needed by the death penalty states. But our homegrown abolitionists have gone beyond what the Europeans did.

Because the Europeans have succeeded in cutting of the supply of execution drugs, the states have been forced to rely on small compounding pharmacies for their lethal drug supplies. Whenever the abolitionists learned the identity of a lethal drug supplier, the compounding pharmacies were subjected to an extensive campaign of intimidation, including death threats. As a result, several of those pharmacies have demanded that the drugs they supplied be returned. And that has forced the death penalty states to keep the identity of their execution drug suppliers secret.

The abolitionists claim that since there is little government oversight of compounding pharmacies, there is the likelihood those pharmacies will turn out a bad batch of lethal drugs that would cause pain and suffering for the murderer during his execution. Hence the need to know the identity of the pharmacies. But their real aim is to intimidate the compounding pharmacies so they will no longer supply lethal drugs to the states. Actually, there was probably not a thing wrong with the three drugs used on Lockett. The problem was with the insertion of the needle which caused the vein to burst. But that’s all it took to set off a firestorm of protests about the cruelty of executions by lethal injection.

The abolitionists have become reenergized since Oklahoma botched Lockett’s execution, and appear to have gained the support of President Obama, a past supporter of capital punishment. The death penalty is now being attacked for violating the 8th Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. There has been a drumbeat of prominent voices calling for the end to capital punishment in the U.S.

Each time I have posted something about the death penalty on PACOVILLA Corrections blog, there have been a number of respondents who said “Bring back the rope.” Well, what about that? Death by hanging is quick, painless and cheap. There is no shortage of rope. It can be bought at any hardware store or farm and ranch supply store. Ropes are much, much cheaper than drugs and they do not have an expiration date like drugs. And the Supreme Court has not outlawed executions by hanging.

Execution by hanging is really not a bad idea, but it ain’t a gonna happen partners. Hangings will conjure up images of some guy flopping around for several moments as he dangles from a rope. While that is not what actually happens, I just do not think the public will go for bringing back the rope.