This editorial should make everyone stop and think about the morality of
capital punishment. The things that go on that we rarely ever hear about!
For a more in-depth look at my views regarding the death penalty -- a.k.a.
capital punishment -- please consider reading the article entitled "Bloody
But Unbowed: Timothy McVeigh And The Death Penalty", which you can access at
the following URL. Thanks!

http://www.endtimeprophecy.net/EPN-1/Articles/Articles-Cont/bloodyun.html


Botched Executions

New York Times Editorial

October 3, 2009


Ohio's attempt to execute Romell Broom last month by lethal injection was
the death penalty at its most barbaric. Even after that horribly botched
failed execution, the state wants to continue putting people to death,
starting next week. Ohio should at the very least call a moratorium so it
can ensure that it has the technical competence to put people to death
humanely. But every state should use this shameful moment to question
whether they ought to be putting people to death at all.

The execution team in Ohio spent about two hours trying to access a vein on
Mr. Broom's arms and legs. They stuck him with a needle about 18 times,
returning to areas that were already bruised. In one case, the needle
reportedly hit a bone. Mr. Broom tried to help, pointing to veins, massaging
his arms to keep a vein open and straightening tubes. At one point, some
witnesses suggested he was crying.

Mr. Broom's case is extraordinary because his execution was actually halted
and he was returned to death row. Botched executions, however, are far too
common. The Death Penalty Information Center has a harrowing list on its Web
site.

In an Alabama electrocution, flames erupted from the electrode attached to a
prisoner's leg, and even after his flesh burned, doctors found a heartbeat.
In Florida in 2006, a prisoner required two lethal injections to die. After
the first, he seemed to grimace and mouth words.

The Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to Kentucky's use of
lethal injection last year, but it left open the possibility that lethal
injection could be cruel and unusual in some circumstances. The record in
that case was thin, but Ohio's use of lethal injection raises more obvious
concerns. In the last four years, it has had three botched executions,
including one in 2006, which took nearly an hour and a half and left the
prisoner's body with 19 puncture wounds.

We have long believed that capital punishment is wrong in all cases, but
even those who support it should not accept cruel procedures.

Ohio should halt any further executions until it conducts a comprehensive
study of what is going wrong in its administration of lethal injection and
what can be done to ensure that a travesty like Mr. Broom's attempted
execution does not happen again.

Ultimately, every state should pause and consider that ending the life of a
healthy man or woman is no simple matter and that even in the 21st century,
executioners do not have their job down to anything like a science. No
government should put people to death until it can show that the condemned
person will not be racked with pain, catch on fire or prove so difficult to
kill, as in Mr. Broom's case, that the executioners are forced to try again
another day.



Jeff Snyder, SysOp - Armageddon BBS  Visit us at endtimeprophecy.org port 23
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