Posts
I haven't posted a blog since January! I was so surprised when I realized that, as it is not like me to keep silent for so long. On the other hand I can see no sense in writing just for the sake of writing. That only produces something boring that no one will read. I wait until I see something that really "hits" me so hard that I feel I have to say something.
A few things have surfaced this past week that have made me think, but none so much as that which I came across today. So for now I will just concentrate on this one subject and perhaps deal with the others later on.
Not just me - but my entire family going way back to my Grandmother's time - have been against capital punishment under any circumstance whatsoever. I am glad to say that capital punishment in Ireland was stopped the beginning of the last century, and here in this beautiful country of Cambodia, there is also no capital punishment which may surprise many people. But this is a civilized country and killing someone just because they committed a crime is not on the table. A long prison sentence is given instead.
Unfortunately in the U.S. - which considers itself to be foremost among countries where democracy, civil rights and such things are concerned is fast slipping down the rungs of the ladder in these matters.
In 2001 I wrote an article in the Honolulu Advertiser (which article can still be found on Google and still receives a lot of attention, much to my surprise) just before the execution of Timothy McVeigh for carrying out the Oklahoma bombing. I wrote that article because certain TV companies were intending to televise the execution and broadcast it nationwide with the initial permission of the Federal authorities. I asked in that article if the United States was becoming a nation like the people of the French Revolution and those involved in the burning of the so-called witches in days gone by who reveled in such spectacles, or the early Romans who enjoyed nothing better than to see people being thrown to the lions. It is horrifying even to think of it. As a priest of the Episcopal Church I queried why none of the Bishops or clergy of the Church spoke out against the horror of a televised execution immediately, but apart from the then Presiding Bishop -The Right Reverend Frank Griswold - none did. It was so sad then to think that none of them were willing or brave enough to speak out.
Now I ask the same thing - why don't the leaders of the churches speak out against what is most definitely "cruel and unusual punishment".
This matter in particular concerns the State of Oklahoma.
Two men - Mr. Clayton Lockett and Mr. Charles Warner - had been sentenced to death a few years ago for murders they had committed. Both were scheduled to be executed in April - I believe it was the 17th, but I am not too sure about that. However both men were involved in a court fight concerning the drugs to be used in their execution. They wanted to know exactly what the drugs were and where they were obtained in view of the fact that the Danish firm that used to supply the execution drugs now refused to do so. They challenged the State Department of Corrections' unwillingness to divulge the drugs that would be used in their executions. The Oklahoma High Court initially issued a stay of their executions only to lift those stays last week in a ruling that the two men had no right to know the source of the drugs intended to kill them. The result was that their executions were rescheduled for this week.
Regardless of the crime a person may have committed (and these days many people have been found to be not guilty of the crime for which they were sentenced to death thanks to DNA) to have your execution date set, then withdrawn a matter of hours before it takes place and then have it rescheduled once more and maybe rescheduled again, has to be nothing less than a traumatic experience. But in the cases of Mr. Lockett and Mr. Warner, there is a great deal more to be taken in to consideration.
Mr. Lockett's execution was set for early in the afternoon and that of Mr. Warner was to follow (in exactly the same execution room) a mere two hours later. However things did not work out as planned. Mr. Lockett's execution was totally "botched" for want of a better word, had to be stopped and he actually died of a massive heart attack.
The first drug to be administered - Midozalam - is supposed to render the person totally unconscious immediately. However, seven minutes later Mr. Lockett was still conscious and after sixteen minutes he tried to get up and it is reported that he tried to talk saying "Man". Mr. Locket apparently lifted his head before prison officials lowered the blinds so that those observers present could not see what was going on.
The Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director, Mr. Robert Patton said that Mr. Locket was subsequently sedated (after he suffered a heart attack from the procedure!) and "then was given the second and third drugs in protocol" This "protocol" includes the Midazolam which is supposed to cause unconsciousness, Vecuronium Bromide which stops respiration and then Potassium Chloride which is meant to stop the heart.
Mr. Patton then said the second execution scheduled for two hours later must not take place - at least for now. The State Governor said she would call for a full inquiry.
Be that as it may - I just cannot comprehend how a State that calls itself a Christian State - or even a civilized State - can treat human beings like that regardless of what they might have done. While all the court cases regarding the drugs to be used for executions were going on, why was there no protestation or outcry from the church and civic leaders about the matter - or anyone else for that matter?
To me it is nothing less than "cruel and unusual - and I would add uncivilized - punishment" to put anyone through all of that regardless of their crime. It is a very sad reflection that the church leaders as well as the so-called respectable politicians do not say and do something to see this could never happen again. They should also put an end to all executions which are nothing less than barbaric, as has happened in most of the civilized countries of the world.
