Inhumane, Unreliable and Expensive

Last Tuesday, an unusual announcement came from the White House, describing Clayton Lockett’s execution in Oklahoma as “inhumane.” It is uncommon for the federal level to offer opinions about the administration of justice in American states.

Earlier in the week, an Egyptian court sentenced 683 people to death. The same court passed 529 death sentences one month ago, although it is uncertain whether or not some of these will be carried out. Last year, 778 people were executed worldwide, according to Amnesty International. The year before, Amnesty confirmed 682 executions. Iran and Iraq accounted for the increase, with their respective 369 and 169 executions. Last year in the United States, nine states executed 39 people on death row. So far this year, five states have executed 20 prisoners.

The U.S. is one of five countries with the highest number of executions, a macabre list that also includes Saudi Arabia. However, the numbers only refer to confirmed executions. Although there aren’t any unreported cases in the United States, the number of executions in Iran and Iraq is estimated at double what gets reported. In China, there are likely more than 3,000, and North Korea also has a large amount of unreported cases.

Despite the increase from 2012, the death penalty is tending to become less and less meaningful around the world. One hundred countries have abolished it, and most countries that have kept it as punishment seldom employ it.

In the United States, the number of executions has remained at around 40 for several years — compared to 98 in 1999. Eighteen states do not have the death penalty, and some, like Michigan, have never had it. Many states with the death penalty have carried out only a small number of executions — after the moratorium from 1972 to 1976 — most of which included prisoners who had expended their case and refused to seek pardon or respite. In the United States, it is more of a regional phenomenon, concentrated in a small group of states in the South and Midwest, including Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma, Florida and Missouri.

Carrying out executions has also become more difficult over the past few years, as more pharmaceutical companies are refusing to supply the drugs used in lethal injections. Less reliable substances have been used as temporary solutions, and as a result, two prisoners in Oklahoma, Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner, recently had their executions postponed when they weren’t notified of what their injection contained.

The respite was overturned, however, and last Tuesday, Lockett was executed. The first preparation, which anesthetizes the prisoner, didn’t work. Lockett woke up, writhed on the table and mumbled incoherent words. After 45 minutes, he died of a heart attack, leading to the statement from the White House. The attempt to find a “humane” execution method has characterized much of the American debate about the death penalty. Now, opponents have a new argument.

The other central question in the last few years has concerned innocent death row prisoners. George Ryan, governor of Illinois from 1999 to 2003, found convincing an investigation by journalism students, showing that more than 100 innocents were sentenced to death in the state — some of whom had already been executed. A former supporter of the death penalty, Ryan pardoned the state’s 160 death row prisoners on the last day of his tenure, and Illinois got rid of the death penalty in 2011. Last month, another report was published in the United States, showing that 4 percent of the more than 7,000 people sentenced to death between 1973 and 2004 were innocent beyond doubt.

I believe and hope that the U.S. is moving toward completely abolishing the death penalty. The question of the innocent prisoners, the unreliability of the execution methods, and the sky-high costs of the death penalty — carrying out a death sentence costs many times more than a life sentence — is, according to many investigations, changing opinions.