The legal state of Lethal Injection may have received a lethal dosage in the state of Florida and it may not require another unlike the recently executed Angel Diaz of Puerto Rico.
Angel Diaz lived for over thirty minutes after receiving what was supposed to be a lethal dosage. He was given a second dosage after witnesses saw Mr. Diaz squint and grimace multiple times.
The following day doctors initially commented that Mr. Diaz had a liver condition that prevented the drugs from killing him faster. Later a different explanation offered that the first injection had missed his veins and did not fully hit his system, hence the need for a second injection to kill him and end his witnessed suffering.
Florida had previously suspended the use of the electric chair after an inmate caught fire while being put to death. That evidence of suffering was the end of the electric chair in Florida, replaced by lethal injection.
Similarly, the Governor of Florida has called a moratorium on lethal injection until a board can review the procedure and issue a report in March 2007. Today, a federal judge ruled that California's protocol for exercising the death penalty violated the constitution which prohibits the use of cruel and unusual punishment as defined by the Supreme Court.
Many legal analysts feel that these two developments will force the Supreme Court to make a new decision on the use of the death penalty before another year has passed.
2 comments:
The death penalty has been so overused by politicians that want to show that they are really "tough on crime." I used to be in favor of it too, but it costs so much taxpayer money and makes heroes and martys out of murderers.
I couldn't agree with your sentiments more. That martyrdom comes at a price to the victims and their families that aside from the huge cost of the actual process of putting someone to death including housing them for 10-20 years and paying for appeals that usually go to the Supreme Court and back one or more times is just too high of a price to pay.
Life in prison with no parole is cheaper.
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