A Kind and Gentle Death in Texas

The good old United States of America has prevailed and ranked at number six in the world and it was only possible with the help of Texas. Yep, my fellow bar-b-que eating, Ford truck driving, God fearing Texans, we have helped in making the U.S.A. number six in the world for the most executions. We are right up there with China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq and Sudan, all countries and governments that I am sure the rest of you Texans are proud to be compared to. Maybe it is time that we start re-evaluating our practices and policies.

Texas carries out the most death penalty executions of all the states in the Union. We execute more people than the other top four states execute in total. This is a phenomenon that totally contradicts our message, yet we continue with it in record numbers. It is wrong to commit murder and if you do and are found guilty and eligible for capital punishment, the state of Texas will murder you. This seems like a very confusing message that we are sending; if you kill, we will kill you, but killing is wrong, so don’t do it. That sounds a lot like do as I say and not as I do.

In 1972 the Supreme Court found the death penalty to be “cruel and unusual punishment” and it was suspended until 1974 when it was reinstated. The murder rate continued to rise after the reinstatement. There were no deterrent effects on crime associated with the reinstatement of capitol punishment. This seems like an inhumane and ineffective way to approach creating a safer Texas. There are many reasons to abolish this practice, including that it is less expensive to dish out life imprisonment sentences instead. Our methods of executing criminals are inhumane and there is no turning back from a mistake in the judicial process when the subject in question has been executed (there is always going to be a chance for wrongful conviction).

According to the “Death Penalty Information Center” studies have found that it costs taxpayers much more for the courts to sentence someone to death, rather than life in prison. Death penalty cases take more time to prepare, more motions are filed, more experts are hired, it takes twice as many attorneys, more time is required in selecting a jury, the trials are typically 3 to 5 times longer, these cases require two trials (one for guilt and one for sentencing), and once prosecuted, there will be a series of appeals to follow. Not to mention the additional costs of housing an inmate in a single-man cell and high security unit that requires more manpower and real estate to maintain (the average stay on death row in Texas is a little over 10 years). Sounds like we are getting a bad deal; it is costing almost three times as much to dish out death sentences instead of life sentences. That is our hard earned money that could be going towards our kid’s schools, more effective crime prevention and those new cameras that take your picture when you run a red light (we’ll get into that one another time).

The current method of execution in Texas is by lethal injection (sold as a kinder and gentler form of execution), a cocktail made up of Sodium Thiopental (a short acting sedative), Pancuronium Bromide (a paralytic agent that cause the lungs to fail) and Potassium Chloride (stops the heart). When this cocktail is given correctly it usually will kill the recipient in about seven minutes, but because the state does not require a doctor to administer the cocktail, it sometimes can be a painful experience that takes much longer due to unqualified person administering the cocktail. When not administered correctly, the recipient suffocates in a paralyzed state. We might as well go back to stoning people, it would be just about as humane as lethal injection and cost a whole lot less.

Then there is always the possibility of the wrongful conviction of an innocent person. In 2006 Arthur Mumphrey (a Houston man) was released after spending 18 years in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit. This not only cost Texas taxpayers to sentence him, imprison him for 18 years and pay him $450,000 for the wrongful conviction, but could have cost an irreplaceable life, had this been a death sentence. DNA tests have recently proved the innocence of 10 wrongfully convicted people in Dallas county alone. The stark reality is that mistakes happen within the judicial system and when the punishment is death in one of these cases, there is no rectifying it. Maybe we should change our legal system and make it so that the person who makes a mistake in a death penalty case is punished with a death sentence; I would be willing to bet that there would be less death penalties pursued by over zealous prosecutors.

I agree that there are people that do not belong on the streets, free in society. I just think that we Texans should take a good long look at our practices and policies. The just punishments that we are handing out don’t look so efficient and error proof when we visit them a little more closely. Even George W. Bush, when he was the Governor said that he was open to hearing other ideas and alternatives to capitol punishment. I guess nobody had any other ideas; I am just glad that no one suggested Guantanamo Bay or water-boarding to him back then or we would also have those to deal with in Texas.