Dyeisha Long
<dyelong95@gmail.com>
Apr 24 (8 days ago)
To:
<information@deathpenalty.org>
Good Morning! My name is
Dyeisha Long and I'm a senior at Central High School in Bolivar, Tn. I am doing
an English assignment and my topic is lethal injection and I wanted to get some
pointers on how the process goes about. What is an inmate on death row and what
do his/her last days consist of? I will really appreciate your response.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
David Crawford
<david@deathpenalty.org>
Apr 29 (3 days ago)
To: Me
Hi Dyeisha,
Thanks for reaching out.
It's an important and kind of frightening topic. Do you need any information
about the lethal injection procedures (the drugs, what happens to your body)?
There has been some troubling stuff happening since Europe stopped selling the
drugs to prisons in the USA, and I'd be happy to give you as much info as you
need about it. Just let me know what you're interested in researching.
As for your questions:
An inmate on death row is
someone who has been sentenced to death in a capital murder trial.
Most people do not know
that "ordinary" first-degree murders aren't punishable by death. A
district attorney (the person in charge of prosecuting criminal cases for a
county) needs to decide that the crime deserves a "capital" trial,
which is needed to get the death penalty. Capital trials have two parts: the
first is to determine whether someone is guilty or innocent, the second is to
determine if the jury thinks the person should be put to death or locked up in
prison for the rest of his or her life ("life in prison without the
possibility of parole," to be precise). So people on death row have been
found guilty of a capital crime and sentenced to death (although a new report
says that 1 out of every 25 of these people is innocent!).
People on death row often
have been there for many years too (often longer than a decade or more) because
if you are sentenced to death, the Supreme Court and the Constitution require
an extensive review process to ensure that you (1) are actually guilty, (2)
received a fair trial and a decent defense lawyer, and (3) that the jury was
correct in sentencing you to death and not life in prison without parole. Then
you can get other appeals to introduce new evidence that should have been in
the first trial if it wasn't (evidence that either shows that you were innocent
or that you should get life in prison without parole instead of getting
executed).
I can only speculate
about what someone's last days on death row are like. I know that it is
probably a mix of dread and a small sliver of hope because the date of
execution is set in advance, but there are also last minute appeals that could
get you more time, or the governor could call and say to stop with the
execution. Other than that, I'm not really sure I can answer the question very
well.
Like I said, I would be
happy to help with other questions too, just let me know what you're interested
in. I do know a little bit about lethal injection (I think Tennessee is voting
to bring back the electric chair too), so if you want more info about that
aspect, feel free to give me some questions.
Good luck!
David Crawford
Program Coordinator
Death Penalty Focus
415.243.0143
www.deathpenalty.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dyeisha Long
<dyelong95@gmail.com>
Apr 29 (3 days ago)
To: David
Mr. Crawford,
Thank you for responding,
I really appreciate it. However, I do have another question: What exactly
happens during an execution? Thank you again for the response and the good luck
wish.
------------------------------------------------
David Crawford<david@deathpenalty.org>
Apr 30 (2 days ago)
To: Me
That's a good question.
It's different in different states. Most of them are struggling to find drugs
for lethal injections right now because the manufacturers in Europe refuse to
allow their use in executions. So the states are turning to "compounding
pharmacies" or inventing new kinds of drug combinations and experimenting
on people, basically.
I hope you heard news out
of Oklahoma yesterday. It would make perfect sense to research the execution
there, and doing so will give you a good picture about what executions are like
in this day and age.
Here are a few links.
Check them out and let me know what you think:
Story about the botched
execution in Oklahoma: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117585/clayton-lockett-execution-botched-problem-lethal-injection
Basic intro to lethal
injection (this might answer some of your questions, actually), but be careful
because it out-of-date. http://people.howstuffworks.com/lethal-injection.htm.
The drugs are changing, and there only 32 states with the death penalty, not
35.
An article about how this
mess started:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/04/30/clayton_lockett_execution_are_the_eu_export_controls_on_death_penalty_drugs.html
Hope these get you started.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
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