icity to the most sensitive parts of a mans body is rightly condemned as torture, how does a state condone the administration of 2,000 volts to a human body in order to cause death? At a 1990 Florida execution, a malfunction of the electric chair equipment caused flames to leap six inches above the prisoners head each time the current was turned on. In 1992, a prisoner in Oklahoma had a violent reaction to the drugs used in the lethal injection. While he gasped and gagged violently, the muscles in his jaw, neck and abdomen reacted spasmodically. Eleven minutes elapsed before the man died. In 1994 it took five minutes for David Lawson to die in North Carolinas gas chamber. During that time he screamed, Im human! Im human! Since 1984 there have been over 24 botched executions, all of which have inflicted cruel and unusual punishment and have clearly violated the eighth amendment. Experience has shown that innocent people are often convicted of crimes including capital crimes and that some of them have been executed. A recent study revealed over 400 cases of wrong conviction for capital offenses in the United States between 1900 and 1991. Most of the convictions were upheld on appeal, with evidence produced years after sentencing to prove the prisoners innocence. But, for 24 of the prisoners, that evidence appeared too late they had already been executed. Because human beings are fallible, innocent people have been executed in the past and will continue to be executed in the future. As stated by the famous social historian Marquis de Lafayette, I shall ask for the abolition of the punishment of death until I have the infallibility of human judgement demonstrated to me. Supreme Court Justice, Harry Blackmun made this statement on the subject, Nothing could be more contrary to contemporary standards of decency or more shocking to the conscience than to execute a person who is actually innocent. That comes perilously close to simple murder. A...
