ly cruel, causing severe and inevitable physical and emotional suffering. The history of the death penalty is a progression of new methods of execution, each touted as more humane. Earlier in history, executions were intended to be as brutal as possible. Then the French introduced the guillotine as a better form of execution and Americans used the noose, the firing squad, the electric chair and the gas chamber. Each method has involved substantial suffering and horror for the person executed and each has failed to work properly at times, increasing the suffering. The graphic descriptions by the press of Pedro Medina's death in Florida in 1997, where flames a foot long shot out from the right side of his head as he was literally burned from the inside out, is a case in point. Lethal injection cannot eliminate these problems and has the additional problem of involving medical personnel, who are dedicated to saving life, in the taking of life. Nevertheless, some advocate lethal injection as a way to make the death penalty more palatable to society. Prisoners who have chosen to be executed have helped focus attention on the nature of life on death row. When we examine these conditions, it is doubtful that those who request death are in a position to make a free, informed choice. It is more likely that the conditions on death row and the pressures of the death penalty caused them to choose death. Life on death row has been called a "living death." It is characterized by intense psychological stress and extreme feelings of powerlessness, loneliness, fear and emotional emptiness beyond what a person normally experiences in prison. Meager hope alternates with deep despair. The fear of execution mixes with pressures caused by prolonged isolation and deprivation. As one observer has noted, death row normally drives one crazy. Given such conditions, it is no wonder that some prisoners choose to die. To execute them is to assist in state-induced su...
