Rape Article Kidnapping Article Trafficking in women and children Article Robbery Article Riot prison escape Article Gathering Crowds to raid a prison with weapons Article Smuggling, selling, transporting, manufacturing drugs Article Deliberately providing unqualified weapons and equipment, military facilities Article Bribery Article , Defying orders in wartime Article Concealing and lying about military affairs Article Refusal and false transmission of military orders Article Surrender Article Escape in wartime Article Soldier defection Article Stealing, spying, buying, and illegally providing military secrets abroad Article Theft and snatching of weapons, equipment, and military materials Article Illegal sale and transfer of weapons and equipment Article Prisoners have also raised claims that the aggravating circumstances that make a crime eligible for the death penalty are too broad, with some state death-penalty laws encompassing nearly all murders, rather than reserving the death penalty for a small subset of murders.
Compilations of state laws are available, along with notable court decisions regarding this issue. Exercising an. The U. For the Media. Around the time of the American Revolution, authorities greatly revised capital punishment policy and officially prohibited the death penalty for lesser crimes.
Over the years, the number of crimes punishable by death has greatly diminished. Many states have prohibited it completely, and others only utilize it for a limited number of criminal activities. Q : Only the worst criminals get sentenced to death, right? A : Wrong. Although it is commonly thought that the death penalty is reserved for those who commit the most heinous crimes, in reality only a small percentage of death-sentenced inmates were convicted of unusually vicious crimes. The vast majority of individuals facing execution were convicted of crimes that are indistinguishable from crimes committed by others who are serving prison sentences, crimes such as murder committed in the course of an armed robbery.
The death penalty is like a lottery, in which fairness always loses. Who gets the death penalty is largely determined, not by the severity of the crime, but by: the race, sex, and economic class of the prisoner and victim; geography -- some states have the death penalty, others do not, within the states that do some counties employ it with great frequency and others do not; the quality of defense counsel and vagaries in the legal process. Q : "Cruel and unusual punishment" -- those are strong words, but aren't executions relatively swift and painless?
A : No execution is painless, whether botched or not, and all executions are certainly cruel. The history of capital punishment is replete with examples of botched executions. Lethal injection is the latest technique, first used in Texas in l, and now mandated by law in a large majority of states that retain capital punishment.
Although this method is defended as more humane, efficient, and inexpensive than others, one federal judge observed that even "a slight error in dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while dying, a sentient witness of his or her own asphyxiation.
In other states, dozens of botched executions have occurred, leading to suspensions of executions in Florida, California, and other states. In , it took the Florida Department of Corrections 34 minutes to execute inmate Angel Nieves Diaz by way of lethal injection, usually a 15 minute procedure.
During the execution, Diaz appeared to be in pain and gasped for air for more than 11 minutes. He was given a rare second dose of lethal chemicals after the execution team observed that the first round did not kill him. A medical examiner reported the second dose was needed because the needles were incorrectly inserted through his veins and into the flesh in his arms. Not only did Diaz die a slow and excruciating death because the drugs were not delivered into his veins properly, his autopsy revealed that he suffered 12 inch chemical burns in his arms by the highly concentrated drugs flowing under his skin.
More recently, an Ohio inmate did not die when his injections were incorrectly administered. Minutes into the execution, he raised his head and said, "It don't work, it don't work. Eyewitness accounts confirm that execution by lethal injection and other means is often an excruciatingly painful, and always degrading, process that ends in death.
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