The Growing Controversy Around the Death Penalty

  

Other than the tiny island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis, the US is now the only country in the Western Hemisphere that executes its citizens.  This week the death penalty is back in the news after a botched execution in Oklahoma.

In the United States about 58% of Americans say they favor the death penalty according to a 2012 Gallup poll.   The US Supreme Court ruled in the 1976 Gregg v. Georgia case that the death penalty does not violate the 8th Amendment's guarantee that all American's are free from cruel and unusual punishment -as long as the punishment isn't cruel.  Americans may point to Saudi Arabia's beheading of prisoners, Iran's hanging of gay teens, and China's harvesting of executed prisoners' organs as barbaric, but unlike almost all of Europe and the rest of the Americas where the death penalty has been stopped or abolished, Americans still support the death penalty as long as it is nice and peaceful.  It's fine if the government kills a convicted criminal when they give him a final meal, shoot him up with drugs, and the condemned just doesn't wake up from a peaceful slumber.

But now the European manufacturers of the drugs formerly used for lethal injections have cut off America's execution industry.  So states are scrambling to find alternatives whose less than peaceful outcomes are making Americans squeamish.  In January Ohio tried a new lethal injection cocktail to execute Dennis McGuire.  It took him more than 20 minutes to die as he writhed strapped to a bed wheezing and gasping for air in "agony and terror" according to his children who are now suing Ohio for torturing their father to death.

This January Oklahoma also executed Michael Lee Wilson whose final words were that his entire body was on fire -something the supposed drug cocktail used should not have produced.  The cocktail Oklahoma uses is supposed to put a prisoner to sleep before the final drug shuts down the prisoner's heart.  This final drug, however, is known to create an excruciating burning if a person is not unconscious.

This week Oklahoma again botched an execution.  Instead of peacefully falling into eternal sleep to pay for what admittedly were horrific crimes, Clayton Lockett writhed in agony for 40 minutes while one of his veins exploded.  The executioners stopped the execution but then Lockett died of a heart attack.  At least some accounts say his heart literally EXPLODED in his chest.  Unable to find a suitable vein in an arm or leg, the drugs were administered through Lockett's groin.  

Now these botched executions are adding fuel to the debate around the death penalty.  Will public opinion and the American courts continue to support the death penalty if America grows squeamish about the government executing citizens whose lives end in agony?  If convicted of a crime, would you rather be guillotined?  shot?  or writhe in pain for 40 minutes strapped to a gurney?  

If you commit murder in the US, data show you are more likely to be executed if you are male and black.  Is this fair?

Also, where you are convicted of a capital offense in the United States, however, will dictate if a) you will receive the death penalty, b) if it will likely be carried out, and c) how it will be carried out.  Is this fair?

By far you are most likely to be executed in the United States' execution capital per capita:  Oklahoma.  Since 1976 Oklahoma has executed 1 Oklahoman for ever 36,000 residents.  When Danish drug manufacturers cut off selling the drug most commonly used for lethal injection in the US because of its use in executions, Oklahoma and other states shifted to finding other lethal injectables.  The state even went so far as to try to hide what drugs it is using and who is making these drugs.  It is likely more lawsuits and more debate will be forthcoming on this issue.

Save the Tatas

This quick map shows data from the CDC's 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS) broken into standard deviations.  The pale gray states represent states where the percentage of women over the age of 40 reporting they have had the recommended mammogram in the past 2 years.  Gold states have better mammogram percentages.  Purple states have worse.

Massachusetts stands out as having the highest percentage of women over 40 who have had a mammogram. This much higher percentage for the Bay State likely results from the high percentage of women who have health insurance thanks to the program signed into law by Gov. Mitt Romney that has since become the model for the Affordable Care Act.

On the other extreme are the western states of Oklahoma, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana where significantly lower percentages of women have had mammograms.

UPDATE: Same-Sex Marriage in the USA

"Oklahomo...where marriage comes sweeping down the plain..."  OK, that lyric was just too good to pass up.

Yes indeed, a Federal judge in Oklahoma this week ruled that Oklahoma's state constitutional amendment reserving marriage as a special right for opposite-sex couples violates the US constitution.  Judge Kern overturned the ban, but stayed the ruling from going into effect while Oklahoma appeals the decision.  In other words, Kern's decision means civil marriage for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples is now the law in Oklahoma, but in real terms no actual same-sex marriage licenses can be issued until a higher court rules.

This case has an unusual twist.  It was originally filed a decade ago in 2004 but was revived after the US Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Windsor, the case that overturned the part of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act barring Federal recognition of same-sex marriages legally performed in some states.

Kern's decision in OK and Judge Shelby's decision in UT both will be heard by the 10th Circuit of the Federal Appeals Court which hears cases from UT, OK, CO, NM, WY, and KS.

Where You Would Be Most Likely to Face the Death Penalty?

If convicted of a capital crime, where would you be most likely to face the death penalty?  The answer is an easy one:  Texas!  The Lone Star State accounts for more than a third of all people executed in the United States since 1976.  Of the 1,352 people executed since 1976, 506 of these executions have been in Texas.

In fact, half of all executions occur in just three states:  Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma.  Of the big three executor states, though, Oklahoma -with a population of under 4 million- has the most executions per capita.  Oklahoma has 36,000 people per 1 execution compared to the much larger states of Texas and Virginia with 51,500 people per one execution and 74,400 people per one execution respectively.

A handy cartogram shows how the states with the most executions out of total executions.