States want to move fast to set dates for convicts on death row

AUSTIN, Texas - The U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding lethal injection sent a shudder through death row Wednesday, and prosecutors and governors around the country said they would move forward with carrying out death sentences as quickly as the courts can set execution dates.

The ruling came after what amounted to a seven-month moratorium on executions in the U.S., as states awaited a ruling from the high court. In the case from Kentucky, death penalty foes argued unsuccessfully that the widely used three-drug cocktail can cause excruciating pain in violation of the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In Texas, easily the No. 1 death penalty state, 40 condemned convicts who had all but exhausted their appeals had been awaiting the outcome of the case, said University of Houston law professor David Dow, who represents death row inmates. Texas has 357 inmates on death row.

In Florida, where a botched execution in 2006 may have caused an inmate extreme pain, Gov. Charlie Crist said he asked one of his lawyers to put together “a very short list�?of death warrants to consider signing. Florida has 338 inmates on death row.

Since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, Texas has executed 405 inmates, more than any other state. Virginia is second with 99.

It was in Oklahoma that the three-drug lethal cocktail was invented 31 years ago. Death row inmates in the bunker-like H-unit at the 100-year-old Oklahoma State Prison talk about the possibility of a painfully botched execution, Powell told The Associated Press.

“Everybody has heard horror stories. I’ve heard them myself, but how can you confirm them?�?he asked. “I’ve never seen anybody walk through that door upstairs ever come back.�?/P>

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24167221/

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{ Well.........death penalty advocates have won this one. It likely will be generations before the issue will be dealt with again by SCOTUS and it's doubtful any of us will live long enough to see abolishment. It will happen though....someday. To me this is just one example of America not living up to it's potential and it's refusal to be a moral force in the world. Instead it prefers to walk the same path with such countries as China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Cuba. So the organized, permissible killing will start up again. Pick your poison folks! Will it be the hangman's noose, old sparky, a little gas to get you through the night, a ring of bullets through the heart or the final cocktail.....one for the road so to speak?

Every time someone is legally put to death he or she is murdered in our name. A "eye for a eye and a tooth for a tooth" leaves a blind and voiceless society. Thus the victims, the murderers and society is locked in a deadly embrace. One of the three gets out alive but forever changed. When you strip someone of the last of their humanity and build a ritual around killing them you weaken your own grasp on what it really means to be human. You turn your back on the light and willingly walk into the dark.

If there were no alternative to the death penalty it would be a sacrament. However there are plenty of alternatives. Many people prefer the blood-letting in the name of justice but justice does not wash her hands in blood. Revenge does. Revenge often makes you "feel" good while justice often leaves you with a "bad "taste in your mouth.

I was watching an episode of "The Tutors" last night where Henry V111 had a man executed by boiling him alive. The year was 1532. The only thing that has changed in all these years is the method of execution. We are still dragging ourselves out of the pit of barbarity and keep falling back into the abyss. Once again we find ourselves at the bottom looking up.

......and so it goes....................}

Rose