Capital Crimes

Sept 15, 2009:

Over the course of two hours, nurses attempted 18 times last month to find a vein in Romell Broom in which to inject the convicted murderer with a lethal combination of drugs. Broom even tried to help them, massaging his arms and straightening tubes. At one point, the needle hit bone. Finally, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland called off the execution -- for the day, at least.

A rare occurrence?

Ohio, 2006: The execution of Joseph Lewis Clark took close to 90 minutes after executioners had trouble finding a vein. "It don't work, it don't work," Clark told them. Eventually, authorities closed the curtains so that the witnesses couldn't see the disgusting spectacle.

Ohio, 2007: Executioners worked for 90 minutes to insert an intravenous line into Christopher J. Newton, who finally had to ask for a bathroom break.

That's three botched executions of the 14 conducted, or attempted, in Ohio since 2006. After the Broom fiasco, one would think that Gov. Strickland would extend a moratorium on executions until Ohio devised a more humane procedure. Instead, while a federal court pondered Broom's case, the state went ahead with plans to execute a 15th death-row inmate in September. Only after the federal court delayed that execution pending judicial review of bungled injections did Strickland give that inmate, and another scheduled to die in November, 5-month reprieves. He did not delay planned executions in December, January and February.

Ohio is not the only state to have performed lengthy, botched executions. In California, executions have been suspended for nearly three years after concerns that a paralytic agent in the injections might be causing some prisoners to suffocate, while still conscious, without being able to show their discomfort. It seems obvious that Ohio should stop executions until it has developed a better procedure, and that the nation should use that time to ponder whether the death penalty reflects the kind of society we want to be.

Outside of Ohio, the national trend is for declining numbers of executions. Notably, Illinois Republican Governor, George Ryan (now serving a 6-year prison term for corruption) stopped executions in 2000 because of failures in the system. The moratorium was extended by Gov. Rod Blagojevich (arrested in 2009 on charges of fraud and bribery), and again by present Gov. Pat Quinn. These conscientious governors had the compassion and integrity to see through the corruption in our capital justice system, if not in their own administration of executive power… And then there’s California.

While nationally, the number of death sentences issued this year is the lowest since reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976, California has defied the national trend. We tend to think of Texas as the Capital Punishment Capital---but California is at the top in capital convictions. In fact, Los Angeles County handed down more capital punishment sentences last year (13) than any state outside California. Texas issued nine death sentences, opposed to 29 convictions in California, and 97 in all other states combined. While we have not seen an execution in over 4 years, our condemned population of 697 is by far the largest in the nation (3,279).

L. A. County prosecutors have been seeking death in fewer cases than they did a decade ago, but the percentage of verdicts going to death is up. Some observers believe that judges are restricting the time allowed to lawyers in jury selection. Some think that jurors have become cynical about defendants’ abused childhoods. According to one veteran defense attorney, “There is less tolerance, less understanding from more and more jurors”.

California’s capital system is widely known as the least efficient in the nation, having executed only 13 since Rose Bird and two other Brown-appointed judges were impeached for blocking executions in 1986. The annual cost of keeping convicts on death row in this state, as opposed to life sentencing, is estimated at $137 million. This comes to $195,000 per prisoner per year---paid for by our state’s unbalanced budget. Much of this expense comes through the lengthy appeals process. All death penalty cases are automatically appealed and all defendants are assigned an attorney for a process that can take more than five years. On the other hand, there are reports of the accused seeking the death penalty on behalf of the “Cadillac” treatment afforded to the condemned, combined with the unlikelihood of execution. (For confinement alone, the average annual cost for the condemned is $90,000. The cost of holding the elderly averages about $70,000 for people over 60, compared to regular confinement at $34,150.)

Michael Morales and Ricky Ortega were convicted of the murder of Tokay High School student Terri Winchell in 1981. Both have spent more than two decades behind bars, but the cost of delivering justice to the two men responsible for this brutal death differs by millions.

Sentenced to life in prison without parole, Ortega has cost California taxpayers $800,000 since 1983. But based on the average cost of 11 executions over 27 years, state and federal taxpayers have paid some $250 million pursuing the death sentence handed down to Morales. The great majority of this comes down to state-sponsored “welfare” for lawyers. What do we get for this kind of investment? Is the value of vengeance this dear?

So people have reached the limit of tolerance as crime has escalated, right? Wrong. As reported in The Times, Dec 24, ’09, for the seventh straight year crime in L. A. County has declined. Homicide (capital crime) numbers are at a 40-year low. “It is a different world,” said Police Chief Charlie Beck, a 32-year veteran of the force. “There was a time when it was the opposite of today — when it seemed there was no limit on the potential for things to get worse and worse. The whole outlook has shifted now.” The number of property-related crimes, such as burglary and theft, also declined this year, including a surprisingly large drop in the number of stolen automobiles. According to LAPD figures, violent crimes fell about 10% from last year, while burglary and other property crimes declined 8%. The Sheriff’s Department, which patrols dozens of cities and unincorporated communities, reported similar results for the year, with overall serious crime down more than 11%, including a 23% decline in homicides. Yet our prison population continues to swell, largely because of "three strikes" and dubious drug laws.

But still, many continue to favor capital punishment. There is no softening the horror of Broom's crimes. He abducted a 14-year-old girl at knife-point and then raped and killed her. Even if he endured last month's ordeal 10 times over, the state still wouldn't be putting him through the terror and suffering he inflicted on his victim.

Yet that's precisely the point. The state is not Broom, nor should we want it to carry out our sadistic bidding. The survivors of a murder victim often yearn for vindication or simply a sense of closure, and we might too if we were in their shoes. But is it the job of the state to carry out that desire? What about the “better angels” of our nature? Part of why this nation has constitutional guarantees against cruel and unusual punishment is because (supposedly) we as a society want to maintain the highest moral character. Yet the United States, alone among Western industrial powers, still administers the death penalty. And still we have "esteemed" legislators, like Orrin Hatch (R. Utah) who would tell us, "Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life."

It appears that we, expressed as jurors and voters, demand vengeance---blood. And while much of the present controversy over the death penalty swirls around the “humaneness” of the method, are we really concerned by this? While hangings have almost vanished from our land, and electrocutions have waned since the practice was dramatized by the 1999 movie “The Green Mile”, more and more states have adopted this obviously imperfect practice of lethal injection.

But there’s a technique which would easily fit any criteria for “humane” that unmasks our pretense. The military has used “altitude chambers” for years in pilot and astronaut training to acquaint pilots with the dangers of high altitude. This device could easily be adapted for capital punishment.

An altitude chamber is the opposite of a “decompression chamber”, commonly used to coax dissolved nitrogen from the blood stream of divers. The altitude chamber is an enclosed room from which air is gradually removed.

Atmospheric pressure near sea level (where most of us live) is about 14 psi. At 6 psi a person loses “useful” consciousness, while around 4 psi he loses actual consciousness. Soon, with declining pressure, he dies. It is certain; it is completely painless---the victim, sensing only pressure corrections in the ears, slips out with no discomfort. No pain, no chains, no spectacle, no drama. The rate at which the decompression occurs could be scheduled to extend from as little as five minutes to as long as one wishes, (although at about 30 minutes one would begin to experience nausea from “altitude sickness”.) In the chamber the victim could be seated comfortably, or lying down; his favorite music could be piped in...not a bad way out! (This would surely offend the vengeance set!) Given this option, persistence with more cumbersome and controversial methods of execution can only be justified by inertia, politics---or perhaps by public demand for pain and drama.

In summation, crime in general is down; capital crime is down even more. Capital punishment is notoriously unequally administered, with only the poor convicted. The administration of capital punishment is wildly expensive, sadistically applied and ineffective as a deterrent. Our drastic increase in this instrument of justice doesn't come from crime, doesn't come from prosecutors, is completely unwarranted by the state budget. This trend comes from us! It comes from anger, intolerance and impatience. We demand death at the ballot box and in the jury box.

In any case, Robbinsense opposes the death penalty. For those who embrace “swift justice”, we need only consider that in the short time since the availability of DNA testing, 14 have been exonerated by it. Since reinstatement of the death penalty, 119 condemned have been cleared and freed. How many innocents over the last hundred years have we put to death? We hope our readers will consider their opinions and passions.