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Homework Help: Social Studies: World Issues: Death Penalty
by Lauren Buck
"Always, I recall the dead woman's hands. I saw them in a photograph once, not long before I watched her killer die from a dose of poison injected by the state of Arizona" (Leibowitz 1), David Leibowitz recalls. Yes, we all make mistakes in life. However, some mistakes could cost us our own life. But is sentencing life in prison the answer? Some people wait twenty-one years just to get an appeal. The death penalty needs to go faster and be more efficient.
How many times do we have to see the dead lifeless bodies before we all realize that something needs to change? "I told them they should have gassed me in December, when they had a chance" (Leibowitz 2) stated Bonzai Vickers, a jailhouse murderer who was put on Death Row in 1978. Four years later he allegedly made a firebomb using hair gel to burn Buster Holsinger alive. His reason for doing this was because Holsinger made a suggestive remark about a photo of Vickers' eleven-year-old niece. He then threw another firebomb in for "good measures". His execution then took an additional seventeen years to occur. In this time period Vicker was able to commit one hundred and fifty- eight major violations while remaining behind prison walls. They included a dozen assaults on correction officers, twenty attacks on inmates and forty charges of making weapons (Leibowitz 2)."Her hands resembled claws, swollen with blood, thumbs bound by a shoelace, fingers straining up from the dirty mattress where she died" (Leibowitz 1),
David Leibowitz describes the site of Amelia Schovilles' hands that were found. Her killer, Jose Roberto Villafuerte was put to death 5,540 days after the killing was committed (Leibowitz 1). Imagine the site of those hands, ever so empty, and ever so reaching. All of the thirty- eight states that have the death penalty have all most likely seen those hands reaching with the emptiness that lies within.
"After the black leather mask was lowered over Medina's face, the first of three surges of two thousand volts of electricity jolted his body. He lurched back in the chair. Suddenly flames shot up from the mask and burned for perhaps ten seconds. The death chamber filled with smoke" (Bidinotto 1). As they pull the trigger, and shoot the gun they've just chosen the life they will live and the life they have closed the door on. For many who stand on death row, I believe in their own minds they didn't think they would get caught. For many the image of the mask shooting flames might be the horrid object in that changes their minds of committing such crimes. When in fact killing the criminals who committed such crimes should be looked at as a sign to our society of what the consequences of crime are. In reality, peace doesn't exist in the hearts of all people these days.
"We are suppose to have a choice of cyanide gas or lethal injection and when asked which one I would choose if I am ever executed, I never have an answer"(Carter 5). Lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging and the firing squad are all harsh ways in which the death penalty is performed. Lethal Injection is "The punishment of death must be inflicted by continuous, intravenous administration of a lethal quantity of an ultrashort-acting barbiturate in combination with a chemical paralytic agent until death is pronounced by a licensed physician according to accepted standards of medical practice." (Stewart 1). Electrocution is described as "executed by causing to pass through the body of the convict a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to cause death, and the application and continuance of such current through the body of such convict shall continue until such convict is dead." (Stewart 1).
Another is Lethal Gas which is harshly described as "execution protocol for most jurisdictions authorizes the use of a steel airtight execution chamber, equipped with a chair and attached restraints. The inmate is restrained at his chest, waist, arms, and ankles, and wears a mask during the execution. The chair is equipped with a metal container beneath the seat. Cyanide pellets are placed in this container. A metal canister is on the floor under the container filled with a sulfuric acid solution. There are three executioners, and each executioner turns one key. When the three keys are turned, an electric switch causes the bottom of the cyanide container to open allowing the cyanide to fall into the sulfuric acid solution, producing a lethal gas. Unconsciousness can occur within a few seconds if the prisoner takes a deep breath. However, if he or she holds their breath death can take much longer, and the prisoner usually goes into wild convulsions. A heart monitor attached to the inmate is read in the control room, and after the warden pronounces the inmate dead, ammonia is pumped into the execution chamber to neutralize the gas. Exhaust fans then remove the inert fumes from the chamber into two scrubbers that contain water and serve as a neutralizing agent. The neutralizing process takes approximately 30 minutes from the time the offender's death is determined. Death is estimated to usually occur within 6 to 18 minutes of the lethal gas emissions." (Stewart 2).
Another way which has been used for decades is hanging. The rope, which is of manila hemp of at least 3/4" and not more than 1 1/4" in diameter and approximately 30 feet in length, is soaked and then stretched while drying to eliminate any spring, stiffness, or tendency to coil. The hangman's knot, which is tied pursuant to military regulations, is treated with wax, soap, or clear oil, to ensure that the rope slides smoothly through the knot. The end of the rope which does not contain the noose is tied to a grommet in the ceiling and then is tied off to a metal T shaped bracket, which takes the force delivered by the offender's drop. (Stewart 3). The Firing Squad has to be the most painful to watch, however the criminal needs to pay for his actions. Firing squad is made up of three to six shooters per prisoner who stand or kneel opposite the condemned who is usually tied to a chair or to a stake. Normally the shooters aim at the chest, since this is easier to hit than the head, causing rupture of the heart, great vessels, and lungs so that the condemned
person dies of hemorrhage and shock. It is not unusual for the officer in charge to have to give the prisoner a pistol shot to the head to finish them off after the initial volley has failed to kill them (Stewart 3).
"I would rather see ten innocent people go to prison for something they didn't do, rather then see one guilty person go free" (Carter 4), a college women stated at an interview about the OJ Simpson case. For many they can't even fathom prison. The thoughts of it seem so far out there. However, prison for some is reality. To them it's the everyday life now, the world they choose to live in, the life they picked for themselves. The harsh reality of death has become to many, a vision, in which all that sit there on death row can see. "When I heard her say that it really sunk in that it was going to get a lot harder for those of us here on death row that are fighting for our lives", (Carter 4). However, for those like Dean Carter who sit on death row, that is what he is facing everyday. "During the past twenty- five years, sixty-nine people who had been sentenced to death in the United States were eventually found to be innocent and released from death-row prison cells" (Smart 5). Since 1973, around six thousand people have been sentenced to death in this country. The evidence in which is present to the attorneys' needs to be looked over more carefully. Men and women's lives are being put in the hands of other people who are chosen to make the decision of life or death.
"If we, as a society, have become so impatient that we don't even care if we have the right person, I think we out to recognize that it is at the cost of our own morality", (Smart 5) Rust-Tierney states. The one thing that as a country we seem to not realize is that our society could be putting people who are being wrongly accused into prison, where they don't belong. Many people such as Dean Carter spend over twenty-one years on death row. Jose Roberto Villafuerte was put to death five thousand-five hundred and forty days after being found guilty for killing Amelia. A person who has committed a crime or murder and has been found guilty by all accounts should not spend a lengthy amount of time in prison where the conditions are harsh. Carter, an inmate at San Quentin located in California describes the conditions as "A cavernous, dark, loud and smelly building that is freezing cold in the winters and stifling hot in the summers. The cells are built in the middle of the cellblock. About thirty feet across from the cells are banks of windows which allow light in, but it is subdued light filtered by the dirt and grime on the windows. On the same wall as the windows are an upper gunrail which is watched the top tiers and the lower one watches the bottom tiers." (Carter 1). The cell itself is yet another topic in which Carter talks about in his journals. The cell is " A little over four feet wide by slightly longer then ten feet. Each cell has a steel plate bed, a stainless steel sink and toilet, a shelf and a light that has electrical plugs on it" (Carter 1). The inmates at any prison are no more less of a person because of the crime they committed. However, the conditions need to be improved and the environment needs to be clean. No one said prison was going to be heaven or did anyone say it would look like hell. Every wrong decision in life has a consequence. We all step up and pay for the consequence. But the consequence of being on death row should not last for twenty-one years or more. It should be a quick process that is more efficient. Keeping people in a dirty environment is inhumane. The system needs to change or else people will start to fight harder. "As long as the system can keep people thinking that everyone in prison is an animal and not people that were once just like you, they can go ahead and do anything they want to" (Carter 6).
Homework Help: Social Studies: World Issues
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