The Chaos Behind California Executions
“Operational Procedure No. 770,” the state’s name for execution by lethal injection, is performed in a dark, cramped room by men and women who know little, if anything, about the deadly drugs they inject under extreme stress.
Thousands of pages of depositions and four days of testimony last week in a federal courtroom here provided the most intimate portrait yet of a state’s lethal injection methods.
Witnesses depicted executions by lethal injection — long considered a more humane alternative to the gas chamber or the electric chair — as almost haphazard events, and medical experts on both sides could not rule out the possibility that one or more inmates had been conscious and experienced an excruciating sensation of drowning or strangulation before death.
Describing the pressure executioners feel and the surreal atmosphere in which they work, one executioner explained: “There’s no other place in the world that you’re asked to start an IV for that purpose.”
“I saw Eddie’s eyes close, and I thought to myself, ‘Here we go. This is it.’ Almost immediately his eyes opened again, not fully, more than halfway up but not completely. His eyes remained open for the entire execution.”
She said his throat began to throb and pulsate like a lizard’s, and his chest heaved and strained so violently she thought he would fall off the gurney.
My last comment obviously aimed at 29. Sorry for your loss 31.
They would argue something about being animals like the killers if society behaves similarly in execution. And that only those sufficiently removed from situations like you’ve experienced are enlightened enough to make the correct unemotional decisions about such matters.
I have no doubt what-so-ever that I would feel exactly the same way if in a similar situation. As it is, I’m not too concerned about executional comfort. Especially when you consider the torture that must prevail in the months and days leading up to it. That said, I’d still opt for use of a preliminary knock-out gas or something similar.
RBG
The pathetic thing related to this case is what happened at a candle light vigil last year for Terri Winchell during the circus that took place during the Morales lawyer stalled execution. The vigil was held at Tokay High, in Lodi, CA. The school had to pull all students from the event, and instead they were replaced by undercover police because there were threats of violence against the event by “friends of Morales”. I guess those old gang ties run deep, even 25 years later.
My other exposure to brutal murder was with a close friend a few years after Terri’s death. He was a “random target”. That was the title of the episode of New Detectives that was done on his case. He was going home one night to his parents house up off Summitt Road in the Santa Cruz moutains. He came across a group of people burning a bon fire beside the road. He told them to put it out and to leave. The killer pulled a pistol (a rare type that ultimately lead to his conviction), put 5 rounds in Mark’s chest and 1 round in his forehead, then doused the car with gas and torched it. I got a call the next day with the bad news.
Ultimately, the killer’s girlfriend turned him in and took the police to where the murder weapon was dumped. They were able to match ballistics on a few slugs that did not melt in the fire, deep from in what was left of his torso. This person was also linked to several other random killings in the Santa Cruz area. The show only refers to one of them. This person is sitting in a cell serving multiple life sentences.
Do you realize how much it costs to house these people every year? Would all those anti-death penalty people like to pay a tax to support these people? I for one wish I could opt out of paying for these guys to continue breathing air. Oh wait, if it comes down to financially supporting these people, the bleeding hearts will likely fade into the woodwork. Keeping these rejects of society alive is a drain on tax dollars, and a lasting reminder of their hideous crimes. The cost of these repeated trials and legal wranglings is even higher, a fact that many anti-death penalty people raise as an example for doing away with the death penalty all together.
The families of those murdered never recover from the loss. And there are FAR MORE rights for the criminals than there are for the victims and their families. That’s how upsidedown our society is today. All I can say is “how pathetic”.
Interesting if you could use the money spent housing murderers on medical solutions like transplants, dialysis, diagnostics etc. for children. But that would be inhuman. Ha. Maybe if you did that and it proved to save the lives of a number of children who might otherwise have died, it would help offset the rare miscarriage of justice when a convicted person is wrongfully put to death.
That ought to stir something up.
RBG
We had a guy that hit a lady in the back of the head 36 times with a sharp object (A metal pick I believe) have his death sentence suspended because “He might feel discomfort”
I’m not one that is fully sold on the death penalty either but hell if you hit someone 36 times in the back of the head, I could give a damn for your pain or discomfort. Life is painful, death is painful. Idiots who think otherwise aren’t realistic.