Capital Punishment

7/26/2014

Don't worry, I'm not going to get up on my soap box and debate the pros and cons of capital punishment.  I had always believed that if you did the crime, you did the time.  Even if you have committed a horrible against someone(s), you are (though some might protest), that he/she is still a human being.

What grabbed my attention in the paper a few days ago, was the execution of a murderer in Arizona.  I don't know the facts of the case, nor do I care.  Here's what I do care about.  This convicted murderer wasn't pronounced dead until an hour and 57 minutes after the execution began. Witnesses, including the man's lawyer watched him gasp and breathe heavily for more than an hour and 40 minutes.  Why?  

The director of the Arizona Department of Corrections claims that Wood did not suffer during the execution.  If he wasn't suffering, then I guess I don't know what suffering looks and feels like.  

You know as well as I do, that when you are having surgery, medicine is put in an IV and you go to sleep pretty much before you can count to ten. Were they not able/willing to put him to sleep before the lethal combination of drugs killed him?  We'll never know the answer.  I just can't 
imagine how awful it must have been for the witnesses to watch this man die slowly and presumably painfully.  

I've had my say and now I'm getting off the soapbox.

P