Arizona recently “refurbished” its gas chamber built in 1949 which has not been used since 1999. The plan is to execute prisoners with cyanide and other gases. This is the same gas combination (Zyklon B) used by the Nazis to murder more than one million men, women, and children during the Holocaust. Is this worthy of a democracy?
Lethal injection is the death of choice for Arizona prisons and the state has paid over $1.5 million on lethal injection drugs despite its Department of Corrections facing a budget crisis. Executions have been on hold in the state since the lethal injection execution of Joseph Wood was badly botched in 2014. Now the state plans to offer a choice . . . gas chamber or lethal injection.
Arizona last used its gas chamber for the execution of Walter LeGrand in 1999. At that time The Tucson Citizen reported “agonizing choking and gasping” during the execution. It took LeGrand eighteen minutes to die.
Frank Atwood and Clarence Dixon are the next people to be executed in Arizona and while their lawyers attempt to raise legal arguments the two men have a choice to contemplate. Which way will they choose to die if their appeals fail? In my opinion, both are cruel and unusual punishments for us to inflict upon other human beings.
Source: Death Penalty Information Center
Crooked Creek by Sue Mattingly 
While I basically agree, pardon me if I bring up a “pro” point for your consideration:
Yes, there is the slim possibility an innocent person, or someone who has truly reformed and will not reoffend, will be executed. On the other hand, almost without exception, these are violent offenders. They’ve murdered people. Circumstances vary, but how long did some of their victims suffer, and how much agony did they endure before they died?
One man in Canada kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered, a number of innocent children. Think of the anguish of those parents when their children were missing for months before the bodies were discovered. He served his time because Canada doesn’t have the death penalty. I hope he came to see the light before he died.
I’m okay with our govt’s stand, but authorities do run into problems when US criminals slip in, like Charles Ng. He was caught here and fought tooth and nail to keep from being extradited to the US to face multiple charges of rape and murder. He and his buddy videotaped their crimes so there was no mistake. He’d face the death penalty in the States so our govt dragged its feet on that one.
It seems we’re becoming a society where people cry for the criminal almost more than for the victims. (Thank you, Clarence Darrow!) In one case in Ontario a released offender raped a woman. Because he’d been in jail and a drug user, she wanted him to be tested for AIDS so she and her husband would know what was ahead for them. But it was a violation of his human rights to make him give a blood sample. After what he did to her, a needle poke wouldn’t have been such a suffering.
So I think pointing out the suffering of a criminal may not convince the audience because the Pro side will say, “Good on him if he gets a bit of his own back.”
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Thank you Christine for your thoughts and opinions. Even if one innocent person is executed it is one too many and there have been over 150 known here in the US. Life without parole is always an option and it costs less that execution. I don’t see how we teach people to not kill by killing.
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Agreed. It would be wonderful if criminals would be reformed rather than just released to reoffend. I’ve heard of a Second Chance program in the States that trains offenders for the real world and has a high success rate.
Someone once wrote that Christians are odd because they argue against abortion (the taking of a life) but are often in favor of the death penalty, which is also taking a life. Equally off-kilter is when people protest the cruelty of the death penalty but are okay with abortion, where an innocent unborn baby is sucked apart limb by limb or burned to death with caustic salt. Or (in partial birth abortion) skewered through the brain during birth. If somehow the infant survives a suction abortion and is born live, it’s killed by lethal injection.
I’m afraid there are too many bandwagons these days and people jump on because the rhetoric appeals. People needs to consider all the angles of what’s being promoted and what they really do believe.
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