The Death Sentence
Should Florida Take the Capital Out of Punishment
According to The Death Penalty Information Center, Florida has a long history of botched executions. What is the humane alternative?
Since September 2007, death-row prisoners have seen court and state authorities delay executions while the Supreme Court reflects on the status of lethal injections as a cruel and unusual punishment. New Jersey recently abolished the death penalty. There is talk of a nationwide moratorium, which has trickled down to Florida.
In January 2000, the Florida Legislature passed legislation allowing lethal injection as an alternative method of execution. Lately there have been questions about that ruling also. Former Governor Jeb Bush, who had no qualms imposing the death penalty on clearly crazed serial killer, Aileen Wuernos, suspended lethal injections in 2006. Even Charlie Crist, who ran his gubernatorial campaign on the tax-heavy prospect of locking up offenders who violate probation, had no power to halt the November stay that spared child-killer Mark Dean Schwab.
One issue is the way lethal injection works. A chemical cocktail containing a barbiturate, a paralyzation drug, and a drug to stop the heart, floods the veins of the condemned, ending their life. It’s supposed to do its work within 15 minutes. Sometimes it takes longer. Last year, Florida convict Angel Nieves Diaz needed two doses and took 34 minutes to die. Witnesses doubted that Diaz was unconscious or that he underwent a painless procedure as he died. There is documented evidence of at least four other botched executions in Florida.
Whether a death-row inmate dies by lethal injection, electrocution, the noose or the gas chamber, judges, lawyers, citizens, victims, have all weighed in with their opinions about the capital punishment controversy. On a practical level, it costs more to house a death-row inmate because of the lengthy appeal process. Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger, who witnessed the first lethal injection when it was administered in Florida, says:
I’m a proponent of it; I don’t think there’s anything more humane than lethal injection.. But I totally agree that it [capital punishment] is not a deterrent. Swift and sure punishment is lacking.”
On the other side is Troy Victorino who was convicted of first-degree murder in 2006. He has resided on death row at Union Correctional Institute in Raiford for a little over a year. The average stay for a Florida prisoner before execution is 14 years. The typical death penalty conviction must go through several levels of appeal. If these fail, eventually Victorino faces lethal injection. Here is what he had to say in November 2007 about the execution of punishment for capital crimes:
The real people to ask about the death penalty are the victim’s families. And the families of the people on death row. I mean, it’s a question of ethics. Each and every person has to ask themselves what they believe in. Whether they think that’s just or not.
Is capital punishment a drain on moral integrity as Victorino suggests? Permanent deacon of Longwood’s Nativity Catholic Church ,Connie Ferriola, Jr,. defers the question if capital punishment to a higher authority. He says,” Life must be respected in all forms. We cannot pick and choose the forms of life we are called to respect and protect."
