Execution Pace Slows Amid Death Penalty Shifts

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=7&u=/nm/20040118/ts_nm/rights_executions_dc

<snip>
His dramatic last battle for life may give new pause to jurors, judges and prosecutors already reluctant to apply the death penalty.

His actual death may have been agonizing as well, as his final appeal asserted. The latest legal challenge to capital punishment concerns whether inmates suffer as the cocktail of three drugs designed to kill them takes hold.

Williams' appeal rested on disputed scientific evidence that lethal injection -- which usually begins with a barbiturate to knock out the prisoner, then chemicals to paralyze the lungs and, finally, stop the heart -- leaves the condemned semi-conscious and subjects them to a cruel, suffocating death.

Further, there are persistent doubts about the integrity of the legal system, especially for poor defendants. The more than 100 exonerations of the wrongly condemned, often through DNA testing, appears to have persuaded some to steer clear of the ultimate penalty altogether.

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. Reason number ten million not to support the death penalty...

nt

[leftchick]

2. I saw a great bumper sticker yesterday....

"Why do We Kill People, Who Kill People, To Show That Killing People Is Wrong?"

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. Hmmm - da Texacutioner won't like this - -

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