The Cost

The Death Row system is a government program, and as such is a very expensive system to upkeep. It is a far more expensive program compared to life-without-parole. Some of the high costs are related to longer trials, the need for more lawyers and experts on both sides of the case, and how rare executions actually are. A Susquehanna University report found that on average, a death row inmate costs $1.2 million more than a general population inmate. In July of 2018 there were 2,738 inmates on death row. Per the Susquehanna report, that is an extra $3 Billion dollars we are spending on death row. An easy way to save that money is to convert those sentenced to life-without-parole. 

In North Carolina alone, the death penalty costs $2.6 million per execution more than just sentencing the murderer to life imprisonment. Part of this cost is due to the legal battle everyone goes through when the prosecutor seeks the death penalty. The constitution requires a long and extensive trial for death penalty cases since it is a capital offence. If convicted, the process of appeals could take decades to complete. The cost to convict and sentence someone is between $200,000 to $300,000. Since 1978, California has spent more than $4 billion administering the death penalty. That is approximately $308 million per person for each of the 13 people who have been executed in California since the death penalty was reinstated.

If we sentence these inmates to life-without-parole, we are saving a ton of money. The death penalty does not make us any safer that those who get life-without-parole (LWOP). In fact, LWOP and the death penalty have the same deterrent effect: criminals remain off the streets for the rest of their lives. The death penalty does not deter crime any more that LWOP does. If it did, the states that currently use the death penalty would be more safe than the states that don't. However, that is not the case.

People are scared that if we get rid of the death penalty that will mean criminals would not pay for the crimes they commit. However, what people don't understand is that LWOP is basically a death sentence in itself. Those convicted of LWOP will die in prison. They will not be released, and they will spend their last days in a prison cell, still in the system. Yes, it's not a big show like the death penalty is, but doing it this way is much more cost effective. And with the money we save by cutting the death penalty, we can use that money to improve the criminal justice system by increasing public safety or providing resources to help prevent wrongful convictions.

If you would like to know more about this topic, please visit https://deathpenaltyinfo.org.

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

When someone is sentenced to death, it is because they are found guilty in a court of law. However, just because they are found guilty doesn't mean they truly are guilty. In a report released in 2014 by the National Academy of Sciences, at estimate 4.1% of people sentenced to death are actually innocent. The percentage does not include the 138 inmates who were extenuated from the death sentence after being proven innocent. Innocent people end up on death row due to multiple factors, including poor representation, biased judging and racial profiling.

A man by the name of Kenneth Foster Jr. was on death row because of a Texas law called "Law of Parties." This law made Kenneth's presence a co-conspirator to murder, and just as responsible as the man who pulled the trigger. What's even more outrageous about Kenneth's conviction is that it was in relation to a murder that the courts never claimed he committed. They never once implicated him in the actual crime, but because he was there he became open to the same punishment as the actual murderer.

Kenneth was 19 at the time of the crime, and was driving him and his buddies around the town. His buddies had him pull over to commit a few robbery's along the streets of Texas. Eventually, they decided to call it a night and Kenneth began to drive his three friends and himself home. At some point, they got lost and ended up in front of a house. Kenneth's friend, Mauriceo Brown, got out of the car and got into an altercation with the victim named Michael LaHood. Michael was shot by Mauriceo, which lead to his death. Kenneth was still in his car, 80 feet away, when the crime occurred. According to Kenneth, Mauriceo had never talked about murder in the car, and had no intent on shooting let alone killing someone that night.

Because of the the Texas "Law of Parties," Both Kenneth and Mauriceo were sentenced to death for this crime. Mauriceo was executed in 2006, and Kenneth was set to be executed not long after him. August 30th, 2007, Kenneth's execution date. Once his execution date was announced, many activities and grass-root movements came to his aid and shared the injustice he was facing. He was wrongfully being executed for a crime even the courts said he did not commit. On August 30th, just one hour before his execution, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted 6-1 for clemency. The governor commuted Kenneth's sentence from death to life imprisonment.

It was a close call for Kenneth, but just one hour before his execution he was saved. He was one hour away from being killed for a crime he didn't commit. Although life is prison isn't better, considering his actions compared to his charges, but he is still thankful for all the support that helped shed light on the injustice that was happening. He admits to the burglaries earlier that night, but things he has now served too much time for the crime. He still has a long battle ahead of him, but he notes that he is one of the "lucky" ones.

Not many truly innocent people escape the death penalty. We are sending people who are innocent to death, sometimes because the court has already made up their minds before hearing the case. We need to call for change in the death row and justice system, because one innocent inmate death at the hands of the government is too many.

If you would like to learn more about Kenneth's story, you can watch it on episode two of Netflix's documentary series I am a Killer. You can also help support Kenneth's continued battle by visiting
www.freekenneth.com.

For more information on innocent prisoners and wrongful conviction, you can visit
www.innocenceproject.org.

Lethal Injection

As mentioned in my last post, James Robertson prefers to be put to death by lethal injection. This method seems simple and painless, but there have been complications in the past with previous inmates. Sometimes the procedure is not done right and the inmates experience an imminence amount of pain, and even survive the experience. According to a study done in 2014 by Austin Sarat, there have been 75 botched executions by lethal injection from 1890 to 2010. This study done by Austin brings into light the reality that although it seems simple, it does not always work. 

Lethal injection was sold to the government as a sort of medical procedure where a doctor would help an inmate "go to sleep" without waking up. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. First and foremost, doctors do not actually perform these procedures because it violates ethical codes. That means the person who is actually performing the procedure is not properly trained on how to perform the execution. It should also be noted that neither medical professionals or scientists came up with the "design" of the execution process. The process was actually created by a medical examiner in Oklahoma.

While the procedure of lethal injection varies from state to state, most follow a three step process; first is an anesthetic, then a paralytic, and finally a third drug to initiate cardiac arrest. The main issues in the procedure arrive at step two or three. If the inmate is not completely knocked out from step one, and they receive the second drug that paralyzes them, then they are put in an awful situation where you are awake, but you cannot move or breath. This essentially causes the sensation of suffocation, but the inmate can not tell anyone because their muscles are paralyzed. When step three is done, it feels as though fire is being put into your veins. Again very painful, but the inmate is unable to tell anyone. The point of step one was to knock you out so you don't feel steps two or three, but because untrained people are doing the procedures, step one can sometimes go wrong. 

The drug most commonly used to use for step one was called sodium thiopental, but it was no longer being made in America during 2011 and, and is no longer approved by the FDA for import into the country. Some states started buying the drugs illegally, including Arizona and Texas. Most states have given up on sodium thiopental and have turned to a drug called midazolam. This drug, however, is a sedative not a general anesthetic. This new drugs purpose is used to relax someone. This problem has been brought up in court, and the states use the testimony of Dr. Roswell Lee Evans to justify the use of midazolam over another anesthetic even though he has not done any studies with the drug in question.

In 2014, Inmate Clayton Lockett was one of the first prisoners in Oklahoma to use midazolam for his execution. This execution took 43 minutes. A phlebotomist tried to insert the needle in Lockett's arms, neck, groan, and foot. A few minutes after the execution began Lockett's attorney, who was there as a witness, said he began to notice Lockett trying to sit up. He noted that after Lockett's attempts to sit up, Lockett said "somethings wrong." The problem was that the initial drugs did not enter his veins, it instead entered the tissue. This means that he felt both the sensation of suffocation from the second drug, and fire in your veins from the third drug. This single case alone sheds light on how lethal injection can go terribly wrong, causing tremendous amounts of unnecessary pain.

Lethal injection was supposed to be an humane alternative to other executions procedures such as electrocution. The government and the public were sold on this idea that lethal injection was like putting someone to sleep, but if done improperly it is actually a gruesomely painful way to die. According to Austin's study mentioned earlier, lethal injection has the highest botch rate at 7.12%. Part of the problem is that doctors can't and won't participate in the execution procedures, so untrained people are trying to administer the drugs. Sometimes these untrained people fail, and the inmate is left with a gruesome death, or in some case a survivor of the experience with a really traumatic memory now stuck in their head. Another issue is that the original drug used as an anaesthetic can no longer be used, and the drug that is currently in place is not actually an anaesthetic.

Just because someone ends up on death row, just because they committed a heinous crime, does not mean that they should experience phenomenal amounts of pain when they are being put to death. Lethal injection is not a humane way to kill inmates, and it should not be used to do so. We were sold a lie so that we would be okay with killing a human being, taking away a life, because we thought it was not causing them harm. Now that we know it does, we need to bring this to Washington's attention and demand change. Better yet, we need to demand an end to the use of lethal injection forever.

If you want to know more about this subject, John Oliver has a really good youtube video on lethal injection that is worth watching. 

Death Row by Choice

James Robertson, a 53 year old inmate in Florida, is currently awaiting death by lethal injection or electrocution. James was originally incarcerated for a minor theft charge in 1980, but his sentence kept getting extended due to multiple assault charges while being incarcerated. Eventually, he was facing a 100 year total sentence due to all of his fights. Between a long sentence and constantly being put in solitary confinement, he decided that death row was his best option for him. 

In Netflix's new documentary I am a Killer, James says that he was unfairly targeted by the prison officers. He claims that they "just put somebody in the cell and would use any excuse to keep them in there." While in solitary, James spent 23 hours a day locked up, and this is where he decided enough was enough. He couldn't handle the little freedoms he had being taken away from him, and he didn't like all the rules that were given to him. He had heard of the "glamorous" life on death row, which included a TV, better meals, and less rules. James decided that he was going to go ahead and kill somebody in order to change his conditions. 

In December of 2008, James killed his elder roommate Fran Hart while the guards were doing their rounds. After the guards passed their cell for the first inspection, James knew he had 25 minutes to put his plan into action, before the next guard came by. James strangled Frank with a makeshift weapon in a matter of minutes. When James was evaluated, the doctors found that James committed the act willfully. That fact is never disputed because James will willingly tell you he planned on doing it. When being interviewed for the documentary, James said " It was premeditated all the way. I don't feel bad about it."

James knew that if he murdered someone, he would end up on death row and would receive all the "benefits" that came along with it. He murdered his cellmate just too achieve his goal, and abused the system to fit his personal needs. Death row is not a place for inmates who get tired of their life in jail. Yes solitary confinement is hard to live in, but had he followed the rules given to him and gotten in less fights, he wouldn't of ended up there as often as he had. Although Hart was in prison for his own reasons, that doesn't mean he deserved to serve as a pawn for James to get in a cushy living environment. James abused the system to escape solitary and all the rules that came along with it.

James is currently waiting to be executed, but until they he enjoys privileges such as TV. He is not nervous to be executed. In the Netflix documentary he says, "I'd much rather have a needle stuck in me than be electrocuted but I could go either way. You read how it's 'inhumane' but that's a load of bulls**t. You don't feel anything." If you want to know more about his story, you can hear it in the first episode of I am a Killer currently on Netflix. 

Welcome to Death Row

Hello, I am inmate Madison Neill. I am a senior in college studying Political Science with a minor in Writing. One thing I enjoy doing is listening to my favorite podcast, Crime Junkie. This podcast talks about not common criminal cases, usually cold cases, and sometimes cases of injustice. Occasionally they will discuss how a person was put on trial for a crime they didn't commit, and the fight the person went through to clear their name. That got me thinking, how many people are currently sitting on death row because of an injustice of the judicial system. That thinking further spiraled into who is on death row that simply shouldn't be there, and how many innocent people have been executed because of a bias prosecutor or judge.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I am not actually an inmate in prison. However, I will be shedding some light on inmates who are in prison and are on death row. In this blog, I will discuss the issues surrounding death row and why I think it should no longer be used as a solution in the justice system. Not only are there humanitarian issues, such as the question of if the practice is human and how things such as lethal injection can do more harm than good, but there are also injustices in the system. There are people who are innocent that are being sent to death, people who may have committed a crime, but not a crime that warrants death, and even inmates that abuse the system.

I know what you're thinking, how could inmates possibly abuse the death row system? Why would they even want to? Later in the blog I will be discussing a man named James Robertson, who murdered in order to achieve better conditions in prison. I am not saying there are many inmates who do abuse the system, but it does happen. They decide that the conditions they are currently facing are not good, and think that death row can offer them a better life until their death.

Hopefully after reading this blog you will understand the desire to do away with, or at least severely limit, the death row option in our justice system. I am not looking to change your mind, and I am aware there are bad people in the world that may deserve this punishment, but I am asking you to open your mind to the possibility that the death row system needs major reform. So grab your orange jumpsuit, find your bunk, and join me on the mission to reform not only death row, but the American justice system.