No humane way about it

DEATH PENALTY

Columnist
Guillermo I. Martinez
E-MAIL Guillermo I. Martinez

No humane way about it

Published December 21, 2006

The subject hit me from all sides last week.

For one vehemently opposed on principle to the death penalty, it was a most unpleasant subject to be thinking about this holiday season.

Within hours of each other, California and Florida "temporarily" suspended the death penalty by lethal injection. A federal judge in California imposed a "moratorium" on state executions, saying that lethal injections could be considered "cruel and unusual punishment" under the U.S. Constitution.

At about the same time, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush suspended all executions in the state.

Angel Nieves Díaz had become the poster boy for just how cruel and unusual lethal injections can be. The executioner failed to insert the needle in one of his veins and the combination of anesthetic and poison was injected into his soft tissue instead. It took a second injection and 34 minutes before Díaz was pronounced dead.

Earlier in the month, the leading television journalist in Ecuador came to Florida to do a story on a countryman who was about to be condemned to die. We are friends and talked about the story.

I told him it would be years, if not decades, from the time they sentenced the prisoner to die to the time he was executed; that there was going to be ample time for appeals to state and local courts; that death sentence cases usually went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Yet when he asked me to comment on the use of the death penalty in many states throughout the country, I refused.

I was not comfortable talking about the issue at length and then have my comments reduced to a sound bite saying: "I object to killing even criminals. It is inhumane and immoral."

Now, don't get me wrong. That is precisely what I feel about the death penalty. But my thoughts on the subject cannot be covered in an eight-second sound bite. It is not that simple.

First, I do not come to this position easily. I am not a liberal on crime issues. I do not believe hardened criminals can be rehabilitated. I think that finding murderers not guilty by reason of insanity or mental defect is a farce. And yet, I have never been able to say -- even to myself -- that I approve of the death penalty.

Florida went to the lethal injection method of disposing of its convicted killers because the old electric chair -- Old Sparky, they called it -- had caused inmates' hair or head to erupt in flames.

A quick search shows that in Florida it happened at least twice. In 1997, a malfunctioning electric chair set convicted killer Pedro Medina on fire.

Three years later, a convicted cop killer was set afire not once, but three times by the electric chair. Florida learned its lesson and in 2000 it approved executing criminals by lethal injection. Supporters say it is a less painful death; more humane.

Now, people who witnessed the Nieves Díaz execution say they saw him "grimacing, blinking, licking his lips and attempting to mouth words." They say he even tried to turn his head and look at them, although his head was restrained by a leather strap and a security guard. Not a pretty sight to think about this holiday season.

Yet 38 states in the country still find the death penalty acceptable, even though it has never been shown to deter violent crimes.

I understand victims who clamor for justice and say that the life of a killer does not even began to balance the most heinous and horrible crimes committed. Yet I would urge people to consider if life in prison without parole -- ever -- would not be a harsher punishment. Put them in a maximum security prison and throw the key away.

Nieves Díaz killed the manager of a topless bar 27 years ago. His trial, conviction and appeals kept him alive for almost three decades.

Florida has 374 criminals on Death Row -- waiting for the day the state finds a way to kill them in a more humane way.

History has never found an easy way to kill those assassins, traitors and even worse offenders. In the French Revolution, they used the guillotine and revolutionaries cheered when the heads fell into a bucket.

Other countries used the garrote, which twisted slowly until it broke the killer's neck. In Cuba, they execute "traitors" in front of a firing squad.

We look at these methods and call them barbaric. But at least those executioners did not try to justify what they did.

One can favor the death penalty. I accept that. Only don't try to say we do it in a humane way.

Guillermo I. Martínez resides in South Florida.

His e-mail address is Guimar123@gmail.com