Lethal Injection: Why the Killer Gets a Choice

    Judge Jeremy Fogel, a U.S. district judge opted not to halt the execution of murderer-rapist, Albert Greenworth Brown. Brown is one of the seven hundred and eight inmates on California's death row. Unlike most of his his fellow inmates, Brown has exhausted all of his appeals. Brown was convicted of aggravated murder when in 1980, he raped and murdered a fifteen-year-old girl named Susan Jordan. He committed this crime just after being released on parole after rapping a fourteen-year-old in 1977. Brown's actions deserve punishment. For years, people have questioned the morality of Capital Punishment.

Corrections officials have built a new new lethal injection chamber that is four times larger than the original gas chamber used for executions in the past. The facility was unveiled on Tuesday.

      Brown petitioned Fogel's court last week to try and gain an outcome similar to his inmate's, Michael Morlaes. In 2006, Fogel put a halt to to the execution of Morales because he felt that he needed to deeper investigate the processes of lethal injection because Morales claimed that it was against the Constitution. The Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Fogel found that conditions were too cramped in the gas chamber where the lethal injections were issued, and that there was insufficient training of the those administering the execution. For this reason, Fogel prompted corrections officials to make conditions better. However, Judge Fogel does not feel completely good about using the three injection method to execute the killers.
     Judge Fogel did not halt Brown's execution, but he did give him a choice between the one injection method, and the three injection method. It is customary in California to use the three injection method, but his research shows that there are is a possibility that it causes the person great pain and suffering. Only Washington and Ohio have used the one injection method, but they have reported it to be effective.
     The Judge's decision to allow Brown a choice resulted from official's insurance that the one injection method would be ready for Brown by Wednesday, the upcoming date of his execution. Although it was considerate of the judge to allow him to choose, it is still widely speculated that the lethal injection is inhumane and immoral.
     It is a constitutional right for people to be spared from cruel and unusual punishment. Thirteen criminals have been killed by Capital Punishment in California since its reinstatement in 1976. I beleieve that murderers
deserve to be punished, but I do not fully support the death penalty. Some say that it is more practical to persecute and execute those terrible offenders instead of financially supporting their life imprisonment. I believe that it is wrong to kill, and that no matter how hard we try to make their induced deaths less painful, we will never understand how much the person is suffering. Judge Fogel was right in trying to make it so that Brown will be allowed the presumably least painful form of execution by giving him the choice of methods. Capital punishment is controversial because it is a matter of government supported life or death.

Source: Williams, Carol J."Judge Clears Way for Killer to Die" . Los Angeles Times. The Sacramento Bee. 25, September.2010