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UK advocate saying botched Ohio execution should be US turning point on death penalty

By Douglas A. Berman

I suspect that yesterday's botched execution attempt here in Ohio likely could become a big national and international story, and this new item from a UK paper confirms my suspicion.  The piece is headlined "The American way of death:A botched execution in Ohio should quicken the end of capital punishment." Here are notable excerpts: The botched attempted execution in Ohio this week of a murderer should prompt America to join the rest of the developed world in consigning judicial killing to history. There is inadequate evidence that it acts as a deterrent, it ignores the risk of miscarriages of justice and allows no room for repentance or correction. But above all it is a barbarity that stains civilised society.... A one-week reprieve granted by the Governor of Ohio may well be extended indefinitely, partly because it is half a century since any inmate was subjected to more than one execution, and partly because some justices of the US Supreme Court have now begun to wonder if botched lethal injections might not violate the eighth amendment ban on ?cruel and unusual punishment?...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on September 16, 2009 (boomark / email).