Lethal injection is the latest technique, first used in Texas in l982 and now mandated by law in more than a dozen states. In Texas, there have been three botched injection executions since 1985. In one, it took 24 minutes to kill an individual, after the tube attached to the needle in his arm leaked and sprayed noxious chemicals toward witnesses. Another, in 1989, caused Stephen McCoy to choke and heave for several minutes before dying because the dosage of lethal drugs was too weak. Eyewitness accounts confirm that execution by any of these means is often an excruciatingly painful, and always degrading, process that ends in death.
Capital punishment is a barbaric remnant of uncivilized society.
It is immoral in principle, and unfair and discriminatory in practice. It assures the execution of some innocent people. As a remedy for crime, it has no purpose and no effect. Capital punishment ought to be abolished now.