"THE BIG JAB"
by Steven King Ainsworth
As California prepares the premedi-tated killing of Tom Thompson,
scheduled for 12:01 A.M., August 5, 1997, one must question where the humanity
may be in judicial homicides.
Five methods of homicide are still practiced by judicial authority in the
United States, each being declared humane in turn: hanging, firing squad,
lethal gas, electrocution, and the new and improved method of lethal injection.
Humane, as defined by Webster, is: "Having what are considered the
best qualities of human beings; kind, tender, merciful, civilizing, and
humanizing." Given this, how can anyone define capital punishment as
anything other than inhumane? No method of killing can be humane!
Is it humane "to hold a human being in a small cell at the point of
a gun for X number of years so that at some future time, a time you tell
him some days ahead [in Thompson's case, 45 days ahead] he will be physically
overwhelmed, strapped down to a table, his arms out in cruciform and punctured
by steel needles, his living blood pumped full of deadly drugs and he will
gasp and grimace, change colors, and expire-all the while 20 or 30 invited
guests" look on? (1)
The "tender" execution(s) of Raymond Landry in Texas (December
13, 1988) by lethal injection featured the needle coming out of Landry'
s vein and squirting the deadly drugs about the execution chamber, causing
an ''intermission" in the macabre theater. Landry was pronounced dead
40 minutes later. And the frantic search by needle point of medical personnel
attempting to find a suitable vein in Ricky Rae Rector (January 24, 1992),
the lobotomized man Clinton sacrificed to the executioner so he could become
chief executive that year.
The "kind" execution of Pedro Medina in Florida's electric chair
(March 25, 1997) produced this humane scene: "Moments after Medina
was strapped into the electric chair and the 2,000 volts of electricity
surged through his body, the mask covering his face burst into flame . .
. Medina's head flickering . . . filled the death chamber with smoke."
(2) More kindness was displayed in the electrocution of John Evans in Alabama
(April 22, 1988) where "flames erupted from the electrode attached
to Evans' leg. The electrode then burst from the strap holding it in place
and caught fire, while smoke and sparks came out from Evans' hood."
(3) After three jolts from "Yellow Mama," (4) Evans, charred and
smoldering, expired 14 minutes later.
The "civilizing spectacle of putting Robert Alton Harris in and then
taking him out of the gas chamber throughout the night (April 21, 1992)
and finally dropping the pellets and killing him at dawn certainly must
have made civilized the 50 witnesses privileged to watch him die.
As civilized as those who were repulsed by the execution of Jimmy Lee Grey
(September 2, 1983) and had to be evacuated from the witness area of Mississippi's
gas chamber as Grey gasped and banged his head on a steel pole inside the
gas chamber before finally expiring in the midst of the cyanide fumes.
As civilized as the "merciful" execution by firing squad of Eddie
Slovik (January 31, 1945) during World War II, his chest perforated by eleven
.30 caliber slugs, none of which had pierced his heart and several minutes
elapsed, "too few for the coup de grace, too many for the victim,"
(5) his blood, dripping onto the snow as he slowly expired tied to the killing
post. I suppose one might call the consensual execution of Gary Gilmore
(1977) in Utah merciful-after all, he wanted his heart shot out.
Surely, the head popping hanging of James Stone (1880) in Washington, D.C.,
his body falling to the earth, spurting blood from the torn neck, his head
still caught in the noose, must have been quite "humanizing" to
those in attendance.
Perhaps people take solace in the eventual taking of life from the U. S.
Government's assurance to the world that condemned prisoners are assured
"various protections afforded to ensure that their treatment is neither
cruel, unusual, nor inhumane." (6) Tell that to S. Marshall who died
at San Quentin (June 15, 1997) after being sprayed with pepper spray in
the closed confinement of his death row cell or to Mumia Abu-Jamal, held
in Pennsylvania's Death Row Maximum Control Unit in solitary segregation
for his beliefs, while he awaits in the "Netherworld of Despair"
(7) for the political machinations to play out and either set him free or
kill him, political machinations spelled out long ago by John Locke (1632-1704)
who defined political power as "the right to create the penalty of
death, and hence all lesser ones"(The Second Treatise of Government,
1690).
As each "murder that is depicted as a horrible crime is repeated remorselessly"
(8) we move ever closer to becoming a society and a government dependent
on the frequent use of killing- a "thanatocracy." (9)
If and when Tom Thompson is given his humane exit, I will be watching and
waiting in the wings for the tender prick of the needle-the big jab.
© 1997 Steven King Ainsworth, C13201, Death Row, San Quentin, CA 94974.
1 S. Ainsworth, "A Relic of the Past, "Frontiers of Justice, Volume
I, The Death Penalty, 1997, Biddle Publishing Co., P.O. Box 1305, Brunswick,
ME 04011.
2 K. Rosenberg, "A Faulty Chair. A Faultier System," The Quaker
Abolitionist, Volume 3, No. 2, Spring 1997, pp. 6-7.
3 M. Radelet, A Chronicle of Horrors.
4 "Yellow Mama: What Convicts Named the Electric Chair Used at Atmore,
Alabama" (photo appears in Time Magazine, June 16, 1997, p. 38).
5 G. Abbot, The Book of Execution, 1994, p. 147.
6 Civil and Political Rights in the U.S., Report of the United States of
America under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1993).
7 M. Abu-Jamal, "Teetering on the Brink Between Death and Life,"
in Criminal Injustice.
8 C. Beccaria, An Essay on Crimes and Punishments, 1764.
9 P. Linebaugh, "Old Mr. Glory and the Thanatocracy," The London
Hanged, 1992, pp.43-73.
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