{"id":9797,"date":"2014-04-30T10:01:24","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T14:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=9797"},"modified":"2014-04-30T10:34:55","modified_gmt":"2014-04-30T14:34:55","slug":"death-penalty-in-a-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2014\/04\/30\/death-penalty-in-a-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"The death penalty in a democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lady<\/a>

Lady Justice–scales and sword. Photo: Bill Tyne<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Tuesday night, Oklahoma botched the execution of a convicted murderer<\/a> and stayed the execution of a second man until an investigation of the episode is completed. NPR’s coverage<\/a> of the story is here.<\/p>\n

When I turned on the radio this morning and heard the BBC’s coverage of the incident, what troubled me was the reporter’s account of prison officials “closing the curtain” on the execution room when it became apparent that there were problems. Regardless of one’s personal opinion on the death penalty, there is good reasoning behind the practice of having public witnesses at all state sanctioned executions.<\/p>\n

It is a slippery slope from yesterday’s execution–started, botched and then hidden from public view–to state abuse of the death penalty. If the state is going to implement a death sentence, in the name of the people, “the people” should be present: both to insure a reasonably humane process (guaranteed by our\u00a0 Constitution) and to take direct responsibility for the punishment being meted out in their name.<\/p>\n

Here in our region, the death penalty is no longer used. In NYS<\/a>, the Appeals Court ruled the state’s death penalty legislation unconstitutional (in terms of the NYS constitution) in 2004 and the last death sentence still on record was commuted in 2007. The last execution in NYS took place in 1963.<\/p>\n

In Vermont<\/a>, the last execution took place in 1954, and the death penalty was abolished in 1965.<\/p>\n

However, in both New York and Vermont the death penalty may be applied by the federal government in the case of treason.<\/p>\n

In Canada, the death penalty <\/a>was abolished in 1976, with the last executions taking place in 1962. Further, Canada’s extradition guidelines reflect the country’s opposition to capital punishment:<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court of Canada<\/a>, in the case United States v. Burns<\/a><\/i>, (2001), determined that Canada should not extradite condemned persons, unless they have assurances that the foreign state will not apply the death penalty, essentially overruling Kindler v. Canada (Minister of Justice)<\/a><\/i>, (1991). This is similar to the extradition policies of other nations such as Germany<\/a>, France<\/a>, the Netherlands<\/a>, Spain<\/a>, Italy<\/a>, the United Kingdom<\/a>, Israel<\/a>, Mexico<\/a>, Colombia<\/a> and Australia<\/a>, which also refuse to extradite prisoners who may be condemned to death. (Wikipedia)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s a complete list of current capital punishment <\/a>policies in all 50 states: 32 have the death penalty, 18 do not.<\/p>\n

Back to the case at hand…As Oklahoma reviews its method of executing death row inmates, it may also want to review the process, insuring that impartial public witnesses are present from start to death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday night, Oklahoma botched the execution of a convicted murderer and stayed the execution of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4872,14052,14054,12067],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9797"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9797"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9807,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9797\/revisions\/9807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}