The 1,000th Execution

The 998th, 999th and 1,000th executions, since the resumption of the death penalty in 1977, are scheduled for the last week of November and would bring the number of executions in 2005 to 56.

The 998th is scheduled to occur in Arkansas, which would be the state’s first this year; the 999th is scheduled to occur in Ohio, which would be the state’s fourth in 2005 and the 1,000th is scheduled in Virginia which would be the first this year in that state and the 95th since executions resumed. Only Texas, with 355 executions, has executed more folks in the modern era than Virginia.

Fourteen states have executed someone this year and five are scheduled to perform their first execution of the year in the five weeks left in 2005. Some Holiday spirit.

If all of the ten executions scheduled between now and the end of the year occur, there will be a total of 63, an increase of four from the 59 last year. We’re going in the wrong direction.

Connecticut performed its first execution in the modern era, the fourth in the Northeast and the first in the Northeast outside of Pennsylvania. The prisoner executed in Connecticut was what is known as a “volunteer,” which implies that he waived some or all of the available appeals. In other words, for whatever reasons, he chose to die. All of the executions in the Northeast have been volunteers.

I harp on the Northeast because I find the disparity in the application of the death penalty between the South and the Northeast prima facie evidence that the administration of the death penalty is totally screwed up. There just can’t be that many more criminals deserving of the ultimate penalty in one region of the country as opposed to another region. It just ain’t freaking possible!

Even the healthy difference in the murder and violent crime rates doesn’t explain how the hell there have been 816 executions in the South since 1976 and only 4, yes that’s right FOUR, in the Northeast. Will someone please explain this to me? Assuming the three scheduled executions occur, 818 of the 1,000 executions will have occured in the South. For those REALLY bad at math, that's 81.8% of the executions!

The Supreme Court has decreed that the death penalty is to be reserved for only the most heinous crimes and the most culpable criminals. How the hell can there be that many more heinous crimes or culpable criminals in the South than in any other region of the country? I don’t care how you slice it or dice it, there is no way in pluperfect hell that this is “equal protection” under the law.