Death Penalty Update

North Carolina managed to come up with a way to satisfy a judge that its lethal injection would not cause undue suffering and proceeded to execute Willie Brown Jr. last Friday. That brought the total number of executions in the U.S. this year to 14. Well, at least there wasn’t any reason to believe that Brown was innocent.

Half of the 14 executions have been in Texas which has an almost incredible 16 more scheduled between now and the end of October. There are a total of 28 executions scheduled around the country including the 1st in South Dakota since executions resumed in 1976. The 4 executions scheduled in Pennsylvania and the 3 Federal executions have all been delayed and are off the schedule at Rick Halperin’s “Death Penalty News & Updates” page at Southern Methodist University that I use as a source.

In the meantime, the Death Penalty Information Center reports that Amnesty International's most recent death penalty report, showed a significant drop in executions around the world from 3,797 known in 2004 to 2,148 known in 2005. At least there was a drop in the number from places that are willing to own up to executions. The U.S. total went up by one, from 59 to 60, between 2004 and 2005.

Four countries account for 94% of the executions. China leads with 1,770, followed by Iran with 94, then Saudi Arabia with 86 and then the so-called bastion of freedom and democracy, the good old U.S. of A. with 60. You’ll excuse me if I find that an awkward group to be a member of.

Amnesty also reports that Liberia and Mexico brought the number of countries that have abolished all forms of the death penalty up to 86. Liberia and Mexico for Christ’s sake, at the rate things are going it will be just China, Islam and us that still execute folks. China, despite its economic potential, is still a repressive regime and the Muslim countries are stuck with Sharia law which calls for the death penalty in certain cases. WTF is our excuse?