Deciding If Death Row Inmates Get to Know How They’ll Die. Pardon Ain’t’n Option

How many times have we said that The NY Times has more reporters than TPV and that is why they have the scoop in Deciding If Death Row Inmates Get to Know How They’ll Be Killed, and not Marquel. But it is Marquel, TPVs Times Death Penalty Specialist, who finds out that the US Supreme Court indicates that any petitioner who objects to a particular method must suggest one he likes.

Marquel thought this was about the most American story he’d read in the Times since Mayor Giuliani decide to paint windows in boarded up buildings to make people happier.

It turns out the country has run out of drugs with which to kill prisoners. Other countries won’t sell us the chemicals because they oppose capital punishment, as is true of almost the entire world except the U.S., Russia, and China.

Because of the shortage, prisoners are having a hard time objecting in court. Because they don’t know what it might be to object to!

Last week Louisiana had to send out a squad of detectives to buy as many illegal drugs as they could. They mixed them all together and executed the prisoner with what they called a “cocktail.” It was the first execution where the prisoner first tripped out, became high on uppers so that he recited the Lord’s prayer at ten times the normal rate, and finished by singing “War,” by Edwin Starr, before taking a deep breath and expiring.

As a result of this confusion, the Supreme Court has said to prevent mere delays by lawyers who use a challenge as a ruse when they really oppose all executions, prisoners will now have to identify their preferred method.

Marquel thought this an excellent exercise in foolishness, easily fitting our present Supreme Court, and so he was on his way to Texas.

The first prisoner he interviewed was seemingly schizoid. Actually almost all of them seemed that way. But to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you don’t interview the interviewees you want, you interview the interviewees you have.

“So, Malcolm,” I said to Malcolm, my first interviewee, “I have only one question.”

“Shoot,” he said, without a trace of irony.

“Funny you should say that,” I added nervously, “the Supreme Court has said you may have to name the form of execution you prefer. Can you tell me what you would tell them?”

“Hmmm,” he answered, looking surprisingly serious and taking several minutes to answer. Each time he seemed ready to speak, he murmured, “No,” waved me off, and repeated the procedure, until he finally said, “I’ve got it!  Dynamite under my bed while I’m sleeping!”

“You sure?” I asked. He nodded. I didn’t think the Supreme Court would accept that…But maybe that was the point? Was Malcolm crazy like a fox?

My next prisoner was called the Reverend because…he is a reverend. He murdered three men because they were gay. I put the question to him.

“Oh I think,” said he, “that’s easy. An eye for an eye, you know. The biblical principle of punishment. I should suffer the suffering I caused others.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m not sure I follow you.”

“It’s simple, my friend,” he said. “I killed gay people. The same should happen to me. I should be killed by a group of homophobes.”

“But you’re not gay are you?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “we’ll just have to wait till I am.”

“Are you serious?” I asked, “and how long would that take?”

“I’d say just about forever,” he confirmed.

I was being played but I didn’t know how to proceed. The next prisoner had been waiting eighteen years to be executed.

“Frankly I’m tired of all this waiting” he said. “I’m just getting older and older. How I’d like to be killed?”

“I think the legal language is your ‘preferred method.'” I corrected him.

“Well either way, I’d like a blonde. I’d like to be killed while I’m fucking an 18 year old blonde.”

“I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” I said.

“It hasn’t so far,” he answered, with a wink.

I wasn’t sure whether some of these prisoners really had a preference or whether they were so instilled with legal reasoning and appeals that they just chose the most unlikely method that a court would never consider. Or were they all simply crazy?

The next prisoner said his name was John Doe. Who was I to argue.

“Simple,” he offered, “a drone. Just hit me in the exercise yard with one of those drones they kill Arabs with.”

“That’s really likely to happen….” I offered.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

I thought I’d steer the next few interviews to more likely scenarios, so I suggested things such as firing squads, hanging, drugs, and the gas chamber or electric chair. One had already been drugged but it didn’t work Another had elected a firing squad but it was declared illegal the week before the scheduled execution. My plan to steer the answers was unsuccessful. They all wanted in some way to be blown up. I asked why.

One said, “it’s a lot more instant than all the others.”

Another said, “you wouldn’t feel a thing.”

“But,” I said, “there would be nothing left to bury. You’d be in pieces.”

“Yeah,” he said sarcastically, “that must be what’s keeping me up at night.” Then, turning the tables on me, he asked what my choice would be.

I didn’t know what to say. “I suppose,” I began, “I’d like to be blown up by  homophobes using a drone in my bed while making love to an 18 year old virgin.”

“Wouldn’t we all,” said my last prisoner, “wouldn’t we all,” he said dreamily.

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