Bad habits are hard to break, and
this most certainly applies to Alabama and
the death penalty.
Alabama
wants to execute prisoners with a new,
untested method of capital punishment
called nitrogen
hypoxia. Death
row inmate Alan
Miller wanted
this method for his own Sept. 22
execution, but on Monday, a judge blocked
the
execution after
the state said it was not
ready to use nitrogen hypoxia.
But what
is this new method? Nitrogen hypoxia is
when an executioner forces a prisoner to
breathe 100 percent nitrogen rather than
oxygen, causing the person to pass out and
die. Nitrogen makes
up
78 percent of the
air we breathe so we can breathe it
freely. But if the air had no oxygen and
were completely nitrogen, then we’d have a
problem. No humans
would survive because they would suffocate
and die.
According
to the World Society for the Protection of
Animals, nitrogen is not recommended for euthanizing
animals, saying
in its 2013 guidelines, “Current evidence
indicates this method is unacceptable
because animals may experience distressing
side effects before loss of
consciousness.”
“The short
story: 1. Nitrogen hypoxia isn’t quick. 2.
It isn’t appropriate for most mammals #Oklahoma
#deathpenalty” tweeted Robert
Dunham, executive director of the Death
Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
Apparently, death by nitrogen would
not
require pharmaceuticals or even
medical professionals, but rather a tank
of the odorless, colorless gas and a mask
or hood over the inmate. But who knows
what happens and what could go wrong after
that?
In 2018,
Alabama
became
the third state to
authorize the use of nitrogen in
executions, joining Oklahoma and
Mississippi in a race to the bottom of
human degradation. None of these states
have actually used the gas to execute
someone, and Alabama relies on lethal
injection as its primary weapon for
executions (the judge’s ruling stops the
state from even using lethal injection,
stating that Miller cannot be executed “by
any method other than nitrogen hypoxia
until further order from the court,” according
to
CNN.) Seven
states—Alabama, Arizona, California,
Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma and
Wyoming—authorize some form of
lethal gas, but
this method was last used 20
years ago.
Aside
from the problematic nature of capital
punishment—which is a form of torture and
a human rights violation—lethal gas has
led to botched,
gruesome
executions. The
last person in the U.S. executed by gas
suffered for 18 minutes before dying.
Nitrogen has not been used anywhere in the
world, and while its proponents want to
spin this method as a painless and humane
alternative, the same was said about all
other forms of capital punishment that
have been proven barbaric, such as the
electric chair, firing
squad and
lethal injection.
A South
Carolina judge recently ruled it was
unconstitutional cruel and unusual
punishment to authorize executions by firing
squad
or the electric chair, saying
the state “turned back the clock and
became the only state in the country in
which a person may be forced into the
electric chair if he refuses to elect how
he will die.” The court added, “In doing
so, the General Assembly ignored advances
in scientific research and evolving
standards of humanity and decency.”
New and
creatively evil forms of execution such as
nitrogen have come into play because of
the shortage of chemicals for
lethal injections. As a result of botched
chemical executions, pharmaceutical
companies have blocked the use of their
drugs. And the European
Union, whose
members forbid
the
death penalty, bans
the export of chemicals used for lethal
injection in the U.S., causing American
states to run
out of their supply.
Addicted as they are to death, states such
as Alabama must find another way to
satisfy their bloodlust for lynching.
And
lynching is what this is, which is why the
recent events in Alabama should concern
Black people. The death penalty in
America—particularly in Alabama and other
former confederate states—is a racial
proposition driven by the need to control
Black folks. A majority
of
death row prisoners are
Black, Latinx or other people of color.
However, of the 1,540 people executed
since the 1976 reinstatement of the death
penalty in America, 75 percent of the
victims in those cases were white.
It is no
accident that the places
where
Black people were lynched—predominantly
in
the South—are also the areas where a
higher percentage of Black defendants have
been executed.
“If you
don’t understand the history—that the
modern death penalty is the
direct descendant of
slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow
segregation—you won’t understand why,”
wrote DPIC’s Dunham, whose 2020
report examined
the fundamental role of racism in the use
of the death penalty. “With the continuing
police and white vigilante killings of
Black citizens, it is even more important
now to focus attention on the outsized
role the death penalty plays as an agent
and validator of racial discrimination.
What is broken or intentionally
discriminatory in the criminal legal
system is visibly worse in death penalty
cases,” he added.
With one
of the most secretive
execution policies
in the nation, Alabama is a death penalty
leader, ranking
first in per
capita death sentences, seventh in the
number of executions and having the fourth
largest death row population in the nation
at 166 inmates. And of the 190 inmates
released from death row across the U.S.
due to innocence—one
for every eight people
executed—seven were
from Alabama. Chalk it up to official
misconduct and
perjury or false accusations—the two most
common reasons for wrongful convictions—as
well as false confessions, mistaken
witness identification and false or
misleading forensic evidence.
A center
of racial violence and Black death,
Alabama was the birthplace of the
confederacy and a cradle of the civil
rights movement. The
Equal Justice Initiative found
that of the more than 4,000 reported
lynchings in the South between 1877 and
1950, 359 were in Alabama. And the states
with the greatest appetite for capital
punishment have the worst record on social
welfare and human development. Alabama
ranks
47th in the
nation in education, 45th in health care
and 43rd in crime and corrections, 38th in
economy and 37th in opportunity and
natural environment. The state also ranks
fifth highest in childhood
poverty.
According to a U.N. official, Alabama has
the worst
poverty
in the developed world.
Meanwhile,
Mississippi and Oklahoma, the
other states to authorize nitrogen
hypoxia, rank at or near the bottom in
education, health and other leading
socioeconomic criteria. Jackson, the
capital of Miss., has no drinking water,
but that state gave Brett Favre $6 million
in federal welfare funds to build a
college volleyball stadium.
With its low regard for living
people, Alabama will continue its
executions, one way or another. Rather than
find new ways to kill people and do the work
of the lynch mob, states such as Alabama
must improve the human condition and truly
value life.
This
commentary
is also posted on The Grio
