Plea to delay Florida execution
Attorneys for Mark Dean Schwab, a Florida death row inmate due to be executed at 6 p.m. next Thursday, asked the Supreme Court on Friday to impose a delay until it can act on a coming appeal to challenge Florida’s use of lethal injection for executions (Schwab v. Florida, application 07A383; the papers can be found here.)
The coming petition, the application said, will raise the same issues that the Court has agreed to consider this Term in a Kentucky case, Baze v. Rees (07-5439) — a claim that the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment is violated by the current three-chemical protocol used in lethal injections. In addition, the application noted, those are the issues the Court had before it in three other cases in which it postponed executions since agreeing to hear the Baze case in late September.
Moreover, the application said that the state of Florida “uses the same three drug regimen” as is used in Kentucky and in all states but one that carry out executions by the use of lethal drugs.
Florida’s Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling on Nov. 1, upheld the constitutionality of that protocol as implemented in Florida, finding that sufficient safeguards had been put in place since an execution in December 2006 — of inmate Angel Diaz — in which the procedure took 34 minutes to complete the execution. The day after that execution, other death row inmates filed a challenge to the use of the method.
When the state court refused on Wednesday to delay Schwab’s execution date, one of the judges joining in that denial said that Schwab’s proper next step should be to seek a stay from the Supreme Court. “It should be that Court’s decision to determine whether it intends a de facto moratorium on the death penalty and whether the issues it is presently reviewing regarding lethal injection justify a stay of Schwab’s execution,” Justice Barbara J. Pariente wrote.
Schwab’s application was filed with Justice Clarence Thomas, who is the Circuit Justice for the area that includes Florida. He has the authority to act alone on the stay request, or to refer it to his colleagues. Other stay applications in lethal injection cases have been referred to and acted upon by the full Court.
I wish the Supreme Court would consider that lethal injection is a far less cruel and unusual way in which to die than the ways in which the vast majority of homicide victims die. Were I sitting on the Supreme Court I would consider the manner in which the victim was killed in deciding whether the punishment fit the crime.
Many victims, most likely including the child murdered by this pervert, take a substantially longer time to die than even a botched lethal injection. At least with a lethal injection the criminal is unconcious. Not so for the average murder victim who must endure whatever the perptrator chooses to subject them to awake and fully aware.
It is time we stopped being so concerned about the criminals and started being a lot more concerned with the victims.
Comment by Dawnna Masters — November 15, 2007 @ 3:58 pm
Cruel and unusual punishment? Tell me, how does going peacefully to sleep compare with the terror and pain that poor boy must have experienced? How does knowing when your end will take place, having the chance to make peace with your God, compare to the horror of knowing whether you’ll live or die? Cruel and unusual?? Why should someone tried and convicted of such a disgusting crime be shown any mercy? How long did his victum suffer? Take that into account and punish him accordingly. I believe crimes against children should be dealt with the utmost severity, no mercy. Children are our innocents, Gods true gift. Anyone who destroys that beauty deserves nothing less than cruel and unusual punishment.
Comment by Daniel Colaluca — November 15, 2007 @ 8:49 pm