Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018 Deadly Justice, Ch 8-10 -Delays on death row -Exonerations and Innocence -Methods Announcements: Catch-up from last time: Questions before we start? Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018 Delays Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018 Appeals, not trials Crime to death sentence Death sentence to execution Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018 About 10 percent “volunteer”. Note some do it right away, but others only after 20 years of waiting… Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Constitutional questions Lackey v. Texas (1995): Can they make me wait 15 years, and then execute me? Court: Yes. Betterman v. Montana (2016): Can they make me sit in jail for 14 months, post-conviction, without telling me my punishment? Court: Yes. Jones v. Chapell (2014): Can the state of California hold people routinely for 25+ years, then select a random handful for execution? Court: Federal judges have no jurisdiction, since the state of California has not completed its review of the case. (Note the irony – can the state take 45 years? 65 years? 100 years to review the case?) Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Additional value of death, after 40 years of death row? Judge in Jones v. Chapell (2014): the state has no additional penological interest in execution after such a long delay. Not deterrence. Not retribution. The punishment is already extreme. Judge also noted that no law that mandated this punishment: 45 years in solitary confinement, followed by a random draw to determine which few get executed, would be constitutional. But that’s the California system. But this case was never heard on the merits because the state had not completed its review of Mr. Jones’ case… Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018 Exonerations DPIC exoneration list https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row 161 individuals as of January 2018 National Registry of Exonerations https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/about.aspx Over 2,100 exonerations since 1989, growing at about 3 per week Includes non-death cases of course. Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Death row exonerations Numbers of exonerations per year How long they wrongly served in prison Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Fantastic book on this topic, from 2008. Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Attention to Innocence transformed the debate Media Coverage of innocence Pro- v. anti-Death Penalty Stories Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Methods: Hanging was most common once Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018 Modern methods: Hanging, then Electric Chair, Gas Chamber, then Lethal Injection Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Contributions of the Gerry family to US history Elbridge Gerry (elder): The original 1821 Gerrymander Elbridge Gerry (younger): Chaired the State of New York commission to replace hanging with a more civilized method of execution. The choice: Electrocution Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Westinghouse and Edison No standard, AC or DC, huge commercial competition Edison losing the “battle of the currents” He promotes Westinghouse’s system as the ideal way to kill people. Hopes this will discredit the rival and associate his system with danger. Guarantees to lawmakers that it will “kill in the 10 thousandth part of a second” Who is to argue, and they adopt it. First electrocution in 1890, terrible botch. Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018 Lethal injections Oklahoma medical examiner, let’s improve on the electric chair 3 drug cocktail Sedative Paralytic agent (stop all muscle movement, such as twitching, grimacing) Stop the heart Some key questions If #1 fails, but #2 works, how would we know if #3 caused undue suffering? What is the point of #2 anyway? Certainly not for the inmate’s benefit. The Medicalization paradox Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018 Post-mortem study of amount of anesthetic in the blood (Figure 10.4, from The Lancet) Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018

Back to the firing squad? We have never gone backwards. Each generation has declared finding a higher level of civilization compared to previous ones: electrocution, gas chamber, lethal injection. None has proven immune to botched application (No one has much practice, after all) For the Court: Isolated mishaps must be distinguished from systematic torture Lethal injection: No doctors, so can a prison guard do it? No drug imports, so can states get them from just anywhere? Very hard to regulate a medical procedure if no doctors involved… Baumgartner, POLI 203, Spring 2018