Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Has the time come to fire up “Old Sparky,” the nickname given to the electric chair that served as Ohio’s primary means of capital punishment in the 20th century? Some may rightly ask that question today in the wake of the newly prolonged moratorium on executions by lethal injection for the state’s worst of the worst criminals.
Federal Judge Gregory Frost earlier this month extended a months-long moratorium on executions in the Buckeye State into next year as questions mount about the effectiveness of a new, two-drug combination used to carry out capital punishment.
The debate over the death penalty has intensified, and lethal injection has been under increased scrutiny after executions using death-inducing drugs went awry in Ohio, Oklahoma and Arizona this year. Last winter, convicted Ohio rapist and murderer Dennis McGuire endured 26 minutes of snorting, gurgling and gasping for air before the three-drug cocktail finally took hold and killed him.
In Tennessee, state leaders have responded to the controversy by making the electric chair mandatory punishment when viable lethal injection methods are unavailable. Unlike this year’s series of prolonged botched executions, electric chair-executions typically zap convicts to kingdom come after only two to three minutes of 2,000-volt jolts.
Given the many constitutional challenges surrounding that method of execution, Ohio would be ill-advised to follow Tennessee’s lead and put Old Sparky back to work. At the same time, however, the unfortunate botched executions should not serve as an opportunist rationale for abandoning capital punishment altogether, as the American Civil Liberties Union and others argue.
Though the methodology of capital punishment needs tweaked, the philosophy of the death sentence stands firm. The death penalty is neither inhumane nor retributive. It is justice.
Executions at the Lucasville Death Chamber, after all, are not primarily a transaction between a criminal and his victim or the victim’s family. It is a process whereby the state seeks justice for the people of Ohio. And despite judicial misgivings about the procedural aspects of the state’s system of lethal injection, courts here have not challenged the constitutionality of capital punishment as a form of meting out that justice.
Longest execution
Nonetheless, Ohio and other states using lethal cocktails must work harder to ensure the problems surrounding McGuire’s execution — the longest in state history — are resolved and not repeated. Ethical controversies over lethal injections have resulted in many drug manufacturers forbidding U.S. prisons from using drugs that had provided quick and efficient executions over the past two decades.
From now until the current moratorium on capital punishment is lifted next January, officials in the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction must vigilantly explore all viable alternatives. For starters, they can reach out for input from their peers in other states in which lethal injections have been carried out smoothly.
But they must not dally. Popular support for the death penalty remains overwhelming. A 2014 Quinnipiac Poll shows more than two-thirds of Ohioans (68 percent) endorse capital punishment.
The state must respect that sentiment by working expeditiously to find a more suitable injectable execution solution. The longer the state delays cold-blooded killers’ legitimate and constitutional dates with death, the longer justice will be denied to the victims’ survivors and to the purity of jurisprudence in Ohio.
No, “Old Sparky” should not be given a new lease on life. But neither should convicted murderers who have wreaked havoc on the lives of victims’ families and on the sanctity of state law.