Notification Reading Response #1

Notification Reading Response
By: Joshua Williams
Class: 812



     I have read the Article,"To Kill or Not To Kill" by Patricia Smith about how Americas solution for humane punishment is starting to fade into torturous suffering. This article shows me that there have been recent sightings that executions have been having efficiency problems. The victims have been taking longer to pass on, resulting to long lasting pain. This puts the question, if we should keep executing our wrongdoers or if we should find a more humane punishment for our wrongdoers. But, before others agree to that, they need to understand exacly how horrible and painful the last couple executions have been.
     One example of a horrible execution is the execution that took place in 1999. A man named Lockett was sentenced to death for killing and burying a 19 year old woman. However, during his execution, they gave him a leathal injection, but the untested drug combination of a sedative and paralyzingly agent had failed. Thirty minutes later, he died of a heart attack. Lockett's lawyer, Dean Sanderford said, "It looked like torture". This shows how incredibly dangerous this method of torture is.
     Also, another example of how horrible the last few executions have been was in July, it took  nearly two hours in Arizona to execute Joseph R. Wood by lethal injection: a reporter counted 640 gasps before the convicted murderer finally died. "It just looked horrible". said the reporter visiting the execution of Joseph R. Wood. This example shows yet another flaw with the way the government tries to deal with criminals with their own so called humane punishment. The author put these examples in the text to show us that the way the government handles the corrupted citizens in our society is wrong and we as the people need to demand  a new humane way to bring punishment to the criminals of tomorrow.
     In conclusion, this article showed me that the execution devices we use today are to dangerous. They are unstable and if we continue to use these execution devices, we will be doing nothing but torturing the people to death. I think the executions should be stopped. I don't know if I have anything to say about my life that can relate to the article that I have read, but I hope that one day things will change and the government will come to their senses and find a better way to bring justice to the criminals we know today. This article made me think about our society differently and makes me hope for change swiftly. I hope you, the reader of this text, will think the same.