READING EAGLE, READING, PA.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2015

A5

Executing Justice
Punishment in America.
At some point the death
penalty is going to have to be
ended by the Supreme Court,
he said.
But the concern is with
four reliable abolition votes
on the court and a possible
swing vote in Justice Anthony
Kennedy that not acting
could result in missing what
Mandery calls the Kennedy
Moment.
Whether the Supreme
Court weighs in or not, few
would disagree that capital
punishment itself is slowly
dying.
We should be more humble
about our legal system and
what it can do, said Stephen
Bright, president and senior
counsel for the Southern Center for Human Rights, an advocacy group in Atlanta. Its
just human beings and its not
fail-proof.
What I think is really going to happen to the death
penalty, is its going to die on
the vine.

Old Smokey
Capital punishment in the
Keystone State dates to the
colonists arrival in the late
1600s. Public hanging was
used for a number of crimes
then from burglary and robbery, to piracy and rape, as
well as murder.
The electric chair replaced
the gallows in 1913. Since, the
state has electrocuted 348
men and two women in the
same chair. The last electrocution was Elmo Lee Smith in
1962. Pennsylvania changed
the execution method to lethal injection in 1990.
Today the chair, nicknamed
Old Smokey, sits in storage
in the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. It has
never been on display.

A failed experiment?

Source: State Museum of

Pennsylvania
READING EAGLE: SUSAN L. ANGSTADT (PHOTO)

[ A4 >>> ]
Hyden described capital
punishment in the U.S. as
an utterly failed government
program, a sentiment echoed
by others.
He added, Being against
the death penalty isnt just for
bleeding-heart liberals.

moratoriums on executions
since Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences
of 167 death row prisoners
in 2003.
While support for abolition
has been building, similar to
the marriage equality ght, it
is distinct in at least one very
important way: Death penalty
Its not fail-proof
opponents have already sufFour governors includ- fered a major setback. Just as
ing Wolf have implemented the U.S. was poised to abolish

capital punishment, the Supreme Court in 1976 crafted

a compromise that reinstated
it.
Death penalty opponents
are even more risk-averse
because of the constitutional history of capital punishment, said Evan Mandery, a
John Jay College of Criminal
Justice professor and author
of A Wild Justice: The Death
and Resurrection of Capital

Nearly 100 countries have

abolished the death penalty,
many since the United States
reinstated capital punishment nearly four decades
ago. The U.S. is one of nearly
60 countries with an active
death penalty system, keeping
company with such nations as
Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq
and North Korea.
While abolitionists have exerted tremendous inuence
on the fight here putting
pressure on drug makers and
health care organizations it
has not gone unchallenged.
Capital punishment supporters in Nebraska pushed back
by collecting enough signatures to put the issue of abolition before voters.

OYSTER PERPETUAL SUBMARINER DATE

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oyster perpetual and submariner are trademarks.

Utah legislators brought

back the ring squad in the
event ever-scarce execution
drugs cannot be obtained.
California Gov. Jerry
Browns administration announced a single-drug protocol to restart executions after
a nearly 10-year hiatus following a court ruling last year
that found that states death
penalty system unconstitutional because of system-wide
delays similar to Pennsylvanias. A federal appeals court
has since overturned the
lower courts ruling.
And in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia District Attorney
Seth Williams led a lawsuit
challenging the governors
authority to issue temporary reprieves to death row
inmates.
Wolf has said he will issue
reprieves until a long-overdue
report on the states death
penalty system is completed.
The report is expected this
spring. A decision from the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court,
which heard oral arguments
in September, is pending.
Even as these factions battle over this divisive policy, it
has grown increasingly frustrating for those on both sides
of the issue from the victims
families, the defense attorneys, prosecutors and judges
and even among those sentenced to death.
Its been 40 years of experimenting with a new death
penalty, said Dieter, the
Death Penalty Information
Center program director. I
dont think that anybody
could say the experiment has
been a rousing success.
Pennsylvania has been an
example of how hard it is to
x all the problems.
Contact Nicole C. Brambila: 610-3715044 or nbrambila@readingeagle.com.

Executing
Justice
About this series: A ve-day
look at Pennsylvanias controversial death penalty system from the perspectives of
those it touches victims
families, a prosecutor and
defense attorney, judges and
the condemned.
Today: The widow of a slain
Reading police officer shares
her pain, and the convicted
killer apologizes.
Monday: A defense attorney
shares why he opposes the
death penalty.
Tuesday: A former prison
chaplain talks about a convicted killers nal hours before execution.
Wednesday: An exoneree makes peace with the 16
years he lost in prison, 10 on
death row.
Thursday: A murder victims
son extends forgiveness to
his familys killer.
Online at
readingeagle.com:
View an interactive timeline of Reading
police officers killed in the
line of duty since 1900.
Watch a video about the
death penalty in Pennsylvania.
Listen to reporter Nicole
Brambila and photographer Susan L. Angstadt talk
about the series in a WEEU
interview.
Read our previous coverage on the death penalty.