Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.
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Death row executioners discuss life on the other side of the needle
IN Missouri, one of a handful of US states where the death penalty still applies, executioners are handed an envelope filled with hundred-dollar bills.
On the envelopes are instructions not to open until services have been completed. The envelopes vary in weight, depending on the nature of the assignment.
The nurse, for example, gets less than the anaesthesiologist. The anaesthesiologist gets less than the drug supplier.
Until this week, that information was kept a closely-guarded secret. It was revealed when Buzzfeed audited payments and cash withdrawals from Missouri Director of Adult Institutions David Dormire.
They found almost $US300,000 had been paid in cash to a small group of individuals since November 2013. Those individuals were responsible for ending the lives of America’s condemned.
It’s easy to understand why the money is paid in cash. It’s part of a culture of secrecy that helps maintain the executioners’ anonymity, but not every executioner wants to remain anonymous.
Over the years, those brave enough to pull back the curtain have spoken about a job that few people want and even fewer escape without some form of trauma. This is the other side of the story on death row.
‘DADDY HAS TO WORK LATE TONIGHT’
It’s not your normal 9-5 job. In fact, nothing about it is normal.
Kenneth Dean, 52, described in 2000 his role on the “tie-down team” in the busiest death row chamber in Texas. He said his colleagues described him as a “teddy bear” and he had been a part of more than 130 executions.
Dean told The New York Times he survived in the job by embracing the routine. That routine meant including his family — Dean had a daughter, 7, and a son, 13, at the time — in the process.
“I told (my kids) ‘Daddy has to work late tonight, he has an execution’,” he said. His daughter followed up by asking him to explain what he did in detail.
“It’s hard explaining to a seven-year-old,’’ he said. “She asked me, ‘Why do you do it?’ I told her, ‘Sweetie, it’s part of my job’.”
Jerry Givens executed 62 inmates in Virginia between 1982-1999. Sometimes he used lethal injection. At other times he carried out the executions by electrocution.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2013, Givens described his role in detail. He explained how long he waited in the room as 3000 volts rushed through a prisoner’s body and what happened on the day of an execution.
“We would test the equipment frequently, whether we had an execution or not. But on the day of an execution or during that week, we would have all sorts of training. We train for the worst. We train for the man to put up resistance. Most would not, but sometimes it would get rough.
“Most of the time, during the actual execution, I’m back behind the partition, behind a curtain with my equipment. I’m alone as the executioner, but we had a crew that would go and escort the inmate and place him on the gurney or in the chair and strap him down and a doctor who would confirm the heart had stopped after.”
He said he preferred electrocution because it’s simpler and “more humane”.
“That’s more like cutting your lights off and on. It’s a button you push once and then the machine runs by itself. It relieves you from being attached to it in some ways. You can’t see the current go through the body. But with chemicals, it takes a while because you’re dealing with three separate chemicals.
“You are on the other end with a needle in your hand. You can see the reaction of the body. You can see it going down the clear tube. So you can actually see the chemical going down the line and into the arm and see the effects of it. You are more attached to it. I know because I have done it. Death by electrocution in some ways seems more humane.”
Givens said the role affected him in ways he didn’t foresee. He “never enjoyed it” but after 25 years he said he wished he never started.
Executioner Fred Allen said he “snapped” several years after leaving his role in a Texas prison. In 2000, he told documentary makers his role on the tie-down team came back to haunt him.
“I was just working in the shop and all of a sudden something just triggered in me and I started shaking … And tears, uncontrollable tears, were coming out of my eyes. And what it was, was something triggered within and it just — everybody — all of these executions all of a sudden all sprung forward.”
His boss, prison warden Jim Willett, said no person can never prepare themselves for their first execution.
Saudi Arabia executes man for murdering Otaibah tribe woman RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has executed a native citizen. The Ministry of Interior of Saudi Arabia has announced that the execution of a man named Basil Bin Suhail has been carried out. Basil was executed for killing a woman by hitting her with a car.
Prisoners are dragged from their cells at 4am without warning to be given a lethal injection Vietnam's use of the death penalty has been thrust into the spotlight after a real estate tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to be executed in one of the biggest corruption cases in the country's history. Truong My Lan, a businesswoman who chaired a sprawling company that developed luxury apartments, hotels, offices and shopping malls, was arrested in 2022.
The Alabama Supreme Court has authorized the execution of a man convicted of killing a delivery driver who stopped at an ATM. Justices granted the Alabama attorney general's request to authorize an execution date for Keith Edmund Gavin. Governor Kay Ivey will set the day of the execution, which will be carried out by lethal injection.
After the deadly terrorist attack at Moscow's Crocus City Hall, some Russian politicians are debating trying the suspects to Belarus, which still has death penalty. But it's not that simple. The terror attack on Moscow's Crocus City Hall has ignited debate about the reintroduction of the death sentence in Russia. Given that 140 people died and more than 500 were wounded at the concert hall on March 22, 2024, emotions are running high.
There’s an effort underway, in the current legislative session in Baton Rouge, to reverse course on the controversial execution method with Senate Bill 430. When Louisiana legislators approved the use of nitrogen gas asphyxiation as an execution method during a second special legislative session in February, the move attracted national attention; not the least because it has only been used in the U.S. once. That’s when Alabama executed convicted killer Kenneth Eugene Smith on January 25th of this year. Now there’s an effort underway, in the current legislative session in Baton Rouge, to reverse course on the controversial execution method with Senate Bill 430.
9 prisoners of drug charges executed in the central prisons of Kerman, Chabahar and GhezelHesar According to the Iranian Human Rights Society website, on Sunday, April 21st, 2024, 9 prisoners including, Baloch and Kurdish drug suspects were executed in the central prisons of Kerman, Chah bahar, and GhezelHesar.
Machilakath Abdul Rahim, who killed a Saudi teenager in a 2006 accident, now looks set to be freed after friends and celebrities back his release An Indian national convicted of killing the Saudi teenager he was paid to drive has escaped execution in the kingdom after Indians around the globe raised nearly $4 million to save him.
Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO); April 15 2024: Marjan Hajizadeh and Esmail Hassaniani, a couple sentenced to death for drug-related charges in a joint case, were executed in Zanjan Central Prison. Marjan is reported to have been 16 at the time of arrest, which IHRNGO is working to confirm. If verified, she will be the first child offender executed for drug charges since 2014. She was also a child bride forced into marriage.
The Islamic Republic has executed eight more prisoners over the past few days amid a significant spike in death penalties. On April 14, 2024, Hamedan Prison executed Arsalan Hashemi, a man convicted of drug offenses, according to human rights group HRANA.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments centering on an Arizona death row prisoner that could set new precedent to determining ineffective assistance of counsel. A Mohave County Superior Court jury convicted Danny Lee Jones for the 1992 murders of Robert Weaver and his daughter Tisha, as well as the attempted murder of Weaver’s grandmother. A judge sentenced Jones to death for the two murders.