US execution: ‘Brutal weapon in hands of capitalist rulers’
https://themilitant.com/2020/07/18/us-execution-brutal-weapon-in-hands-of-capitalist-rulers/
BY ROY LANDERSEN
Vol. 84/No. 29
July 27, 2020
The U.S. government carried out the first federal execution in 17 years
July 14, fast tracking the killing of Daniel Lee, in Terre Haute,
Indiana. The fact that he was strapped on a gurney with an IV needle in
his arm for four hours awaiting court decisions on his fate underlined
the cruelty of the state’s determination to put him to death. His
lawyers were not told of his death until after the execution.
By a 5-4 majority, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled shortly after 2 a.m.
that they wouldn’t consider the objections because they were too
“last-minute.” The court also overrode arguments that the use of the
barbiturate pentobarbital would cause “extreme pain and needless
suffering” akin to drowning. Observers at the execution reported Lee’s
breathing did become labored, and after his chest stopped moving his
lips turned blue and his fingers ashy.
The execution was opposed by Earlene Peterson, the 81-year-old mother of
one of Lee’s victims, as well as her daughter and granddaughter. They
asked for a postponement, saying they wanted to attend, but feared
traveling to Indiana because of the coronavirus outbreak. They planned
to use their attendance to speak out against the death penalty.
“Just 10 minutes passed between the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
revoking the last outstanding objection stopping Lee’s execution, in an
order at 7:36 a.m., and the curtain in the execution chamber being
pulled back at 7:46 a.m. to reveal Lee strapped to a gurney,” Reuters
reported.
Public support for this barbaric practice has been declining for years
among working people. Still the death penalty has been defended as a
federal law by Democratic and Republican administrations alike. While
President Donald Trump calls for extending its use, it was President
Bill Clinton who expanded the number of crimes to which it applies, some
60 additional offenses.
The Justice Department has scheduled two more executions for later this
next week.
Reflecting the shift against this barbarity, 32 states have abolished
the death penalty or haven’t carried out an execution in over a decade.
An October 2019 national poll found respondents favored life
imprisonment for capital offenses over execution by 60% to 34%.
“Capital punishment is a brutal weapon of terror in the hands of the
capitalist rulers, ultimately used to intimidate the working class and
its vanguard fighters,” Alyson Kennedy, Socialist Workers Party
candidate for president, said July 14. “The Socialist Workers Party
fights for its complete abolition.”
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Richard Dawkins
“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all
decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this
sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running
for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from
within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation,
thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this
very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the
natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons
and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people
are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find
any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has
precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no
purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
― Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
