Last night, CBS’s 60 Minutes discussed Arizona’s “botched” July 2014 execution of Joseph Wood, a convicted murderer who took nearly two hours and 15 doses of a lethal drug cocktail to die. The disturbing episode triggered change in the state’s execution protocol, including switching which drugs are used.

The segment on 60 Minutes left The Arizona Republic’s EJ Montini to wonder, when will the death penalty be abolished in the United States? Arizona’s “unethical, possibly illegal purchase of execution drugs from oversees, along with the state’s grotesque determination to use those drugs to kill death row inmates, and then botching one attempt,” could mark that end. Actually, it should mark the beginning of the end, Montini says in an opinion piece published this morning. 

Here’s part of it:

It speaks to everything that is wrong with capital punishment as it is applied in states like ours, where justice has been supplemented by a monstrously surreal bloodlust and the inability to treat execution for the savagery that it is.

…

This is not to say that Wood was innocent. Just the opposite.

He was a cold-blooded killer. In 1989 he hunted down and shot to death his former girlfriend, Debra Dietz, and her father, Eugene Dietz. He was convicted of the crime. The citizens of the state of Arizona decided to kill him.

And we did.

Only in trying to execute Wood in a “humane” way, as if such a thing is possible, we did just the opposite.

The CBS reporter spoke to Kiefer as well as to Dale Baich, one of Wood’s attorneys, who said, “I’ve witnessed a number of executions before and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

He also spoke with Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who came off like a lame apologist for the state’s clumsy, unethical, possibly illegal effort to get the death penalty drugs under Gov. Jan Brewer’s administration. Brnovich also sounded like a pro-death penalty blowhard hoping to impress conservative voters.

In the end, the person who made the most sense in the CBS report was Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Kozinski’s court has been in the forefront of the legal battle over all of this and he has spoken boldly and bluntly about it.

This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 2, 2015.

I was born and raised in Guatemala City, Guatemala. I moved to Tucson about 10 years ago. Since I was old enough to enjoy reading, I developed an interest in writing, and telling stories through different...

14 replies on “Arizona Republic Column: ‘Death’ of Death Penalty Should Begin in AZ”

  1. It is more then apparent in today’s ‘liberal’ society we care more for the criminal then the victim. Does anyone think for a moment this killer had a shred of humanity when he killed those two people? Why is it these people can look past the horror of what these folks have done to others and say that they deserve better. I for one, believe the manner of execution should be long, drawn out and filled with unspeakable pain.

  2. Plus I thought the President was going to keep the death penalty for people that were accused of adding to global warming. Like those that left the doors open when the heat was on. (real terrorists in his book)

  3. The ONLY problem with abolishing the death penalty is that 2 or 3 decades after the commission of the crime, the witnesses are gone, the evidence is gone, and the public has forgotten the horror of the act. Then, someone who has never been affiliated with the case, gets a notion that this “poor” prisoner should be let out on parole. After all, it just costs us money to keep them in jail and they have paid for their crime. That is utter nonsense! The person or persons they killed can NEVER get paroled from their life sentence. The death penalty is there for a reason. Take a life. Pay for it with yours.

  4. Good ones, David and Kevin. I’m not the biggest Bible reader, but I believe there’s something in there about ” an eye for an eye”. If it’s good enough for God, it’s good enough for me.

  5. I think if your convicted of killing someone and sentenced to death you should suffer the exact same fate as the person you killed. If you shot them you get shot, stab them to death you get stabbed to death. In the case of Jodi Arias killing Travis Alexander, she should have been stabbed 29 times, throat slit and shot in the head. End of story.

  6. Kevin and Robert, then you are little better than the murderers. If a person is sentenced to death, the punishment should be swift and sure, but to add pain and suffering reduces all of us to their level.

  7. I must have miss the intent of the Bible somewhere. “Eye for an eye,” is Old Testament news. According to the 10 Commandments, “Thou shalt not kill.” Where’s the exception for the state, I must have missed it? Even “backward” Mexico doesn’t have the death penalty. Life without parole, imprisonment means just that, life. All the arguments about someone going free are based on ignorance.

  10. John 8:3-11
    “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” …

    Of course most here seem to prefer the Monty Python sketch:

    Peasants: We have found a witch! (A witch! a witch!)
    Burn her burn her!
    Vladimir: How do you know she is a witch?
    Peasant2: She looks like one!

  11. Matthew 5:17-22

    “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ …

  12. I believe the death penalty should be by gun, since that seems to be the choice of many cops around this nation now. Do away with the chemicals and use guns. I don’t believe in the death penalty since it does not stop crime and mass killings. With the mass promotion of guns in this nation, killings will continue.

  13. Once again, guns are not killing people. People are killing people. Of we use real logic from the left we soul outlaw people.

    Is that your attempt with abortion?

Comments are closed.