enthalpy

Saturday, October 21, 2006


I can't imagine the desperation of waiting 11 years on death row, and apparently neither could this guy.
Even as his attorney worked on last-minute appeals to save him from a Thursday night execution, death row inmate Michael DeWayne Johnson slashed his throat with a makeshift knife. The dying inmate then used his blood to write a final message on the wall of his cell: "I did not shoot him."

Prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said Johnson cut his jugular vein and an artery in his right arm with a blade fastened to what appeared to be Popsicle sticks. He was last seen alive at 2:30 a.m. as guards made their regular four-times-an-hour death-watch check of his cell.
Sitting in prison for 11 years and then killing yourself with a Popsicle stick? How horrible.
Lyons said Johnson spoke with guards and gave no indication he planned to take his own life. No suicide note was found.
Um, unless you count the "I did not shoot him" written on the wall with his own blood.

I don't really want to get off on a death penalty rant, but stories like this are sickening. I don't have a problem with guilty people being executed, but the probability of innocent people getting zapped is not zero, and it's left to the State to make that determination. The state can't effectively pave roads or provide proper drainage for its cities. I have a real problem with giving that much power to the same state that can't figure out that water runs downhill.



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