Word: paines
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...STATE of Alabama executed John Evans last Friday night. For Evans, a convicted murderer, that execution was anything but painless. Even if one can temporarily disregard the mental anguish associated with any execution, the physical pain must have been terrible. It required three 30-second blasts of electricity at 1900 volts to kill Evans over a 10-minute period--a long time in which to carry out any kind of execution...
...does change the responsibility of society toward the convict. Prolonging the execution, as was done to Evans, smacks of torture. Forcing him to endure another attempt, on the other hand, is torture of a different sort, one difficult to measure, for it concerns mental and not physical pain...
Having subjected Evans once to the prospect of facing death and having inflicted on him some of the physical pain of the execution as well, forcing him once again to go to the chair--this time merely to finish what was previously begun--seems not only cruel but unnecessary. For the convicted criminal, as for the terminally ill patient, surely the process of dying begins long before the physical process of death itself. Advocates of capital punishment as a deterrent should admit that the experience of an unsuccessful execution attempt is grisly enough to act as a sufficient deterrent against...
...becomes more commonplace in this country. But the Evans case raises once again the questions surrounding capital punishment, and not only because of its bizarre and tragic circumstances. It deserves not merely a discussion of how to "improve" capital punishment--which would not answer the larger question of mental pain--but also reconsideration of whether there can be any method of capital punishment that is humane...
...most Crimson runners, the task was to finish. Some did it in pain, some in style, some in euphoria, and most with a sense of humor Reactions at the finish included...