by BJW Nashe
Last week in the news we had a Missouri lawmaker propose that criminals on death row be executed with five-person firing squads. This week we have a Mexican national named Edgar Tamayo executed in Texas despite objections from the U.S. and Mexican governments. These developments are ugly reminders that the death penalty remains a highly contentious issue in America, in spite of some unlikely agreement among those on the left and the right who share an opposition to capital punishment.
Firing Squads in Missouri
Rep. Rick Brattin, a Republican from Harrisonville, introduced a bill in the state assembly last week that would make firing squads a legal means of execution in Missouri, along with lethal gas and lethal injection. The bill, HB 1470, has been filed and read into the House journal but has not been referred to a legislative committee, which is required for any bill to make its way to debate by the full House.
Brattin’s rationale for HB 1470? In an interview, Brattin said his “research” led him to conclude that a firing squad is one of the “most humane” and quickest ways to move forward with executions, especially if the current practice of lethal injection is restricted. “The blunt trauma caused by that many shots — it’s an instantaneous death,” he said. “It’s not electrocution where you’re cooked inside out, or heads being decapitated by hanging.”
There is no word on whether Brattin also considered methods such as stoning, crucifixion, drawing and quartering, breaking on the wheel, beheading with an axe, or the guillotine. All we know is that in his search for an alternative to lethal injection, he found firing squads to be the most sensible option.
The search for alternative methods comes in the midst of a broader debate over death penalty practices in Missouri. The state is experiencing a shortage of lethal drugs and is having difficulty obtaining fresh supplies from international manufacturers who face sanctions from their home countries for selling the drugs used to execute prisoners.
During the past 50 years, Missouri has executed more than 60 prisoners using lethal injection. The lethal mixture of three drugs used to sedate prisoners before killing them has recently become unavailable. Missouri also is legally allowed to execute criminals by gas, but the state has not maintained a gas chamber since 1965. Resuming this practice would involve building new gas chambers, which many lawmakers consider to be a costly burden.
Representative Brattin said, “I see the writing on the wall and what’s going to happen. Let’s come up with a backup plan.” So Missourians can now ponder the possibility of firing squads. Another Republican legislator, Rep. Charlie Davis from Webb City, said that he appreciates Brattin’s perspective, but he does have some concerns.
“When you read some of the studies, they show that when you look at the time it takes death to set in with lethal injection versus the gas chamber versus firing squad, firing squad is instantaneous,” he said. “I don’t know how far it is going to go. I’ve got some concerns over the morbidity.”
Morbidity is a legitimate concern when it comes to just about any execution. In fact, a far simpler solution to the “drug crisis” now plaguing lethal injection in Missouri is to simply stop executing people in that state. Rep. Stacey Newman, a Democrat from St. Louis who opposes the death penalty, said she finds it “horrendous” and “barbaric” that someone would propose using firing squads. She said Missouri should consider eliminating the death penalty altogether.
“Maybe we should be looking at the death penalty. Not everybody has the chance to go through the DNA procedures. There are all kinds of backlogged court cases of people who should not be sitting on death row. Is that really what we want to do as Missouri, having five people standing there shooting at someone?”
A Controversial Execution in Texas
Meanwhile, in nearby Texas an internationally controversial execution by lethal injection has been carried out in spite of objections from plenty of people in high places. In Texas there is no shortage of drugs — not yet, at least.
In January 1994, Edgar Tamayo — who was not a legal resident of the U.S. — was arrested for robbery in the Houston area. A 24 year-old police officer named Guy Gaddis — a cop on the Houston police force for two years, was driving Tamayo and another man to the police station when he was shot three times in the head and neck with a pistol Tamayo had concealed in his trousers. Officer Gaddis died, and Edgar Tamayo was convicted of murder and placed on death row.
Texas is the worst place in the nation to end up on death row, since Texas executes more prisoners than anywhere else in the U.S. In 2013, sixteen people were put to death in Texas, compared to seven in Florida — the state that comes in second place in the execution sweepstakes.
On January 22, 2014, Tamayo , 46, was executed in Texas following objections from both the U.S. and Mexican governments, while public protests were held on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.
In Mexico, government officials and attorneys have argued that Tamayo’s execution would violate international law, because he was not notified of his right to seek legal assistance from the Mexican consulate when he was arrested in Houston. Tamayo’s lawyers argued that he was protected under a provision of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations that allows arrested citizens of foreign countries to receive legal assistance from their consulates. Such assistance might have uncovered evidence to contest the capital murder charge or to keep Tamayo off death row.
In the U.S., Secretary of State John Kerry requested that Texas delay the execution by lethal injection in order to review whether the lack of access prejudiced the outcome of the case. In a letter to state officials, Secretary Kerry, a former prosecutor, said he had “no reason to doubt the facts of Mr Tamayo’s conviction,” but was worried about how the case could impact U.S.-Mexico relations and might affect the way Americans are treated overseas.
Former Texas Governor Mark White also called for a review of the case, writing in the Austin American-Statesman newspaper that while he was a proponent of capital punishment, he thought that “this case is not about whether we support or oppose the death penalty. It’s about fairness and having the courts hear all the key facts.”
Neither Secretary Kerry’s or former Governor White’s call to delay Tamayo’s execution were heeded by Texas state officials.
A last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court did cause the execution to be briefly delayed, as officials at Huntsville Prison waited for the Court’s decision. When the Supreme Court announced it had denied a stay of execution, Texas proceeded to end the life of Tamayo, who declined to make a final statement, and was then administered a fatal injection of pentobarbital. Seventeen minutes later, he was pronounced dead at 09:32 PM. The execution was witnessed by the mother of Tamayo’s victim, Officer Gaddis, as well as four other Gaddis family relatives.
Texas officials have maintained that their procedures were in accordance with U.S. Supreme Court guidance. A spokesperson for Governor Rick Perry said, “It doesn’t matter where you’re from. If you commit a despicable crime like this in Texas, you are subject to our state laws, including a fair trial by jury and the ultimate penalty.”
In 2004, Tamayo was one of four dozen Mexican nationals awaiting execution in the U.S. when the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled they had not been properly advised of their consular rights. President Bush ordered Texas, and the other states involved, to review the cases. However, in 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the states, stating that the president could not effectively enforce The Hague’s ruling without legislation passed by Congress.
Tamayo is now the third prisoner from The Hague case to be executed over the Mexican government’s objections.
Searching for Common Ground
It is worth noting that in our increasingly polarized political landscape, the death penalty is one issue where liberals and conservatives might be able to find common ground.
Liberals and progressives have long opposed capital punishment on legal, political, and moral grounds. Conservatives have tended to support the death penalty as a key component of their “tough on crime” policies. This sharp division is no longer as clear cut as it once appeared to be.
We are now seeing a significant number of conservatives, including key figures in Republican and Libertarian circles, rethinking their position in regard to the death penalty. Firing squads, gas chambers, and lethal injections are no longer all that appealing to these folks. A new coalition called Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty (CCATDP) debuted at CPAC in Maryland last year, and has since gained considerable publicity. This group argues that executions are too costly, too ineffective as a deterrent to crime, and an egregious exercise of state power that poses a threat to individual rights.
The conservative argument in favor of individual rights and liberties is particularly persuasive, and is shared by many on the liberal end of the political spectrum. Governments make mistakes. Sometimes the criminal justice system convicts the wrong person. According to Amnesty International, 130 people have been released from death rows since 1973 due to evidence which proves that they were wrongfully convicted. Many other cases have been reviewed in which new evidence suggests that criminals were executed when in fact they were innocent.
There is a real opportunity here for Americans who disagree so often about so many things to work together to end the costly and unjust practice of capital punishment. It is not unreasonable to expect that in the next decade or so we might be spared the sort of disturbing news reports we are now seeing from Missouri and Texas.