Use of the " Death Penalty " for the most serious crimes has been replaced with " life with no possibility of parole " in many world jurisdictions. Surprisingly, the United States of America is one of the few countries that sticks with punishing murder by application of the death penalty, and over the years the form this takes has taken some strange twists and turns.
In earlier centuries, hanging and death by a firing squad were common, but the Americans were innovative and the death procedure moved on to what was called " the Electric chair " - and later to the " Gas chamber ". We were assured that all these were both quick and relatively painless, and it became the custom to demand that the ending of a felon's life be conducted in a " merciful " manner.
In recent times, this morphed into the condemned being strapped down onto a gurney and connected to a machine that dispensed drugs. On a time schedule, drugs that rendered the person unconscious flowed through needles inserted in veins and then a drug mix that stopped the heart took effect. The attending doctor then pronounced that death had occurred.
This has been the principle execution method in America for past decades, but activism amongst the manufacturers of the drugs used has resulted in supply bans stopping their availability. As a result, executions seem to be stuck in a time warp as prison authorities try various other drug combinations to overcome the ban - and in some cases this has had disastrous results.
This week in Florence, Arizona a condemned murderer took one hour and fifty-seven minutes to die when the drugs used failed to deliver a merciful death. It was obvious to those tasked with witnessing the execution that this man died a " slow and agonising death " - and yet there are no plans to revert to older methods of execution that avoid this outcome.
Similar situations have occurred in the few states that still insist on imposing the death penalty and this has breathed new life into the activists who want executions banned completely and the hardliners who fear that unless they can quickly find a reliable - and painless - method of death the matter may be decided by the US Supreme court.
To some victims of crime there may be a degree of satisfaction in knowing that executions strike terror into the hearts of the condemned. The prospect of a long and lingering death for the occupants of " death row " may possibly atone for the misery their actions caused to the families of the bereaved. Not everyone believes that execution should be a "merciful release " - and the present situation delivers a revenge factor.
It seems strange that in this wonderful age that has seen a human land on the moon and in which humans are instantly connected to one another on a world wide basis by electronic communications - we are still mixing various chemicals and wondering how to achieve a painless death for those that have crossed the threshold of " unacceptable behaviour " - and are condemned to die.
It seems that despite great leaps of progress - we still have much to learn !
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