Saturday Data: The State Business of Killing

  

 

   Arkansas executed four inmates last week...trying to beat the expiration date on one of the chemicals they use in their lethal injection process. They wanted to execute twice as many, but courts got in the way.
 

 

Chart from Death Penalty Info Center

    Executions are down in the U.S., partly because of flaws in the lethal injection process.

     There are almost two hundred inmates awaiting execution on Alabama's Death Row. One has been there for almost forty years!
The second longest held death row inmate is a Montgomery man who was convicted of killing a convenience store clerk during  a robbery. He's been on death row since 1984.
     Just one execution happened in Alabama in 2016, and so far, none in 2017.
     Trivia: April 8th was the 90th anniversary of the first use of the

electric chair in Alabama. Even after the legislature approved the use of lethal injection, the chair was kept in working order to prevent any inmates from appealing because of the change in method. In fact inmates are given a choice. The chair, or the injection.
     None has chosen "Old Yellow Mama" as the chair is  nicknamed. The yellow color came because the most readily available paint came from the supply used by the state Highway Department to paint yellow stripes on roads.

[Saturday Data is a regular feature of www.TimLennox.com]

Founded 2007