Posts Tagged ‘death penalty’
“A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on”*…
When states ran out of execution drugs, they started paying tens of thousands of dollars to Chris Harris, a salesman in India with no pharmaceutical background…
The sad tale in its entirety at: “This Is The Man In India Who Is Selling States Illegally Imported Execution Drugs.”
* William S. Burroughs
###
As we plan our last meals, we might recall that it was on this date in 1659 that William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, two Quakers who had come to the New World from England in 1656 to escape religious persecution, are hanged in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for their religious beliefs. The two had violated a law passed by the Massachusetts General Court the year before, banning Quakers from the colony under penalty of death. A third Quaker, Mary Dyer, was arrested with Robinson and Stevenson, and marched to the execution spot with them, but given a reprieve at the last moment– banished (again) from the Colony. She returned the following year, was apprehended, and hanged. Together, the three are known as the “Boston martyrs.”
Stevenson, Dyer, and Robinson being led to their fates.
I have this recurring nightmare about an exam for which I haven’t studied…
… the first of a series of questions at Nation’s Report Card‘s (U.S. Department of Education’s) web site– in the Fourth Grade section. Having completed those, readers can graduate to Eighth and Twelfth Grade exams.
Makes one grateful for innovations in teaching like this one.
As we agree with Sam Cooke (and then again, wish that our Presidential contenders didn’t), we might recall that it was on this date in 1972 that the U.S. Supreme Court decided Furman vs. Georgia by a 5-4 vote, declaring capital punishment unconstitutional. But it wasn’t a conclusive victory for death-penalty foes: the majority based its decision on flaws in jury selection and sentencing processes… which were addressed by several states over the next few years. So, in 1976, when the issue came again before the Justices, they ruled that capital punishment could be resumed under a “model of guided discretion.” And it was– with the 1977 execution (by firing squad) of Gary Gilmore in Utah. In 2010, the U.S. ranked fifth in the world in the number of legal executions performed (behind China, Iran, North Korea, and Yemen; ahead of Saudi Arabia, Lybia, Syria, and the rest of the countries in the world).
You must be logged in to post a comment.