Del. prepares for its first execution since 2005

AP/Washington Examiner ^ | 7/28/11 | JESSICA GRESKO

[markomalley]

Delaware is moving closer to executing its first prisoner since 2005 as time runs out for the legal appeals of a man convicted of killing a woman with an ax.

Robert Jackson III is scheduled to die by lethal injection early Friday, between 12:01 a.m. and 3 a.m. On Wednesday, the Delaware Supreme Court and a federal judge in Wilmington both rejected requests by Jackson's lawyers to halt his execution. Now it's up to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia and the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether to allow the execution to proceed.

Jackson was convicted of killing Hockessin resident Elizabeth Girardi in 1992 during a botched burglary. If his execution goes forward, he would be the first inmate to be executed in Delaware using the drug pentobarbital.

Like other states, Delaware said it would use pentobarbital after a nationwide shortage of another key execution drug, sodium thiopental, the first of three drugs Delaware was using to carry out executions. Supplies of sodium thiopental dried up after the drug's only U.S. manufacturer ceased production. As a result, the Delaware Department of Correction changed its procedures in May to allow for the use of pentobarbital. Both drugs are used to anesthetize a prisoner before two other lethal chemicals are administered.

[Popman]

Dumbass should have put her in a trash bag and dumped in the woods / S

[tet68]

Supplies of sodium thiopental dried up after the drug’s only U.S. manufacturer ceased production.

So buy it somewhere else. DOH!

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

So buy it somewhere else. DOH!

There was a fuss in England (when isn't there?) when a U.S. State (Texas, I believe) imported the drug from the UK. Most European countries will not allow it to be exported to the U.S. Some states buy if from India. Sodium thiopental is used to knock out the convict prior to administering the lethal drugs, for humanitarian purposes. Some states simply execute convicts without administering it, now.

[octex]

So this ass has been living on the taxpayers’ dollars for almost 20 years, with three hots and a cot, TV, recreation, library, lawyers, etc., and they’re just NOW getting around to carrying out the sentence.

I know our judicial system provides for the right to a speedy trial, but it should also provide for the speedy execution, which would save a lot of money and prevent overcrowding of our prisons. Recall that a couple of months ago some CA judge ruled that the state had to release about 45,000 felons due to overcrowding?

Allowing death row inmates to drag out multiple appeals over a 20-25 year span is costly and is not swift justice; and many of the victims’ family members may have already passed on without that closure.

Prisoners sentenced to die should be given only one appeal within six months after sentencing, barring really unusual evidence turning up during that period, and then be executed. ....How is the death sentence a deterrent currently to so many of those people, when they know they can stretch out another 25 years of living on the dole and not having to work for a living?

Sometimes I think the law of the old West, as we have seen in movies and read in history, might be the right way. Guilty, death penalty, and hung within a couple of days.

[st.eqed]

Don’t worry. They will speed up the execution process when Christianity becomes illegal. I am just annoyed that the Feds have a say in the carrying out of justice over a state.