Manuel had been on death row for 33 years. "I have little doubt," U.S. Supreme Court Justice Breyer wrote, "about the cruelty of so long a period of incarceration under sentence of death."
He was obviously correct. I first visited the Florida state prison at Starke in 1985 – Manuel had already been in residence for several years. They used to test the electric chair regularly, to make sure Ol' Sparky (as they cheerfully called it) was in working order. All the lights would dim in the visiting room and along death row. That was torture enough for the condemned men.
Then, there were the 69 times during Manuel's tenure when the execution chamber was used for real, from John Spenkellink in 1979 to Martin Grossman last year. He would watch a man leave the row for the last time, going to the "death watch cell". Some were men he had known for decades. Willie Darden had suffered through seven warrants, walking that walk seven times, before they finally got him in 1988.
Before Wednesday evening, Amos King held the record. I knew him. He had waited 25 years six months when he died. Valle shattered that mark. But delay has only increased in Florida. Thirty-three prisoners remain who have spent longer than Amos waiting to die.
Various people deem themselves qualified to decide that Manuel Valle was properly killed. No doubt, they will howl that he should have been executed long ago. They will blame Manuel and his lawyers for the delay. But Justice Breyer has already replied to them:
"One cannot realistically expect a defendant condemned to death to refrain from fighting for his life by seeking to use whatever procedures the law allows."
Source: Clive Stafford Smith, The Guardian, October xx, 2011
Related article:
Sep 29, 2011
Manuel Valle, 61, was administered a lethal injection and pronounced dead at 7:14 p.m. Wednesday, the governor's office reported. Valle was the 1st Florida inmate to face execution using the state's newly revised mix of ...
No comments:
Post a Comment