This week the State of Arkansas put to death two men who had been on death row for over two decades each. The two men had both been put on death row for the rape and murder of two young women in the early 1990s. Jack Jones, a fifty-two-year-old man, had been charged with the murder of Mary Phillips in 1995. 46-year-old Marcel Williams, on the other hand, was accused of killing 22-year-old Stacy Erikkson after he had kidnapped and molested her. Additionally, local authorities said that Williams had committed two other murders before enough evidence was found to charge him with the Erikkson murder. The execution of the two men, along with last week’s execution of Ledell Lee, mark the first US mass execution since the Texas 2000 executions, which took place a year after the State of Arkansas carried out a lethal injection execution.
With all the hype about the historical significance of the event, take the time to think of the reaction of the various parties involved. What would you do if somebody you were personally acquainted with was put up for death row? These were some of the reactions that the executions drew from various parties.
The Reactions
Everyone is going to die someday. That is a fact that most people do not contend with daily. One day you might be walking up a sidewalk and be involved in an accident. You might pass away peacefully in your sleep or live a long agonizing life with an age-related disease. What makes life tolerable is the suddenness we associate with our death. Things are a bit different when a person knows he or she is going to die, say, of cancer. He or she may decide to give up on life altogether or make maximum use of it. It is worse when an individual knows that he is about to pass on and that many people support that death.
With their years of incarceration, Jones and Williams had time to reflect upon their crimes. They might have thought about what they did and how it shaped the lives of others. One may even go as far as to say that they regretted their actions and would have chosen a different path given the option. Their final words to the world are a testament to this fact.
Jack Jones, who had diabetes and later from an amputation, apologized to the family of his victim. He said that he regretted his actions against his Mary Phillips’ daughter but did not feel he deserved her forgiveness. The touching sentiment was followed by his statement that he ‘forgives his executors’ as he knows they were just doing their duty. Williams was not quite as insightful as Jack Jones but remarked that he wished he could take back the harm he had done, but that was not a possible recourse.
Over twenty years is a lifetime for an individual to live with the guilt of his or her actions as the statements given by the two men attest.
Another group of persons who had ready reactions was the convicts’ attorneys. One cannot tell as to their thoughts on the innocence or guilt of their clients, but it is clear that Williams’ and Jones’ attorneys tried their level best to get the two men off death row. The solicitors filed a series of appeals throughout the years, down to the day before the execution. In each case, they had various arguments with them. These arguments ranged from one court’s lack of jurisdiction to the prisoners’ poor health. The lawyers for both men thought that the death penalty would be a torturous experience for Williams and Jones. For Williams, concerns about his size possibly leading to incorrect insertion of IV tubes were raised. Jones’ attorney said that Jones had been on medication that would make him immune from the effects of the sedative used in the process. The courts dismissed all these claims and other stays that the lawyers had petitioned for, calling the stays ‘classic delaying litigation tactics’.
The Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson commended the Department of Correction for its ‘flawless’ double execution. He said that the Monday night lethal injections were signs that ‘the law worked’ in Arkansas. When concerns were raised about the alleged frantic movements by both Williams and Jones moments before their deaths, the Arkansas Deputy Solicitor General clarified that the state had not violated the convicts’ constitutional rights as they both died minutes after their respective injections. Victims whose lives were affected by the two prisoners’ crimes approved of their deaths. World bodies such as Amnesty International, however, were appalled by the notion and condemned the double execution as shameful and in direct violation of the human right to life.
The Impact
Though the legal files on the cases have been closed, questions about the death penalty remain.
Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, commented, “The Arkansas executions will lead to long term damage to the death penalty as an institution.” They indeed might.
After an execution in Oklahoma had been botched when the state used the compound midazolam, critics clamored for its ban from use in death penalty injections. The reports of the suffering Jones and Williams underwent before death has strengthened their argument. The future of the drug’s use now seems uncertain.
Similarly, in the case of Ledell Lee, the State of Arkansas put to death a man his lawyer said could have been innocent. Nina Morrison, the attorney in question, confirmed that there had been little physical evidence to tie him to the crime. Also, Lee had not undergone DNA testing. Those two statements put together create a hypothesis that the state may have executed an innocent man. Nobody knows beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the problem. In the future lawyers for those who have not undergone such testing which could exonerate them may get leeway to have them done if the Lee case is used as a precedent.
