Patrick Hannon, Ruben Ramirez Cardenas, Jack Gordon Green, and Alva Campbell, Jr., have three things in common. Each man is a convicted murderer condemned to die by lethal injection unless his lawyer sways the United States Supreme Court to grant a stay of execution this month. Another man who is slated to die is Scott Raymond Dozier, who stands apart from the rest. Dozier volunteered for execution.
Even though Dozier expressed his death wish to Nevada Judge Jennifer Togliatti, he has his defenders, including the ACLU. Much ado has been made of his pending execution scheduled for November 14.
Today, the Nevada Attorney General’s office is expected to inform Judge Togliatti how the state plans to proceed.
Flaws in carrying out capital punishment even when condemned inmate volunteers
Throughout the country, news organizations have covered what may prove to flaws in delivering capital punishment in the execution chamber at Ely State Prison in eight days. Not only has the death drug cocktail never been administered in the United States, but the state’s Chief Medical Officer resigned at 8:30 AM on November 1, according to USA Today. Under the state’s law, the Chief Medical Officer has the legal mandate to advise the Department of Corrections on executions.
What is the state to do? That’s the question Judge Togliatti wants to know today in Clark County District Court.
Dr. John DiMuro was doing as the law required when the state decided on its lethal injection protocol: the sedative diazepam, the painkiller fentanyl, and the anesthetic cisatracurium. Enter, the ACLU, challenging the first-time use of the death cocktail designated for Dozier.
Judge cited reasons killer could tout to rescind death wish
Please bear in mind that Dozier is mentally competent and has been evaluated. Judge Togliatti made sure of that before signing his death warrant. Dozier was found capable of making the determination to die by lethal injection. The judge even discussed with Dozier the possibility of a painful process when the death drugs are administered.
She didn’t stop there. The judge was also straightforward with him about some botched executions.
No matter what the judge cited, as reasons for Dozier to possibly reconsider and rescind his desire to die, the condemned inmate repeatedly informed Judge Togliatti that his resolve remains unswerving. That the lethal injection protocol may cause Dozier to suffocate to death has prompted the ACLU to challenge the convicted killer’s execution, as the Reno Gazette-Journal has reported.
Dozier is not unlike his counterpart-killers scheduled for execution. They each have their defense teams who are set to pose legal challenges in an effort to spare their lives. After all, that is their job. They are not going to relent until absolutely all hope is lost.
Carrying out capital punishment is truth in sentencing
Where America has it wrong is people making the demand to sanitize and abolish the death penalty. There are valid reasons, not even barbaric ones, for the final act that fulfills truth in sentencing. It is a guarantee that convicted murderers will not walk out a revolving door free to kill yet again.
Let’s look at Torrance C. Epps, for instance. Like convicted killer Alva Campbell, Jr., Epps is from Ohio. What sets them apart is that Epps murdered three people in 1973, he was sentenced to serve 30 years in prison, but was paroled in 14 years and escaped one month later. After he lived as a fugitive for eight years, he was sent back to prison and was paroled again in 2003.
On January 19, Epps murdered again. He has killed four people. In return, he was sentenced on October 30 to serve another 18 years in prison. How many people is one person allowed to murder? How many years will he really serve on his current sentence before he is free to kill again? These are legitimate questions that people are raising.
Killers provided the basis for executions
While death penalty opponents and killers’ defenders concern themselves with trying to spare murderers lives, it is the lives they took that concern capital punishment proponents. The condemned inmates gave society the reason to carry out the sentencing. The crimes they committed go against the imaginable for most people.
While the ACLU is focused on whether Dozier suffers death by suffocation, let’s not forget that he not only murdered two men, he dismembered them. He volunteered to die by lethal injection. That people want to stand in his way of fulfilling the destiny he decided is something that is angering people who have survived the murders of their loved ones.
Death penalty holds killers accountable
Conrad Durante, for instance, founded the Facebook group “Advocates for the Death Penalty for Those that Murder.” His take on the death penalty is that is what makes killers accountable for their actions. As Durante asked rhetorically, “To not punish the guilty is that the same as punishing the innocent!!!”
Durante, whose son was murdered, is enjoined by additional parents whose relatives were murdered.
Tom Johnson, for example, responded to news about Dozier and the ACLU’s stance. Johnson stated, “Cruel and unusual punishment is what my wife and myself have had to go through since my son was murdered.”
His son was Nicholas Johnson. He was 23-years-old when he was murdered in Bowman, ND. He said, “I am sick of our justice system right now.” His son’s killers were caught in August 2016. The jury trial isn’t set to commence until February 2018.
Parents surviving murdered children have their say on the legal system
Debby Pilkerton Adkins is also surviving a son who was murdered. She stated that she doesn’t want others to “live the life of the Parent of a murdered child.” She further conveyed how many parents who have experienced such a traumatic loss feel.
“Yes we’re angry. We are also sad, depressed, sleep-deprived insomniacs, alcoholics, drug addicts, over eaters, bulimics, and whatever other dysfunctional thing you can think of.”
Survivors of homicide Victims believe that the legal system has failed them. Durante noted, “The murderer becomes the new victim.” He stated that “the laws do not allow the murderer to be harmed in any way whatsoever.”
Even when cases make news, and when executions are pending, it is not the victims who are remembered first. It is the killers. It is the murderers’ names and faces put before the public, though it is often possible to share photos of the victims. It is easier to feel for someone whose face is seen and remembered.
Durante summarized that murderers must not suffer like their victims. They must be respected. “It is a sad day in America,” he stated, adding that “laws passed in regard to capital punishment have incensed America.”
Scott Raymond Dozier told Judge Togliatti repeatedly that he wants to die by lethal injection. He is competent to make that decision. Why make him suffer, languishing in prison a moment longer than he wants – or deserves?
