Imagine waiting 30 minutes to die – in the meantime, you’re being poked and prodded with needles for 30 minutes while a medical team tries to find a usable vein in your arm or leg. Oh, and add in that you’re terminally ill.
No person deserves this. Not even Alva Campbell, 69, who shot and killed 18-year-old Charles Dials on April 2, 1997, after carjacking Dials and driving around with him for several hours, according to court records. He was charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery.
I’m not going to humanize Campbell by telling you about his childhood; this man is no doubt an aggressive murderer who never deserves to see a world outside of prison walls again. But, given the fact that he has chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder as a result of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day for decades, why are we spending the money to execute him instead of leaving him to die of natural causes in prison?
I highly doubt the man will even make it to his new execution date in June 2019. After all, his attorneys argued beforehand that he was too ill for a lethal injection and needed a wedge pillow just to breathe on the execution table, according to the Associated Press.
The Dayton Daily News estimated in 2014 that about $17 million a year is spent in Ohio alone relating to the death penalty. Many states have found in different studies that locking someone up for life is far cheaper than executing them after taxpayers pay for all the trials leading up to the death date.
This column is not about my views on the death penalty, however. It specifically regards policy in Ohio.
In 2011, Rommell Broom also left the execution chamber alive after 18 unsuccessful attempts over two hours to insert an IV. There have been others in Ohio with similar experiences.
Dennis McGuire’s execution was the one in 2014 that put a halt to executions after he struggled, coughed and gasped for 26 minutes of death. The first execution in more than three and a half years after the hold was in June.
The only other comparable example in modern U.S. history was when the electric chair didn’t work during the execution of Willie Francis in Louisiana, allowing him to walk away from the execution chamber.
Clearly, this is an Ohio-specific problem. Yet, Governor John Kasich stated the day after the failed execution that Ohio doesn’t need protocol change. The current protocol, which says lethal injection is the only option, also lays out meticulous procedure for the execution.
Campbell lost a bid to be executed by firing squad after a federal judge questioned whether lawmakers would enact the bill needed to allow the method.
Anti-death penalty groups are going to use this to challenge the constitutionality of the death penalty. To be honest, I’m not sure what policy change we need, but I do know that only 32 states have fully legalized execution, and we’re one of the only developed countries to use it.
Regardless of what the change is, I think it’s clear we need one. Not to mention, it’s really immature of our governor to act like this dilemma isn’t happening. Man up and encourage change, Kasich.
