Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Sid Salter: New Law May Get Clarity from Bama Death Penalty Case

 Mississippi currently has 35 inmates on Death Row, according to Mississippi Department of Corrections data – 34 men and one woman. 

National debates and disputes over execution methods in recent years effectively brought executions to a halt even in the 27 states like Mississippi that authorize capital punishment for particularly heinous crimes. 

Those debates have led several states, including Mississippi, Alabama, and Oklahoma, to devise new strategies to get around those chemical debate obstacles. All three states authorized nitrogen hypoxia as a means of execution. Nitrogen hypoxia is a form of suffocation. 

The Wall Street Journal notes that “the 2018 Alabama law approving this method describes it as ‘nitrogen hypoxia,’ but that’s not quite right. Hypoxia means reduction of oxygen levels in the blood. Breathing pure nitrogen induces anoxia, a total depletion of blood oxygen.” 

The nitrogen method has yet to be utilized, but Alabama officials are asking their state Supreme Court to clear the way to do so. That ruling, and the subsequent actual use of it in Alabama, will impact methodologies across the country in death penalty states. 

Mississippi’s law passed in 2022 and gives the Miss. Department of Corrections even stronger latitude in making means of execution decisions. MDOC officials can now choose between lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia (anoxia), firing squad, or electrocution as the means by which state prisoners are put to death. 

Since 1976, Mississippi has executed 23 prisoners. All were male, 17 were white, and 6 were black. Four were executed in the gas chamber. The remaining 19 were executed by lethal injection. 

Mississippi’s most recent execution was that of Thomas Edwin Loden Jr., a 58-year-old ex-Marine recruiter, who was executed for the Itawamba County murder of Leesa Marie Gray, 16. Loden died by lethal injection. 

The number of Death Row inmates in Mississippi has declined over the last 20 years in that there are about 40 percent fewer inmates awaiting execution. The execution hiatuses fueled by the lethal injection chemical battles ground the process to a near halt and during those hiatuses, inmates died of natural causes or won legal appeals. 

But one inmate, James Billiot, has been on Death Row since his Dec. 1982 conviction for the Thanksgiving Day, 1981, murder of his mother, stepfather and 14-year-old stepsister. The trio was beaten to death with an eight-pound sledgehammer. 

Still on Mississippi’s Death Row are inmates Anthony Carr, 55, and Robert Simon Jr., 57, who were convicted and sentenced to death for the Feb. 2, 1990, murders of the Carl “Bubba” Parker family at their Walnut community home on Hwy. 322 southwest of Lambert in Quitman County. 

The family left the Riverside Baptist Church Bible study class at about 9 p.m. to return to their home. Parker, 58; his wife Bobbie Jo, 45; daughter Charlotte Jo, 9; and son Gregory, 12, were active in the church where Bobbie Jo served as the church secretary and pianist. 

Murder was the kindest thing that happened to this innocent family during a senseless rampage of torture, assault, arson and robbery. 

There are plenty of legitimate discussions to be had regarding the imposition of the death penalty in Mississippi. What about the morality of the death penalty? What about disparities in who receives the death penalty based on race or economic status? What about Mississippi’s failures to fund a credible, working indigent defense and post-conviction appeal process? 

Mississippi adopted the notion of giving MDOC officials discretion over execution methods as a direct response to roadblocks raised nationally by death penalty opponents. It is a response to shortages of the chemicals used in lethal injection or in the gas chamber caused by varying degrees of legal challenges, corporate shaming, or other public protests. 

As one who has witnessed executions (gas chamber and lethal injections) at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, please allow me to point out the absurdity of the notion that we ever had or ever will have a neat, antiseptic method of execution in which there is a guarantee of no pain or suffering on the part of the inmate. 

Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com


27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Since 1976, Mississippi has executed 23 prisoners. All were male, 17 were white, and 6 were black.

That doesn't fit the narrative...

Anonymous said...

As one who has witnessed executions (gas chamber and lethal injections) at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, please allow me to point out the absurdity of the notion that we ever had or ever will have a neat, antiseptic method of execution in which there is a guarantee of no pain or suffering on the part of the inmate.


I'm sure their victims & their families don't give a flying fck what they feel while the pay the price.

Anonymous said...

I lived under the assumption that lethal injection indeed was a "neat antiseptic" way of executing people. I don't want to get down in the weeds with the gory details but I thought they just went to sleep.

God knows that couldn't possibly be the case for firing squad or the electric chair.

However the argument could be made that a man who kills two people and a 14 year old girl with an 8 pound sledgehammer doesn't deserve neat and antiseptic

Anonymous said...

Sidney Salter, why is a convicted murderer entitled to a perfect, pain free execution?

If execution were such mild experience, many would have no fear of the possible consequences of homicide.

Seem nice said...

A firing squad method is painless, especially when .50 BMG rifles are used. (BMG = Big Mutha Gun).

FALLACY ALERT said...

Not surprised that Salter would introduce an appeal to himself as an authority in the last para.

Anonymous said...

@ 8:47

So aside from how ludicrous that sounds......

Do you really think given todays social and political landscape that firing squad (or electric chair) or even the gas chamber is a remote possibility? While an option LEGALLY, I would think these things are purely ceremonial at this point.

I am a 100 percent advocate of the death penalty, don't care how it gets done, just get it done, but shooting someone with a large bore weapon isn't happening.

Anonymous said...

How about we just kill them the say way they killed their victims.

Anonymous said...

I suppose a case could be made for the form of execution being exactly how they murdered their victims.

More of a concern to me is that we execute the innocent as the egregious actions of law enforcement and the DA in the Flowers case illustrated.

Death penalty cases do get effective counsel which includes having poor legal counsel at trial. However, the time cannot be returned to the innocent and sadly, some judges can be such literalists that even when innocence is evident, a word or sentence in poorly written law can cause them to reject the obvious. Some have even rejected the recanted testimony of serial jail house snitches.

We have politicized the legal and judicial system to such an extent with buzz words and support on websites making the "party loyalty" obvious. Too many lawyers and judges have political ambitions. So, perhaps, demanding they cannot be members of a political organization or accept any gifts, favors or money from a party or PAC would help a little.

But, until honor is more highly regarded than wallet size or bra size, I suppose we our system , that was never and could never be perfect, will get worse until it fails.

God knows the House of Representatives just gave us a glaring example of what giving power to egotists and crazy people means. McCarthy thought he could deal rationally with irrational people.







Tip O’Neill said...

Of all the people on death row Anthony Carr and Robert Simon Jr., deserve to die the most horrific death possible, their descent into the depths of hell can’t come too soon, they are the devils spawn. The Romans had some ways that would be appropriate for these two.

Anonymous said...

The problem is we are catering to, and coddling the criminals.
Just hang them.
If minorities complain that hanging reminds them of lynching, then remind them to stop committing the highest numbers of murders in the nation!

Anonymous said...

Salter once again shows his penchant for making misleading or simplistic comments. The use of nitrogen gas is not a “form’ of suffocation. A person does not experience the panic and agony of suffocation when breathing pure nitrogen. Since laughing gas is nitrogen oxide, and can kill, maybe we should use that.

Anonymous said...

@9:14 AM - Yes! An 8-pound sledge hammer would be appropriate.

Liberals like Salter just can't understand that there is a lot of evil out there and they don't deserve any mercy. Mercy is up to a higher power.

We step on cockroaches don't we?

Anonymous said...

Being a hangman is one thing. Can you imagine the psychological impact of a sane and rational person having to beat someone to death with a sledgehammer? I would turn away volunteers because they would have to be half a bubble off plumb already.

Anonymous said...

I think an effective close firing range is appropriate. If it were me, I would be afraid the doctors assumption of what I'm feeling while dying for 15 minutes could really be much worse than some bullets you know will kill you in several seconds. Long rope hanging is appropriate also though I know some people would be upset with the historical implications of the activity. So for that reason, firinig range it is.

Gory type executions are not for modern western civilization. That is gross and yall need to stop.

Anonymous said...

@10:50 AM - No problem as there would be lots of volunteers from the ranks of death row.

Anonymous said...

Would fentanyl be an effective agent for the death penalty. I don't know how to effectively administer a lethal dose of the drug, only that lots of people OD each year with fentanyl contamination of their chosen recreational drug. As far as I know, we have lots of it confiscated from drug mules out on our interstates. The Pearl police probably have confiscated a 100-year

supply of the stuff in the lats year.

How would the drug be administered and at what level of fentanyl content? I have no idea, but I bet those two facts are widely known in the drug business. There is some sort of Karma belief on my part that they could take one of the big fentanyl criminals and sentence him to serve 20 years i Parchman Prison as the state executioner and make him responsible for handing the fentanyl tablet to the condemned person, or spooning it into their last meal, or injecting it, either sub Q, or IM, or IV.

Fentanyl suppliers are in the killing business. I can't imagine how them doing it in prison could ever be considered Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

Anonymous said...

Sid by omission shades the brutality of the facts in the case of Simon and Carr when he lists "torture, assault, arson and robbery." Read the facts in Carr's appeal, Carr v. State, 655 So.2d 824.

They both raped the nine-year-old girl, (and to put it as delicately and as printable as I'm able here) penetrated her from the front and from behind. Sid can take Carr and Simon some homemade cookies; I can't work up any sympathy myself.

Anonymous said...

I've attended the euthanization of a dozen or so animals. Other than the pain the animal already may be in that is the reason for putting the animal down, I've never seen any evidence at all that the animal goes through any of what concerns Sid so, pain and suffering.

If you want an execution done right, get a vet and stop effing around with clap doctors and "certified" whatevers.

Don Drane said...

September of 1983, my daughter was four years old and Deressa Jean Scales, had she lived, would have been the same age.

Jimmy Lee Gray had been released from prison on parole after serving only 7 years of a 20 to life sentence for the murder of his 16-year-old girlfriend. I believe the State of Kansas had granted him parole.

In September of 1983, Gray was on Parchman's death row for the rape and murder of 3-year-old Deressa.

On that September night, exactly 40 years ago, a friend, Glen Hardy and I, drove from Greenville over to highway 49 abutting the grounds of Parchman Prison Farm. We parked and stood on the east side of the highway. Highway patrolmen were on the west side.

It was raining, but not very hard. Glenn and I were there in support of the fate that was about to befall Jimmy Lee Gray, execution in the gas chamber. We were also there to support the life of the 3-year-old he had raped and murdered. Read that again! He had raped a 3-year-old and murdered her.

Glen and I were alongside a very small handful of others on 49. We didn't know them and didn't talk to them. Standing not far away was a large contingent representing, according to their signs, the ACLU, Amnesty International and Catholic Charities. They were there to protest Gray's execution. They were chattering and chanting.

It was late at night when Gray, while banging his head against a steel pipe, breathed his last. A short while later a hearse carrying his body pulled out of the gates onto Highway 49. It must have been about midnight.

I still have an article in a box. Here is that account from a reporter who witnessed the execution:

"Dan Lohwasser, a reporter for United Press International, was one of the observers who witnessed Gray's execution. Lohwasser's account of Gray's death sparked controversy, because of the suffering that Gray exhibited.

At the time of Gray's execution, the gas chamber used in Mississippi had a vertical steel pole directly behind the inmate's chair. There was no headrest or strap used to restrain Gray's head. As Gray began breathing in the toxic gas, he started thrashing his head around, striking the iron bar repeatedly before he finally lost consciousness. Officials decided to clear the observation room eight minutes after the gas had been released, because of Gray's injuries.

The decision to clear the room was sharply criticized by Dennis Balske, Gray's attorney. "Jimmy Lee Gray died banging his head against a steel pole in the gas chamber while reporters counted his moans (eleven, according to the Associated Press)".

Partly due to Gray's botched execution, Mississippi passed legislation making lethal injection the only method of execution for inmates sentenced after July 1, 1984, though three more inmates (Edward Earl Johnson, Connie Ray Evans and Leo Edwards Jr.) sentenced before this date were still executed by lethal gas. Mississippi's gas chamber was decommissioned in 1998."

It took us about an hour to get back to Greenville. We hardly spoke on the way back.

I never cared and still don't care how many times Gray banged his head against that steel pipe. I do care that Deressa, if alive today, would be in her early forties now, perhaps with grandchildren of her own.

Anonymous said...

Why is the occupation of only one of the death row inmates mentioned?

Anonymous said...

The global popularity of The Squid Game series reveals that human society still enjoys blood sport.
I say we create a voluntary survival game for those sentenced to death where the winner continues participating until their death. If you don’t want to participate then you can have a more private execution.

I guarantee it will be a hit. Great for gambling too!
Plus the gruesome and humiliating deaths might give some sense of closure to the victim’s families.

Anonymous said...

"Why is the occupation of only one of the death row inmates mentioned? "

Why do you assume someone whose actions are so heinous that they get the death penalty was somehow gainfully employed?

Anonymous said...

A definite date for a definite death gives the guilty a definite time to either get right with God and die with hope or not. A lifetime in prison does not. That is cruel punishment.

Anonymous said...

" I'm sure their victims & their families don't give a flying fck what they feel while the pay the price."


Not only that, but if MDOC invited local news crews to film a firing squad execution, the crime rate just might start to drop.





Anonymous said...

I actually like the idea of “a lions den”. Throw the sobs in and be done with them.

Anonymous said...

If suicide were a viable option for death-row dwellers, things might move quicker. Every cell on death row should be furnished with loose bedsheets, trousers with belts, appliances with electric cords and supplies for making lanyards, leashes and bungee cords.


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