What It’s Like to Almost Get Executed

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/03/31/what-it-s-like-to-almost-get-executed#.jTmiocXwQ

by samclemens • 10 years ago

149 112 10 years ago

themarshallproject.org

musha68k• 10 years ago

Shame on anyone still for such an archaic form of "justice".

Houstonymous5• 10 years ago

Let's not make blanket statements or anything.

MajesticHobo3• 10 years ago

Why not? Some practices are totally abhorrent and have no place in any liberal society.

dredmorbius• 10 years ago

There are cases in which blanket statements are valid.

I'm hesitant to do so in the case of moral arguments, though I find the case in favour of the death penalty, particularly given the many, many abuses, and utter and final nature, phenomenally weak.

That said, I disagree with the HN hive-mind's obliterating your comment.

CapitalistCartr3• 10 years ago

In the United States, innocence has never been grounds for an appeal, a stay, overturning, or clemency. Here in Florida, I could write an accurate algorithm for calculating the application of the Death Penalty. Skin darkness (literally, not race), IQ, wealth, sex are the relevant factors. The elements of the case are not.

I'm not against the Death Penalty on general principle grounds; I'm against it because we clearly aren't to be trusted with it.

rayiner5• 10 years ago

Actual innocence is a grounds for vacating a conviction.

CapitalistCartr3• 10 years ago

In the USA, innocence isn't grounds for an appeal. Actual, post-conviction DNA tests aren't a basis. Errors at trial are. So good lawyers find one. Jury instructions, evidentiary errors, procedural, etc., which is why money buys justice.

GFK_of_xmaspast• 10 years ago

“There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough), for finding in the Constitution a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence brought forward after conviction.”

ArkyBeagle2• 10 years ago

Not in Texas. There's a Frontline for that: "Cameron Todd Willingham – Innocent and Executed"

( and I am a Texican my own self, but Ron White wasn't kidding... "we have the death penalty, and we USE it" ).

the_ancient9• 10 years ago

>>I'm not against the Death Penalty on general principle grounds

You should be...

When you kill someone outside the conditions of self defense that is murder and is immoral. I do not care if the government doing it as some kind of "punishment" or a person doing it for another reason, murder is murder, "capital punishment" is murder.

If we want a peaceful, just and free society, it can not include capital punishment. A free and civilized society does not have Capital Punishment.

History will not judge us by how we treat the acceptable people, the people that follow the rules, the nice people... No history will judge our society by how it treats the worst of us, the evil people that given the opportunity would slice your throat open and laugh as you bleed out...

It is likely that in 100 years, this time will be viewed by people living then like we view the barbarism of Early American history. People will be asking "how could anyone support that kind of treatment of others". This of course is not just about capital punishment but the entire prison system.

ajkjk2• 10 years ago

It's very easy for me to have a preferred moral code that is almost like yours except that I do not axiomatically declare that capital punishment is equivalent to murder.

joering22• 10 years ago

Frankly, I don't even understand what's the purpose of capital punishment?

It is not to punish someone -- they are already dead, so they can't feel the punishment It is not to set an example -- its been proven over and over again - when people are ready or commit crime, the last thing they think of is that they will get caught or get punished. That's why death penalty does not stop people from committing heinous crimes. It is not to give relief to the family of a victim. Countless examples of (mostly Christians) that publicly said they forgive the murderer and are against death penalty for him/her are always being ignored by justice.

Its very scary to think a civilized country have something as horrible as death penalty, which imho means we gave up on someone. Sure I've seen animals in human skin but what stops us from putting them in jail for the rest of their lives (not money I can tell you that).

id• 10 years ago

That is so true. Very dark skin, on the border of intellectual disability, poor and male means... no matter what you are accused of or whether you actually did it or not... guaranteed death penalty if possible by law.

telesilla• 10 years ago

This kind of emotional experience is beyond understanding for most of us (and hopefully remains so). The masterpiece of a film Army of Shadows by Jean-Pierre Melville has a scene in it, of an execution that .. (I won't continue with spoilers). It was one of the most powerful things I've ever watched that made me feel maybe just a tiny bit, what that might be like.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_Shadows

ahelwer• 10 years ago

There is also The Wall by Jean-Paul Sartre (warning, PDF):

http://faculty.risd.edu/dkeefer/pod/wall.pdf

hackuser• 10 years ago

Why are stays left to the last minute? Death pealty cases and their appeals last many years.

erikpukinskis• 10 years ago

The closer you get to the actual death, the sadder the story gets and the more people come out of the woodwork to try and help.

goodcanadian• 10 years ago

Because a stay of execution is literally a (temporary) last recourse. Up until that time, you are pursuing the years of appeals or otherwise trying to get the conviction overturned.

gtrubetskoy• 10 years ago

Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote some of his most significant works after his execution by firing squad was stayed at the last minute.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fyodor-dostoevsky...

There is a vivid description of his experience in the novel "The Idiot", you can read it here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2638/old/20081222-2638.txt, search for: "As to life in a prison"

Or see it here with English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYN40R9Hjtg

Edit: s/began writing/wrote some of his most significant works/ (thank you dang)

dang• 10 years ago

began writing

Oh no, he'd published two novels before that, both significant, but for different reasons. Poor Folk was a maudlin debut but it made him the hottest new writer in Russia, briefly. Belinsky, the biggest critic of the day, famously kissed him when they were introduced.

Now that he was a celebrity he thought he'd show them what he really could do, and came up with The Double, which is genius. But it bombed, and Dostoevsky became a has-been in his mid-twenties. It's still one of the best things he ever wrote, equal parts comic, tragic, and weird. It's also short, so one of the best first things to read by him.

All that happened before he went to Siberia, which of course was transformative. His memoir of the prison camp, Notes From the House of the Dead, is another masterpiece and a sort of decryption key for all his later work. It was Tolstoy's favorite.

SeanDav• 10 years ago

This would have been a far more interesting article if he had spoken more about his thoughts and feelings, rather than the mechanical processes.

the_ancient9• 10 years ago

I found the mechanical process appalling.

rdl2• 10 years ago

I find the factual, mechanical description more emotionally moving, because I can more easily put myself in the position of the writer. My emotions matter a lot more to me than what a (convicted) murderer says he's feeling -- I'm against the death penalty even in cases where the person is clearly guilty and a horrible person.

jveld2• 10 years ago

Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov, Crime And Punishment) was sentenced to be executed by the Tsarist government in 1849. He was actually in front of the firing squad, waiting for his turn to die, when he learned that his sentence had been commuted to a measly 10 years hard labor in Siberia.

One could argue that this was the defining moment of his life, and most of his greatest works were motivated in some way by the intensity of that experience. So yeah, for lots more on this, read Dostoevsky.

svdr2• 10 years ago

One of the main characters in Tolstoy's War and Peace (Pierre) was also almost executed. You can read the scene here:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2600/2600-h/2600-h.htm#link2...

jveld2• 10 years ago

Fascinating! I wonder if Tolstoy was depecting Dostoevsky. I guess I'll have to read War and Peace as my enormous literary undertaking of the summer.

sevenless• 10 years ago

The family of four he brutally murdered might have had an opinion on that, too.

citricsquid• 10 years ago

There are victims and families of victims who do not support the death penalty. A documentary aired in the UK a few years ago that spoke with the family of a prison officer (Daniel Nagle) who was murdered, the perpetrator (Robert Pruett) had been sentenced to the death penalty and the Nagle family were against the sentence -- even though they believe him to be guilty of the murder.

If you're in the UK you can watch that here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03zndw4/life-and-death...

I'm not quite sure if I'm interpreting your comment correctly, apologies if I've misunderstood the point you're making.

1stop4• 10 years ago

But there are families who clearly want revenge as well.

Revenge or resiprocity seems a pretty core part of the human condition.

coldtea• 10 years ago

They are the last ones who should have an opinion on the matter, as pain clouds their judgement towards revenge.

Besides, they'd be saying the same things for anybody, if they were convinced or led to believe that he/she was the culprit, even if he/she were innocent.

Only if they were against the death penalty should they be heard, because that would be a sign that they speak putting revenge and petty sentiments aside.

The justice system shouldn't be a mechanism for revenge but for the protection of society.

nommm-nommm• 10 years ago

Not this particular family, but here's an opinion of a few other families:

http://kwgn.com/2014/01/08/families-of-murder-victims-rally-...

mikeash• 10 years ago

There's a reason we don't let victims of crimes determine the punishment for the criminals.

xenadu022• 10 years ago

The family almost always vents their anger at whoever the police tell them "did it", even if the police are wrong. Often they persist in that belief after DNA evidence or video evidence proves conclusively that the police were wrong.

throwaway_exer• 10 years ago

If the only reason for banning capital punishment in the USA was to prevent DA's from personally benefiting from "being tough on crime" in the next election for DA or governor, that would be enough.

The entire American criminal system is beyond corrupt at this point.

rdl2• 10 years ago

It seems crazy -- there are so many independently-sufficient reasons to abolish the death penalty, argued from virtually any grounds, many of which otherwise are completely opposed.

trothamel• 10 years ago

http://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/cooper-kevin.htm

Has the first hand account of Joshua Ryen, who also experienced what it was like to almost get executed.

I'm personally not a fan of the death penalty - I generally don't think it's worth the risk in effort, except perhaps in the case for people (eg. terrorist leaders) such that keeping them alive could result in a hostage situation.

But I do think it's a little unfair to have a case like this presented in a completely one-sided way.

emgoldstein2• 10 years ago

The Ryen account is a little far down that page. Since we heard one story in anatomical detail, how about another?

"The first time I met Kevin Cooper I was 8 years old and he slit my throat. He hit me with a hatchet and put a hole in my skull. He stabbed me twice, which broke my ribs and collapsed one lung. I lived only because I stuck four fingers in my neck to slow the bleeding, but I was too weak to move. I laid there 11 hours looking at my mother who was right beside me.

I know now he came through the sliding glass door and attacked my dad first. He was lying on the bed and was struck in the dark without warning with the hatchet and knife. He was hit many times because there is a lot of blood on the wall on his side of the bed.

My mother screamed and Cooper came around the bed and started hitting her. Somehow my dad was able to struggle between the bed and the closet but Cooper bludgeoned my father to death with the knife and hatchet, stabbing him 26 times and axing him 11. One of the blows severed his finger and it landed in the closet. My mother tried to get away but he caught her at the bottom of the bed and he stabbed her 25 times and axed her 7.

All of us kids were drawn to the room by mom's screams. Jessica was killed in the doorway with 5 ax blows and 46 stabs. I won't say how many times my best friend Chris was stabbed and axed, not because it isn't important, but because I don't want to hurt his family in any way, and they are here.

After Cooper killed everyone, and thought he had killed me, he went over to my sister and lifted her shirt and drew things on her stomach with the knife. Then he walked down the hallway, opened the refrigerator, and had a beer. I guess killing so many people can make a man thirsty."

[EDIT: this is from Ryen's testimony in 2005.]

xenadu022• 10 years ago

You forgot some key info:

The sole survivor, Josh Ryen, had told a social worker in the emergency room that the murders were committed by 3 or 4 white men. Josh spelled his message by pointing at letters on a clipboard as he was unable to speak, but the social worker and medical staff observed that he was lucid and could spell his name and address correctly. Judge Fletcher wrote, "Deputies misrepresented his recollections and gradually shaped his testimony so that it was consistent with the prosecution's theory that there was only one killer." Jurors, however, said they disregarded Ryen's testimony because they believed he was confused and traumatized.

On June 9, a woman named Diana Roper called the Sheriff’s Department to tell them that her boyfriend, Lee Furrow, had come home in the early hours on the night of June 4. He arrived in an unfamiliar station wagon with some people who stayed in the car. He changed out of his overalls, which he left on the floor of a closet. He was not wearing a t-shirt that he had been wearing earlier in the day. He left the house after about five minutes and did not return. [Roper and her father] both concluded that the overalls were spattered with blood. Roper turned the overalls over to the Sheriff’s Department and told the deputy that she thought Furrow was involved in the murders. Roper later provided an affidavit stating that a bloody t-shirt found beside the road leading from the murder house had been Furrow’s. It was a Fruit-of-the-Loom t-shirt with a breast pocket. Roper stated that she recognized it because she had bought it for him. She also stated that a bloody hatchet found beside the road matched a hatchet that was now missing from her garage. [...] The Sheriff’s Department never tested the overalls for blood, never turned them over to Cooper or his lawyers, and threw them away in a dumpster on the day of Cooper’s arraignment."

Furrow had been released from state prison a year earlier. He had been part of a murderous gang, but had been given a short sentence in return for turning state’s evidence against the leader of the gang. The leader was sentenced to death. Furrow told friends that while he was part of the gang he killed a girl, cut up her body, and thrown her body parts into the Kern River."

We know you can implant false memories, especially in kids. If the cops decided Cooper was guilty it would have been easy to coach him into giving the testimony above.

I'm not saying he is innocent or guilty, just that there appears to be some doubt, much of it due to police sloppiness and misconduct.

mirimir• 10 years ago

Maybe Joshua Ryen remembered a different guy who looked like Cooper. Also, from the discussion of DNA evidence, I suspect that samples were mishandled, and crude tests were used. There's evidence that commonly used DNA markers don't distinguish non-white people very well.

ErikAugust• 10 years ago

"I was supposed to be executed one minute after midnight on February 10, 2004. ...

The prison also started sending a psychiatrist — it was clear that they wanted to make sure I was not going to commit suicide."

So absurd!

WalterBright• 10 years ago

I oppose the death penalty. Not because I have sympathy for murderers, but because it is uncivilized to ritualistically kill people.

jeevand• 10 years ago

I understand that US justice system is completely biased against minorities (Mainly blacks) but i can't completely come to terms with total abolition of death penalty as expressed by many here on HN. Here are few incidents where i think death penalty can be justified (examples are from Norway which has abolished death penalty & India where it is very rarely carried out - only 5 from 1995)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajmal_Kasab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masood_Azhar (Got released after a hijacking and founded JeM)

alextgordon• 10 years ago

It's interesting that you give the example of Breivik. Don't you think that a far-right nutcase like him would relish the reinstatement of the death penalty?

yrro• 10 years ago

A reformed Breivik, once released, would be able to do some good by working against his former cause, speaking to prevent others from following down the path that he took.

interfixus• 10 years ago

I live in Denmark. As do around 5.7 million others, all told. We have no death penalty.

In 2015 we had 41 cases of homicide.

It can be done.

1stop4• 10 years ago

Denmark doesn't exactly have the cultural baggage the US has.

There isn't a gun culture* (just picking one aspect) at all in Denmark, there is a rich culture in the US to the point that people think you are changing the identity of the country if you reform gun law. Stating that a progressive state that never had such problems can solve them has no meaning.

* guns would be the leading cause of homicide in the US.

sokoloff2• 10 years ago

Leading mechanism, not cause, IMO.

remarkEon• 10 years ago

I simply don't think it wise to entrust the State, with a completely fallible justice system, with the power to end a citizen's life. Haven't quite worked out the philosophical grounding of that argument, but I think that's where I'll start.

known• 10 years ago

Isn't community service better than capital punishment?

bb101• 10 years ago

I don't get it. Cooper's stay of execution was granted in 2004, most probably due to facts that became known at the time. This article was published in 2016, and he is still in prison - for the same crime? Twelve years have passed and no progress has been made in determining whether Cooper was responsible or not?

What It’s Like to Almost Get Executed

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