To Be or Not To Be?

The following is a guest blog by Jason Gibbs:

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The New Mexico House of Representatives, on a 41-28 vote Monday, passed a bill that would repeal the death penalty in New Mexico. In place of the death penalty, the bill would create a new penalty of a true life sentence without the possibility of parole. The bill now moves to the Senate, where similar legislation was defeated in the Judiciary Committee in 2005. -- AP


The current debate on the death penalty in New Mexico is being hashed out without true input.
Those advocating the elimination of the ultimate punishment for the most egregious crimes may not have all the facts.
I've seen two men die at the hands of the Great State of Texas. I've spoken with both, before their sentences were carried out. I have watched their last breath escape, in the company of their family and in the presence of those they admittedly wronged. I also had the opportunity to interview another condemed man before a deadly dose of chemicals was sent through his veins at the government's directive.
Each of the three had committed henious crimes. Each of the three admitted their guilt after trial. Each of the three embraced, even welcomed, their final punishment.
Life in prison is a far worse sentence than a cold, clinical death at the hands of of the state, they told me.
I watched two of them die. Once, surrounded by the family of the condemned, once by victim's relatives.
No one left happy.
Except, perhaps, the condemned.
While I grant you that three out of the scores of condemed criminals are not a fair sampling, not an adequate assessment of what runs through a man's or woman's mind as they meet their maker, seeing life's breath exhausted at the hands of the state made an impression on me.
My analysis? Death is not an appropriate punishment -- even for those who have committed the most egregious, unspeakable crimes.
Why, you ask?
Too often, our criminal system is incorrect, fallable, and just plain wrong in assessing this, the ultimate punishment. Innocent people have been put to death or, remarkably, saved at the last moment. Finding one case where an innocent person was executed is one person too many. Our justice system can't guarantee the guilty are guilty. Neither can it always convict the true criminals.
What sways my opinion is the words of three confessed, condemned men.
To a man, they said they would rather die than serve another day -- 23 hours in solitary, one alone to groom and walk.
If an executed, alleged criminal is innocent, we as a society have murdered an innocent. If a truly guilty criminal, justly and dully convicted of a crime against humanity, is executed, we've let them get out of serving the punishment they truly deserve.
If they are innocent, we have committed the sin of murder.
If they are guilty, we've let them off too lightly.

Here's a little something I wrote after watching my first Texas execution:

Kitchens Executed - Drifter dies for killing Abilene woman in 1986.
By Jason Gibbs (publication date Wednesday, May 10, 2000, Abilene Reporter-News)
HUNTSVILLE - Flowers bloomed in their sidewalk beds along the pathway that led to the death chamber. Their bright color offered sharp contrast to the grim task about to take place inside the infamous "Walls" prison unit where, at 6:22 p.m. Tuesday, William Joseph Kitchens was pronounced dead.
Kitchens' execution comes just one week shy of the 14th anniversary of the violent crime for which he was sentenced to die.
In May 1986, Kitchens robbed, raped and murdered Patricia Leanne Webb. The wife of an Abilene firefighter, Webb befriended Kitchens at a nightclub where she was socializing with a group of friends and co-workers. He brutalized her after she offered him a ride to his hotel, a friendly gesture that was typical of her caring nature, family members said.
Webb's brother, Steve McNally, was the first to report her missing following her death. After witnessing Kitchens' execution, he said it marked the end of a 14-year ordeal. The healing, he said, had begun.
"It was not an act of retribution," McNally said. "But we can begin to heal. It starts now."
Webb's husband, James Webb Jr., added, "He accepted responsibility, said he was remorseful. Fourteen years is a long time. This severs a link between us and the criminal."
Webb went on to say forgiving Kitchens even after such a long time was hard.
"But I probably can," he added.
Tuesday evening, Kitchens was strapped to a steel gurney in a cold and antiseptic room that smelled of disinfectant.
After the needles were inserted into his tattooed arms and prison officials began to administer the first of three chemicals in the injection that ended his life, his family began to weep softly. First one, then the rest, comforted one another as tears welled in their eyes.
As Kitchens spoke his final words, two of his sisters, a sister-in-law and two friends wrapped their arms around one another in gestures of support. As the deadly mix of chemicals inexorably began to cloud his senses, Kitchens spoke first to James Webb.
"If there has ever been any doubt in your mind at all . . . I want you to know that Patty was always faithful to you - that I forced her," he said.
The social gathering that preceded Patricia Webb's death began as a typical Friday nightclub excursion. It ended in a field three miles west of Tye. There, Kitchens murdered Webb and fled in her car to his home in Blanchard, Okla., where he was arrested days later.
Webb's fully clothed and rain-soaked body was found later that same day. Kitchens gave Taylor County sheriff's deputies directions that led them to the body.
In a shaking voice after the execution, Webb's husband, a tall, lean firefighter, said Kitchens had answered a question about his wife's fidelity that he had never fully settled in his own mind.
"He answered a question I thought I knew the answer to," the still-grieving husband said. "But it is comforting to know for sure."
Casting his eyes to the half-inch-thick glass and blue-green bars that separated the death chamber from the room in which Webb's family members stood, Kitchens offered an apology.
"I am sorry," he said. "I just want you to know that I am sorry for what I done. I can't change that. I can't replace your loss."
The execution chaplain rested his right hand on the dying murderer's leg, offering comfort as Kitchens turned his eyes and words to the members of his family who had traveled from Oklahoma to witness his death.
"I just want you to know that I love all of you," Kitchens said. "You all just keep on with life. It's going to be good. The Lord's going to be with us."
Kitchens then prayed for peace for the Webb family and for them to find it within themselves to forgive him.
Focusing his eyes on the white acoustic tiles overhead, Kitchens uttered his last words.
"I love you all. You all take care. I'm so sorry," he said before nodding to the warden.
With harsh fluorescent lights bearing down on his white face, the lethal components of the injection poured into his veins. WIth a sudden, choked gasp, Kitchens drew his last breath. A slow gurgle and a low groan escaped his lips as he exhaled.
When the chemicals had taken full effect, a member of the prison medical staff entered the room.
He first held his hand above Kitchen's mouth and nose to see if he had stopped breathing. He then shined a penlight into Kitchens' eyes and checked for a pulse to determine if the injection had stopped the killer's heart.
Finally, the medical attendant slowly donned his stethoscope and warmed it before slipping it underneath Kitchens' freshly pressed blue shirt. After a moment, he withdrew his hand, smoothed the shirt and slowly drew a neatly folded, white terrycloth towell over the dead man's face.
"It's 6:22," he observed before raising the microphone that had amplified Kitchens' last words.
Kitchens' family began to whisper words of comfort as the shock began to fade.
"It's all right. He's home now," Kitchens' sisters told each other. Just 24 minutes after they entered the Walls unit, nicknamed for its ominous and towering red, brick walls, the family of Patricia Leanne Webb, then that of William Joseph Kitchens, walked back out the heavy steel doors and through the 6-foot chain link fence.
Neither group seemed to notice the flowers.