5 Facts You Might Not Know About Death Row
5A Global Phenomenon
The USA isn’t the only country that enforces capital punishment. In 1977, only 16 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Since then, the list of countries that still carry out the death penalty has shrunk dramatically and continues to do so. As of May 2013, 140 countries were abolitionist in law or practice.
The whole “in law or practice” bit can be slightly flimsy—a kind of “never say never” attitude to state-ordered killings. “In law” means that the country has officially and legally banned executions. Countries that have not actually executed anyone in over 10 years are considered to have abolished the sentence “in practice.” Will there be a day when the entire world is execution-free? Time will tell.
4Men, Women . . . And Children
The death penalty is not confined to one gender. As of January 1, 2013, there were 63 women on death row in America. However, the ratio is extremely one-sided. Those 63 women constitute a measly 2 percent of the total death row population of 3,125. Since the death sentence was reintroduced in 1976, 13 women have been executed in the US, compared to a whopping 1,360 males during the same period.
Most shocking, however, is that age does not always seem to be a barrier to receiving a death sentence. George Junius Stinney, Jr. (October 21, 1929–June 16, 1944) was only 14 when he was executed—the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th century. Stinney was convicted of murdering two young girls in South Carolina and given the electric chair. However, in January 2014, Stinney’s family have called for the governor to reopen the case in order to clear his name. Stinney was convicted by an all-white jury in just 10 minutes of deliberation, despite there being no witness on the stand during the trial.
It may sound hard to believe, but the United States only abolished the execution of minors on March 1, 2005. Other than America, only seven other countries have put young offenders to death since 1990: Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and China.
3Smuggling, Cunning, And Cleverness
The smuggling of illegal contraband inside prison walls is nothing new. Smuggling methods have become more elaborate and are dreamed up faster than they can be uncovered. However, you would think that security is a lot tighter in the death row area, preventing this sort of thing. You’d be wrong.
Cigarettes and drugs can be smuggled in through mail. However, a more recent problem is cell phones finding their way into condemned inmates’ hands. Bribing correctional officers seems to be the go-to method for this. In 2008, one such incident occurred in Texas. Convicted murderer Richard Tabler bribed a guard with $2,100 to get his hands on a cell phone. The prisoner shared the phone with nine other inmates, who made 2,800 minutes of calls in 30 days. And they weren’t using the phone to dial erotic phone services either. Tabler actually called a key state senator, telling him he knew his daughters’ names and threatening all sorts of atrocities. Eventually, an in-house inspection and judicial inquiry uncovered the scam. The guards responsible are awaiting sentences of their own.
2How Do You End Up There?
Murder is not the only crime one can be sentenced to death for in the US. Texas, Oklahoma, and Montana (to name a few) have statutes allowing the sentence to be carried out for the forcible rape of a child under the age of 13. Other less common crimes that can result in execution in some statesinclude aggravated kidnapping, drug trafficking, aircraft hijacking, and placing a bomb near a bus terminal. Additionally, there are a staggering 41 offensesthat the US federal government deems punishable by death, including espionage and treason.
Today, the primary method of execution in the US is lethal injection. However, Utah and Idaho still authorize the use of a firing squad. This process involves the prisoner being hooded and strapped to a chair with a target pinned to his chest. Thereafter, five marksmen take aim and fire. One weapon is loaded with blanks, but none of the marksmen are told which, so that nobody knows for sure who fired the deadly bullet.
1Stranger Than Fiction
Perhaps one of the stranger tales from death row is the case of Robert Vickers, also known as “Bonzai Bob.” The nickname came about after he strangled his cellmate to death and carved the words into his chest as a poorly spelled nod to the Japanese war cry. The reason? His cellmate made the mistake of not waking him up for breakfast. He also drank Vickers’s Kool-Aid . . . and that’s just rude in anyone’s book.
This crime landed Vickers on death row, where his rampage only heightened. Vickers made a Molotov cocktail by pouring hair tonic into an empty ice cream carton and stuffing it with toilet paper. He proceeded to firebomb another death row resident’s cell, burning him to death and nearly taking the building with him. Vickers also had an Edison-like inventiveness for creating weapons. He once attacked a guard with a spear made out of rolled-up newspaper and parts from a typewriter.
Thankfully, the guards and other prisoners were able to breathe a sigh of relief when Bonzai Bob was executed in an Arizona gas chamber in 1999. His final request was to be allowed to wear a three-piece suit, as he wanted to impress any women who were at the execution. His request was denied. Hard luck, Bob.
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