The death penalty is wrong, always

THE Catholic Church in Australia is right to call on the Australian Government to unconditionally oppose the death penalty, a punishment that has a corrosive effect on the justice system. Consider the situation in Texas last year when a computer crash led to Michael Richard being killed. Convicted of murder, he was executed by lethal injection on September 25. Earlier that same day, the United States Supreme Court had agreed to consider appeals by two Kentucky men on the grounds that execution by lethal injection was a cruel and unusual form of punishment and therefore prohibited under the US constitution. Richard's lawyers raced to file a request in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that their client's execution be stayed until the Supreme Court's decision was known. At that point, the lawyers' computer system crashed. They called the court and pleaded for the clerk's office to stay open 20 minutes past its usual closing time of 5pm. However, presiding Judge Sharon Keller refused to vary the closing time; the vital document could not be filed and Richard was strapped to a table and killed by lethal injection. Rachel Walsh writes.

Age 4 Jan 2008