Dead Man Walking

Before watching Dead Man Walking, I did not know much about the death penalty in America.  Sister Helen's interactions with Matt gave a face and a name to victims of the death penalty. Prior to seeing the film, I was more or less indifferent to the death penalty.  I didn't like the idea of government-sanctioned killing, but I understood that the death penalty might provide solace for victims' families.  I also thought that the death penalty was less expensive than feeding and clothing a convict in prison for life.  I believed that lethal injection was tested and proven to be a humane means of execution.  

In watching Dead Man Walking and in my research after the film, I found that a death row execution is incredibly expensive.  In 2003, a Kansas legislative audit found that a death penalty case, from its beginning through execution, costs $1.26 million, while a non-death penalty case, from its beginning through the end of incarceration, costs $700,000. Most of the cost of a death penalty case are incurred before a conviction, when the prosecution decides to pursue the death penalty.  

Lethal injection, the commonly accepted method of execution, often involves a three-drug protocol.  The first drug is an anesthetic and the second drug is a paralytic.  These two drugs make the death easier for witnesses.  It is not clear whether the first two drugs provide any comfort for the people being executed.  The third drug in the protocol is the heart-stopping agent.  When executions are unsuccessful or the convicts' bodies do  not react to the first two drugs, lethal injection can cause violent writhing, shouts, and convulsion.  Many drug addicts executed by lethal injection suffer because it is hard for the administering physicians to find viable veins.  I think the administration of the first two drugs in the three-drug protocol is for the benefit of witnesses and executioners, not the convicts themselves. 

I did not know that death row executions often involve the victims' families as witnesses.  This disturbed me, because people treat death as a spectacle, not a solemn occurrence. Overall, Dead Man Walking disturbed me and caused me to re-evaluate my feelings on the death penalty.  I am now wholeheartedly against the use of the death penalty because it disregards the human life and fights death with death.  

(Information from deathpenaltyinfo.org and amnestyusa.org)