Riffs From The Row

By William Van Poyck - January 28, 2006

Four days ago U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy granted a last-minute temporary stay of execution for Florida death row prisoner Clarence Hill, who at that moment was already horizontal on the gurney, tightly strapped down, the limp I.V. lines already inserted into his veins. With literally minutes to spare, Hill, staring at the ceiling of the somber death chamber on the bottom floor of Florida state Prison’s infamous Q-Wing, was granted a reprieve. Almost immediately the full Supreme Court turned the temporary stay into a permanent stay and ordered both sides to fully brief the constituted issue before the court. By granting certiorari review and accepting the case the Court announced its intentions to finally resolve an issue which has been bouncing around the judicial system for several years, mostly being deflected and avoided by various courts based upon questionable procedural grounds. Hill claims, as have many other previous death row litigants, that the particular 3-drug cocktail “regimen” used by Florida officials to execute its prisoners violates the Eight Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment because it first paralyzes the prisoner and then, in an excruciatingly painful process then burns and scours out the veins and arteries. Interestingly, in many states it is literally against the law to utilize these same 3 drugs to euthanize dogs and cats due to the cruelness of the process. Even more interesting is the fact that virtually every state employing lethal injection as a method of execution, as well as the federal government, utilize this same 3-drug regimen. So, the Court’s ultimate decision in the Hill case will affect all of the death penalty states. It is instructive that the debate is not about whether society should kill its citizens or not, but instead is only about which poison to utilize. In the shorter term it is expected that any and all prisoners with a pending active death warrant, or who have their death warrants signed in the interim, will likewise move for, and receive, stays of execution until the Court finally rules on this issue. In other words, this should effectively create a nationwide moratorium until the issue is resolved. Whether the U.S. Supreme Court, or the underlying federal appellate courts, will be receptive to granting these stays of execution remains to be seen.

Let’s paint the picture: It is January 17, 2006, and the previous day California death row prisoner Clarence Ray Allen had turned 76 years old. Governor Schwarzenegger, speaking with predictable moral hubris, has already denied clemency for Allen. The prisoner – blind, deaf and paralyzed, confined to a wheelchair perpetually parked outside of his cell – stoically awaits his imminent execution. It is unknown how much Allen understood; how do you explain to a blind and deaf man that he’s about to be put to death? A gaggle of guards push the wheelchair to the death chamber, then hoist the helpless old man onto the gurney, where he’s strapped down tightly and the I.V. tubes are inserted into his frail arms. The clock ticks and the minutes pass while the gathered witnesses peer through the glass at the man on the table, captured like a moth pinned to a specimen board. In due time the poisons flow through the tubes and into his veins, dispersing throughout the body like waves lapping at the shore line. The old man, small and silent, closes his eyes, coughs several times, then gasps as he involuntarily struggles against the straps. Finally, he is still and silence fills the death chamber. The old man is dead, the sentence has been served and satisfied. In the eyes of the state justice has been done. It is a strange moment, this forced transition from life to death, from crime to “justice”, akin to the instant – that twinkling of the eye- when the medieval alchemist’s lightning turns dross into gold before our eyes. Out of the death of a dying old man justice is magically created, and passed out to the believing citizens of California like folding money. Whether this picture is obscene, or splendid depends, of course, on the eyes of the viewer. But it is a common one. The disparity between the weakness of the helpless old man and the implacable strength of a determined state presents an ironic image, one repeated throughout history and across all cultures, and one which will persist as long as the citizens continue to believe that the emperor is actually wearing clothes.

William Van Poyck was sentenced to death in Florida but was transferred to Virginia’s death row by the governor of Florida after Florida State Prison guards murdered Van Poyck’s codefendant, Frank Vales, in his death row cell in 1999.

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