"Let's do it."
With those last words, Gary Gilmore ushered in the modern era of capital punishment in the US, an age of busy death chambers that could see its 1,000th execution in coming days.
Americans took note when, after a 10-year moratorium, the country got back into the business of executing prisoners by putting Gilmore in front of a Utah firing squad in 1977.
Yet today, most could probably not name even one of the more than 3,400 prisoners -- including 118 foreign nationals -- on death row in the US.
The name Robin Lovitt is not well known, though next week he is likely to earn the macabre distinction of being the 1,000th prisoner put to death since the US widely reinstated capital punishment in 1976 after the Supreme Court validated state laws that reformed the capital punishment system, which has executed 997 prisoners since that time.
Lovitt, 41, was convicted of fatally stabbing a man with scissors during a 1998 pool hall robbery in Virginia. Initial DNA tests of the scissors proved inconclusive. The scissors were subsequently thrown away, supposedly because of a lack of storage space.
Last month the US Supreme Court refused to reconsider Lovitt's case. One of his lawyers, Kenneth Starr, who led the special investigation into former president Bill Clinton in the 1990s, told AP Television News on Wednesday that although he supports the death penalty in principle it should not apply in Lovitt's case for a wide variety of reasons "including above all right now the destruction of the DNA evidence."
Since 1973, 122 prisoners have been freed from death row. The vast majority of those cases came during the last 15 years, since the use of DNA evidence became widespread. That has led some officials to question the fairness of the system.
A Gallup poll last month showed support for the death penalty among Americans to be at its lowest point in 27 years, but that low point translated into a 64 percent approval rating of its use. That is down from a high of 80 percent in 1994.
While the milestone of the 1,000th execution since 1976 has not prompted widespread public debate in the US, some officials have raised questions about the wisdom of the death penalty.
Twelve states do not have the death penalty. At least two states -- Illinois and New Jersey -- have formal moratoriums on capital punishment, and commissions in California and North Carolina are studying the penalty's use, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit organization.
Former Illinois governor George Ryan -- who invoked his state's death penalty moratorium in 2000 -- took the unprecedented step at the end of his tenure in 2003 of freeing four inmates from death row and commuting 167 others to life sentences, saying the system was "haunted by the demon of error."
Death sentences nationwide have dropped by 50 percent since the late 1990s, with executions carried out down by 40 percent since 1999, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
also see story:
Singapore set to hang drug smuggler
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
RSS