west to execute criminals. about fifty percent of americans are for the death penalty and fifty percent against it. our capital punishment system is flawed this is not a matter of vengeance it's a matter of just that we believe serves as a turn capital punishment is tainted by racial disparity having my father's killers executed did not bring me a sense of closure is it to restore society or is it shit if you take a life should your life be taken justice is about us as a society. nine hundred eighty two was my first execution. i was a correctional officer. one of my main jobs were to save lives so when it came down to execution i had to transform myself into

a person that would take a life. jerry givens was appointed executioner in one thousand nine hundred seventy seven when the united states reinstated the death penalty. he grew up in the housing projects of richmond virginia. and remembers one tragic night at a party. when i was a teenager i witness a young lady. shocked by before my eyes i want to reward quite a young lady because she was innocent. i was. told if. my thing is that if a person taped a lie about the person then that person's life should be taken and that's what i believe. gerry received training to operate the electric chair and later to administer lethal injections. he became chief executioner in one thousand nine hundred two. i would say my team members take pride in the work that

preparations. get in this person brady plays make step in life prepare him just to see if it's for the last time and. a last kiss of his mother sister amy's wife or daughter. all of human badness not like me. and the recognition of that about me was scared because that isn't who i am. if pled not guilty to all thirty counts seventeen punishable by death. the federal prosecutor asked victims if the us should seek the death penalty. i don't know. i don't know. i

don't know what justice is. i've got an e-mail. terrorist acts are rare much more common are the murders and other violent acts that happen every day across the united states. in philadelphia shannon schieber was finishing her first year of graduate school. she had been up studying it was early thursday morning before i would say it was friday morning. about two o'clock in the morning she was prepared to go by. the assailant who attacked her. he pried open her sliding door. she screamed for help as she was being attacked. the next door neighbor heard that he called nine one one.

he told him that he heard his neighbor say a scream for help and he heard like the choking he said. the police arrived within twenty minutes they not done the door but no one answered. the next day when shannon didn't show up for a lunch date with her brother shawn he drove her apartment building. or lucy and it's neighbors came down and answered the door and sean said i'm trying to reach my sister or i can't reach or. the guy just went pale so my god i called the police last night they went running up the steps they broke open her door and she was laying naked on her bed.

by the time we got voted off even though the police were swarming around the apartment building and they let us know immediately that she had been attacked and that she had been murdered. we were beginning to face the fact that part of us had died. what does society do when someone commits a horrific act of violence. for centuries seeking justice was

a community affair. and disproportionate blame fell on the poor mentally disabled and people of color. in the eighteen hundreds some capital offenses were targeted specifically at slaves the stablish in a racial bias that continues today. executions reached a historic peak in the one nine hundred thirty s. averaging one hundred sixty seven per year but then in one thousand thirty six. a gruesome execution caught the attention of the media. on aug fourteenth in owensboro kentucky raney the thea was publicly hanging by a white sheriff many black but dia was innocent. one new york times reporter wrote ten thousand white persons some jaring another's festive saw prayerful black men put to death today and davies county's piton

gallows. the outcry over rainy bothy is hanging did not put an end to capital punishment instead it drove executions behind prison walls out of public view. state officials built death houses and institutionalized the practice. it's a death by formula it's a scripted death in the beginning it was hanging it was not only hanging but it was public and so you see the crowds come in and bring in a picnic luncheon celebrating then we move from hanging to the electric chair and then we began to hammer the horror stories that happened out of the electric chair . and then there has been a move to lethal injection and lethal injection is likely going medicinal so that we'll just be putting them to sleep. but not everyone agrees.

the idea that they should go out in an opiate haze that it should be a pleasant death is absolutely perverse the debate about the death penalty has become increasingly polarized and politicized we want a system that they are we want a system that respects the dignity of human beings the idea that we were executing innocent people was terrifying and there was just no way that we hadn't and that we were some people kill with an attitude so callous heinous sadistic that they have forfeited their right to live i believe in a turn of one and that is when we execute this person we know he will never kill again why is it that the death penalty really comes down to in many cases just where you live who your d.n.a. is we cannot recognize injustice when we see at people of not being treated fairly

and people not getting a fair shot you can be critical because you can be critical of the idea that the government has the right to kill. and also hold passion and concern for victims maybe in some books of justice the person for this act is serves to die but do we as a society deserve to kill them. today capital punishment largely falls to the state in which the crime was committed. and laws and methods vary widely. most states use lethal injection. but some still use gas chambers. the electric chair. hanging. and firing squad. carrying out the death penalty is intrusted to specially trained guards like jerry

givens. of the sixty two executions the jerries conducted thirty seven were by electrocution and twenty five by lethal injection. lethal injection is considered the more humane form but for jerry it made the job of killing another person a lot tougher. when you talk about execution and electrocution is a button you push and washing push the button. because it flows in the current comes out and. that's all i had to do was push a button. but when it come down to death by lethal injection you have seven to. a chemicals. you have all flushes and three deadly chemicals that is inserted into this man and my self as an execution i'm at the end

of each syringe. pushing a poison. down to tune into the body so i'm more attach to this person then it is pushing a button and release and then they let the current flow by itself. fifteen days prior to an execution the condemned would be moved to the death chamber where gerry and his team worked. all nine of us were executions and reprotect a good execution that was stood by. the preparation was mental as well as physical we practice and practice and practice prior to execution each of us knew our jobs our sonnet and would never allow ourselves to get that close to anyone you know we train for that we train this way you don't get that close to. the day of the execution twenty four hours

prior to that we we have a call a death watch. a guy will act differently because he knew that this is the last everything. this is this a a way to condemn sperry's. this is where the warden really is don't want this clergy person to sit with him. doing this course and then they condemn is given a shower his last meal is less visitations. by six o'clock hour preparations in the stocks and to the inmate is placed a day. at

home in new hampshire karen and her family were slowly recovering from their injuries. not some much the physical abilities things like. especially for me my rose colored glasses you know. just the reality. and ships. people are. different. things are not the same. when even with one and i guess. he's. working through things and i'm working through things that. it had been six months since the bombing and karen had not yet seen her good friend celeste who was with them at the finish line and lost both her legs. in the beginning.

initially i. i couldn't bring myself. to believe it. because i felt. celeste and sixteen others lost limbs that day. ron was one of the lucky ones doctors were able to save his leg but the trauma and pain still lingered. we're going to have to work for a lifetime to get to bear new normal whatever that going to be. after months of deliberation attorney general eric holder announced the u.s. would seek the death penalty. the defense will argue that the car was pressured into it by his older brother that he was a popular well liked college kid led astray.

or be held responsible and i agree and i and i am to believe that. but i also thank you. just can't stupid. karen son was the same age is the car. didn't seem like such a hard decision when it was abstract. you know our family and friends who are very religious and don't believe. that i have others who just say. it's the right thing to do they're so sure. i don't know that it's right for me to make that decision to take someone else's life.

in philadelphia shannon's killer was still on the loose the she wears pressed for answers but the police had none. it's just like you're in a coma you mean you're just like walking through something but you you don't know exactly how you're going to deal with them how am i ever ever going to get through this. this is tremendous it's a wall. and you know for some time i could visualize sheila there walking through a door squawking in the house and walking through the door saying are dotty dead she told me. she was so kind and generous and loving and helpful and she always would come to us and say mom dad i have to make a difference shannon was living many things. she had a tremendous appetite for learning everybody loved him and everybody loved her

she was an extremely moving daughter. in their grief they key and still turn to each other and reached out for support. this takes time and doesn't you know everybody goes down a different path in a different time line to this journey toward healing. they begin attending support meetings for families of murder victims. there they saw the devastating toll of sorrow and anger. of father one of the murdered daughters we know well took his first drink and he never stopped or hear him and she lost his job in a marriage. but well just daughter was one of one hundred sixty six people killed in the timothy mcveigh bombing of oklahoma city. one night about a year later he woke up in the morning and he had this dream and his daughter julie was there telling him dad had he murdered me are you going to let him murder her

family. also saw the high price people paid for putting their lives on hold as they waited for an execution. we start finding out what murder victims' families go through if you decide to say look i want that man execute it would take fifteen twenty years as much longer for it actually to happen and we just saw the effects that this had on these family members we saw it destroying their lives. the way to the united states is dangerous for most of the illegal immigrants. costing us that there was a simple i want to read the entry level in the last post on this but i think many of them look for refuge in the so-called sentry sites the draftee used to share information about undocumented migrants with federal authorities. banned.

that. they have. to stay in the country with donald trump in the white house. also be what it is. you have to do. both. up to all of the. except someone for who they are not what you want them to be. a therapist might give to a couple in a relationship crisis apply this wisdom to geopolitics and you'll see that trying to change the weakness of the other is the norm. and learn to fully accept each other.

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