Death Two Inmate: Life on death row often means living in fear

For the first time in my 14 years on death row, I am scared that I may actually be killed. I’ve known that I must pay for what I have done, perhaps with my life.

But until now, there was no evidence that my end would ever come at the hands of the state that convicted me.

{mosads}I await my execution in Oregon, a state that, in the 40 years since the reinstatement of the death penalty, has not executed anyone who didn’t want to die. The last to face their sentence in Oregon volunteered to do so 20 years ago, during the Clinton administration. It was the next Clinton presidency that was set to all but ensure that no one in this state would be executed again.

Things were going so good.

For the last several years, capital punishment has been in chaos nationwide, the sort of turmoil that gives hope to those of us who are awaiting execution that our date may never come. More than two-thirds of the nation’s thirty-one remaining death chambers have been left to collect dust like relics of the past as circumstances and uncertainty over the future of capital punishment have essentially mothballed these rooms.

Pick any death penalty state at random and the reason for such limited use of their death chamber is obvious.

Florida essentially had their death penalty law thrown out due to “non-unanimous jury recommendations of death,” according to the Death Penalty Information Center, “a practice bared in all states but Florida, Alabama, and Delaware.” 

Alabama is facing that music now, while Delaware just decided to avert the problem by completely throwing out the penalty.

Secrecy and the lack of oversight in the procurement of lethal injection drugs has contributed to execution problems in Missouri, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Ohio. Thanks to Pfizer getting out of the execution business last year, the last FDA-approved drug supplier, the simple inability to find drugs by legal methods has caused many states to either suspend executions or create controversial secrecy laws to mask where they buy them from.

Several states, including mine, essentially threw their hands up in the air, instituting moratoriums on executions to more closely review their death penalty to see if it’s even salvageable. 

“After thoroughly researching the issue, serious concerns remain about the constitutionality and workability of capital punishment law,” stated an aide of returning Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, echoing the sentiments of other moratorium-setting governors in Pennsylvania, Washington and Colorado.

Still other states, including Maryland, Connecticut, and Nebraska, like Delaware, just threw in the towel, repealing their death penalty laws altogether, while California put it on the ballot to potentially do the same.

If all of that wasn’t enough for me and those who care for me to take heart, the highest and soon-to-be preeminent figures in this country were ready to see the death penalty rot away.

“I have not traditionally been opposed to the death penalty,” President Obama stated last year. “But in practice, it’s deeply troubling.”

“For the reasons I have set forth in this opinion,” began Justice Stephen Breyer, in his dissent in the Oklahoma Glossip v. Gross case, “I believe it highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment.” Just one more SCOTUS judge appointee who shares that line of thinking and capital punishment starts fading away.

If only we could get a presidential candidate to run with the abolishment of the death penalty on their platform. Wait, we had that too.

Despite all of this, and the fact that a just-released national Pew Research Center poll showed that fewer than half of Americans 49 percent support the death penalty — a mark not reached in 45 years — the momentum of hope for a long-awaited end of the death penalty just came to a screeching halt.

On election night, Nebraska changed its mind about repealing their capital punishment law — their death chamber is open for business again. California’s effort to repeal their death penalty failed by an even larger margin (45-to-55) than its prior attempt (49-to-51), and worse, the state’s voters passed a measure designed to drastically speed up the appeals process for their 750 death row residents.

The remaining state with a related matter up for vote, Oklahoma, passed a law that would make execution much easier, allowing any other method of execution legal, should a previously adopted method become unavailable — such as their recent shift from lethal injection to the gas chamber.

It’s the national take on the death penalty, though, that took the hardest hit. We went from an administration who made the abolishment of capital punishment a stated mission over the next four years to one led by a man who once literally paid $100,000 for a full-page ad in the top four New York daily newspapers to passionately announce his wish: 

“Bring Back The Death Penalty”

While not widely publicized during his election campaign, President-elect Trump has regularly made his stance on capital punishment loud and clear. He likes it. 

“Capital punishment isn’t uncivilized, living murderers is.” he stated in one of his books,“The America We Deserve.”

The majority of the world’s civilized society disagrees with our next president’s take on the death penalty. Because of that, keeping this failed system of capital punishment may continue to be one of the black marks on this country that prevents America from truly being “great again.”

Whether our next president will now acknowledge that unfixable problems persist in the capital punishment scheme in this country remains to be seen. His position on important matters has certainly been known to do an about-face at times. 

But from an inside perspective, and considering his likely Supreme Court choices, there is no reason to believe that this particular issue is one that will go anywhere but down an unfortunate path for all those of us facing the ultimate sentence, for those who still love us, and for those who have worked so hard to finally put an end to the death penalty.

“My only problem [with capital punishment],” stated President-elect Trump, “is that lethal injection is too comfortable a way to go.”

At least I have that. For now.

This Op-Ed was written by an Oregon death row inmate, whose name is being withheld out of consideration for the family of the victim. The Op-Ed was published in conjunction with Prison Lives, which provides prisoners and their families information and resources.

The views expressed by Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.