"Historic executions prove death penalty has no place in society," is by Jacskson Clarion-Ledger Contribuing Columnist Bill Minor.
Hanging, electric chair, gas chamber and lethal injections — all have been part of Mississippi’s spotty history of administering death penalties for various crimes.
In my long career as a Mississippi journalist, though I never witnessed a hanging or execution by lethal injection, I have watched one man die by the wood-framed electric chair (nicknamed Ole Sparky) and one man die in the gas chamber.
Possibly, I hold some unsavory record for watching the last electric chair execution carried out in the state’s portable electric chair in 1951, and the first one (in 1955) in the ominous glass-enclosed gas chamber at Parchman Penitentiary. Neither method convinced me that capital punishment has any place in a civilized society.
Earlier coverage from Mississippi begins at the link.
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