The man looked in my direction and mouthed the words of what appeared to be “I’m sorry.” He was dead within minutes.
Carman Deck could not see me, nor were the other witnesses to his execution visible, because of the two-way mirrored glass separating us.
The barbaric occasion on May 3rd, 2022, was justice or revenge for his savage attacks on Zelda and James Long.
The execution came twenty-six years after the Longs were murdered execution-style in their DeSoto, Missouri, home.
Carman Deck was executed at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre that Tuesday evening.
In the presence of fellow witnesses, Deck was injected at 6:02 p.m. with the lethal combination of drugs that ended his life. Within a minute, Deck seemed to fall asleep, but I noticed his chest and abdomen appeared too still for breathing.
Deck, Missouri Department of Corrections Inmate #990144, was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m.
Our state’s governor said, “Justice was served.”
Deck’s last written statement reads, “My hope is that one day the world will find peace and that we all will learn to be kind and loving to one another. We all are a part of this journey through life, connected in every way. Please give love, show love, BE LOVE!”
Despite his unconscionable violence against two innocent senior citizens, it seems illogical for the State to be in the killing business. Allow me to explain, starting with a conservative point.
Financial Costs to Taxpayers
From a fiscal point of view, the cost of enforcing the death penalty with pretrial and trial expenses, the costs of automatic appeals, state habeas corpus petitions, and costs of incarceration on death row are substantially higher than sentencing a person to life in prison without parole, according to the U.S. Supreme Court (Alarcon & Mitchell, 2011).
Pursuing the death penalty costs Florida $51 million a year more than the cost of sending all first-degree murderers to life without. According to the Palm Beach Post, the 44 Florida executions since 1976 have cost the state $24 million for each execution.
The Dallas Morning News reports that a death penalty case in Texas costs more than two million dollars, around three times the cost of 40 years in a maximum-security cell.
Getting it wrong
More than 150 people have been released from death row (including at least four in Missouri) since 1973 after evidence proved their innocence, according to the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil & Constitutional Rights.
Obviously, execution is irreversible.
Race
In Washington state, jurors are three times more likely to sentence a black defendant to death than a white person in a similar case, according to the University of Washington.
The Santa Clara Law Review reports that the odds of a death sentence in Louisiana were 97% higher for people convicted of killing a white person compared to a black victim.
Despite 2021 Pew Research statistics showing that more than half of U.S. citizens support the death penalty, nearly 50% say capital punishment does not deter people from committing murder or other violent crimes.
Thinking out loud
Regardless, I write this just hours before Kevin Johnson is set to be executed in Missouri for the execution-style murder of a St. Louis area police officer.
Despite it being the law of the land in the Show Me State and many others, is it just? Is it accurate? Is it cost-effective?
Updated at 8:15 p.m. 29 November 2022: 37-year-old Kevin Johnson was executed at the prison in Bonne Terre, Missouri. He was pronounced dead at 7:40 p.m., according to Missourinet.
