Air Jordans For Sale The Rev. Carl Gallinger, pastor of the St

[lee123]

A seldom used punishment

CHEYENNE It has been 16 years since a government sponsored execution was carried out in Wyoming.

In the early morning hours of Jan. 22, 1992, Mark Hopkinson was injected with a lethal dose of chemicals as his punishment for masterminding four murders in the 1970s, a somewhat unusual fate because he did not actually carry out the killings.

With a small population that equates into few death penalty eligible crimes being committed, executions are few and far between in Wyoming. Before the 42 year old Hopkinson, the last execution in the state was in the 1960s. Supreme Court heard arguments earlier this month about the constitutionality of the lethal injections Kentucky uses to kill inmates.

Two death row inmates sued Kentucky in 2004 claiming that the state lethal injection process is cruel and unusual punishment because it can inflict unnecessary pain and suffering.

Should the high court side with the inmates, Wyoming may have to change its method of execution, and the state could see another execution within the next few years.

James M. Harlow, 38, one of two men awaiting execution in Wyoming, was convicted in 1998 of killing a prison guard at the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins a year earlier. Dale W. Eaton, 62, was sentenced to die in 2004 for the 1988 murder of an 18 year old woman in Natrona County.

Jordans For Sale Online Wyoming does not have a designated death row, a separate area of a prison that houses those who have been sentenced to die, but it does have a backup execution method on the books should lethal injection be deemed unconstitutional. In that event, state law provides for the administration of lethal gas to be used for executions.

Since Wyoming uses lethal injection, the state is not required to have a designated execution chamber used exclusively for that purpose, said Melinda Brazzale, spokeswoman for the Wyoming Department of Corrections.

Cheap Jordan Shoes For Sale If an execution does occur, the state will use its parole board meeting room at the state prison in Rawlins, Brazzale said. She described the room as having a small seating area outside of the room that would allow some spectators to watch an execution.

been in it numerous times, and it just a big meeting room, she said.

The room is part of the new section of the state prison that Brazzale said opened in 2001 after the existing facility built in 1980 was deemed structurally unsound.

Should the state ever switch to using lethal gas in executions, plans would have to be made to accommodate a gas chamber because the state does not currently have such a facility, Brazzale said.

With executions relatively rare in Wyoming, there is no constant outspoken movement to abolish the death penalty.

Air Jordans For Sale The Rev. Carl Gallinger, pastor of the St. Paul Newman Center in Laramie, is the head of the Wyoming Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Gallinger said the group formed following the 1998 murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. Prosecutors originally sought the death penalty against his two assailants, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney. Both men were later sentenced to life in prison after the Shepard family opted not to push for the death penalty for the two men.

Gallinger said he is opposed to the death penalty on moral grounds, but also because of published statistics that show capital punishment is biased against minorities and those who are economically disadvantaged.

believe in the dignity of human life from conception until natural death, and the state doesn have the right to take that away, Gallinger said. dignity has been given to them by God.

It also makes economic sense for states to pursue life prison sentences rather than capital punishment, he said. He pledged to speak out against an execution if one is scheduled again in the state.

Air Jordan For Sale Data compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center supports some of Gallinger claims. Census Bureau in recent years list blacks as accounting for about 12 percent of the national population.