A man is slated to be murdered by the state in revenge for the killing of an old woman. His sister has liver disease and he applied for some extra time in order to donate part of his own liver to her. This might seem like a reasonable request. Most people spend years and even decades on Death Row, what’s a few extra months, especially when it might save an innocent life. Not to the Indiana Parole Board, according to this Reuters story, appearing, appropriately, in the Oddly Enough section.
Indiana officials recommended on Friday that a man facing execution next week should not get clemency, a decision that could end his attempt to donate part of his liver to his sister.
[snip]
A spokeswoman for the Indiana Parole Board said the panel’s four members voted unanimously to recommend that Johnson be denied clemency. There was no separate vote on a stay, she said.
Update [2005-5-25 6:33:35 by Athenian]: “Gregory Scott Johnson died by injection at 12:28 a.m.” according to this AP story. The governor denied Johnson’s request and released letters from doctors supporting his position:
The governor’s office released a letter Daniels received from two transplant doctors who said the presence of a hepatitis B antibody in Johnson’s system and his heavy body weight made him unsuitable as a donor.
Given the sister’s condition and the fact that she likely will need a kidney as well, she would be better served by obtaining a full liver and kidney from the same donor through customary channels, the letter said.
May he rest in peace.
The above is sickening enough but it was the final paragraph in the story that prompted this diary:
In a Florida case, an inmate was denied a request to donate a kidney to his brother. The condemned man was later exonerated and released from jail, but his brother died waiting for a transplant, Dieter said. [executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center]
The entire criminal justice and penal system in the United States is a blight upon the country. People have been executed even though their defense counsel was asleep or drunk during the trial. But to cause, even indirectly, the death of innocent relatives because of unnecessary and spiteful cruelty in an unseemly rush to kill prisoners, is flat out disgusting. What is wrong with these people?