The Michigan Daily-Thursday.May 6, 1982-Pege 11
U.S.'DEATH ROWS'OVERCROWDED
Inmate executions stalled
From the Associated Press
Death rows are becoming overbooked in several
states as more than 1,000 condemned prisoners find
their executions delayed-sometimes against their
will-by appeals to higher courts.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death
penalty six years ago, 1,013 men and women have
been condemned to die in the 36 states that allow
capital punishment. But only four have walked that
last mile, none in the past year.
EVEN SOME convicted killers who say they are
ready to die find their cause taken up by civil liberties
organizations who object to the state "sanctioning
suicide."
In the most recent such case, the Supreme Court on
Monday refused to dismiss an appeal filed on behalf
of Dickie Gaines, 22, convicted of the 1978 murders in
Illinois of two people in a $1 robbery.
Gaines, one of 42 condemned prisoners in Illinois,
has said he wants to drop the appeal and die.
IN TEXAS, where 161 people-including two
women-have been sentenced to lethal injections,
state Criminal Court Judge Truman Roberts said a
convict sentenced to death is virtually assured of get-
ting a stay from federal court.
"I don't know whether anybody will ever be
executed under the present death penalty law," said
Roberts, a judge in a state that electrocuted 361 con-
victs between 1924 and 1964.
Houston attorney Will Gray, who represents about
two dozen death row inmates, is not so sure.
"NORMALLY, you can figure probably four or five
years before you exhaust all of the remedies," he
said. "Ultimately, a bunch of them are going to be
executed."
Before 1964, condemned Texas convicts were
placed in one of eight cells near the electric chair at
the state prison in Huntsville, and most were
executed within 30 days of their arrival. Today, of-
ficials have had to move death row to a larger unit 16
miles away.
Opponents of the death penalty feared a wave of
executions after Gary Gilmore voluntarily went
before a Utah firing squad on Jan. 17, 1977. It was
almost two years later, on May 25, 1979, that John
Spenkelink, who killed a fellow drifter in a motel
room, was electrocuted in Florida. Spenkelink
became the first prisoner in the United States put to
death against his will since the '60s.
JESSE BISHOP was sent to the Nevada gas cham-
ber later that year, on Oct. 22.
The nation's last execution was on March 9, 1981,
when Steven Judy, 24, was electrocuted in Indiana for
the -rape and strangulation of a mother and the
slayings of her three young children.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund said that in late
April there were 1,009 people on death row in various
states, the most since the Supreme Court reinstated
capital punishment. They included 528 whites, 422
blacks, and the rest Hispanics or other minorities.
Future of ,
El Salvador
evaluated
(Continued from Page 5)
likewise, the military pressured the
Constituent Assembly to name
Magana," he said.
"The trivial matters are left to the
president," Samayoa said. The more
crucial decisions, he added, are made
by the United States then passed to the
military factions in El Salvador and
then finally to the president.
THERE ARE several theories as to
why the election boycott, organized by
the Democratic Revolutionary Front
and other opposition forces, was not
completely successful, Samayoa said.
Samayoa hypothesized that those
who voted did so either out of convic-
tion, because they felt they had nothing
to lose, or due to intimidation.
However, he also said he doubted the
accuracy of the election results and
believes the success of the election has
been greatly exaggerated by the media.
A reported 1,400,000 El Salvadorans
voted in the elections but this would
have been "almost physically im-
possible," due to the election structure,
according to Samayoa.
PDQ Bach
brings fun
to classics
(ContinuedfromPages)
played "by a clarinet, trumpet, and
trombone.
The finale combined the artistic and
comic talents of composer PDQ Bach
and Peter Schickele as piano soloist. He
is a fine pianist, whose technical
facility impressed both the audience
and a lone policeman who ticketed
Schickele for playing too fast.
For his solo, Schickele played
variations centered around the note G
with all the love and care and appen-
dages possible (his nose, knees, chin;
etc.). Why the note G? PD9's favorite
was the G-string. x t ; x
4*0
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