Executions in the US--some statistics

As the end of the calendar year is (by convention) approaching, let us take a look at some numbers on the number of executions by death penalty in the US, the only western world country in the top 5 hit list for executions. Those countries are: China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the USA.

I collected some data from a prosecuting attorney's site, from the Texas Executions Information Center, and from the Death Penalty Information Center, and made a few plots. Here they are:

Executions were quite low before the 80s. At some point, they started picking up, and, in the 90s, they sky-rocketed. In the 00s they went down a bit.

Texas remains the champion, thanks, in part, the the Texas ex-governor (and then president of the US) George W Bush.

Some times, the wrong person is executed, as, for example, last year in Texas. In fact, the largest number of provably wrongful executions have taken place in Texas. (Not surprisingly, given the zeal they show in the subject of executions.) For a comparison, in the UK, a person called Timothy Evans was wrongfully executed in 1950. This played a major role in the abolishion of capital punishment in the UK in 1965. In the US, by comparison, wrongful executions have not caused any change in the law.

"Bush Candidacy Puts Focus on Executions" gives an account of what I mentioned above: the concern of people about Bush's zeal for executions. 


"A Role Model for Executions" talks about the executioner-to-be, G Scott of New Mexico who went to Texas to find out how to do his job. Scott said he came to Texas because he wanted to learn from the very best. Florida State Representative Chris Smith, a Fort Lauderdale Democrat,claimed "They're [Texans] our role model for killing people,''

"A Closer Look at Five Cases That Resulted in Executions of Texas Inmates" describes five extroardinary execution cases. One wonders how many such cases actually exist.

I remember how impressed I was, about 10 years ago, when I learned that a single man, Charles Thomas O'Reilly, the Texas Executioner for 33 years, did not express any regret or remorse for leading 140 prisoners to their death. Here is an article from Huffington Post on this person.

Giovanni Battista Bugatti, the official executioner for the Pope from 1796 to 1865.

"Necrophiliac" woman

A couple of days ago, it emerged that a 37-year old woman from Gothenburg was found to have lots of skeletons in her flat, material about necrophilia, photographs of a woman using skeleton parts, e.g., licking a skull. The police entered her flat for some different reason (there was a gunshot) and found the skulls, by coincidence. This Huffington post article (and lots of other newspapers) have the full story as well as photographs from her flat.

The woman was formally charged for the crime of "violating the peace of the dead".

The story reminded me of  "A nadder"'s posting on sexual ethics, claiming that

[n]ecrophilia should be legalised because we don’t have enough organ donors. I’m serious, bear with me. Organ donation rates are abysmal in countries that require people to opt in. Most choose the default (not opting in). Not even from laziness but because people have a cognitive bias of seeing defaults as reasonable, even if they’re ridiculous. The opt-in for donations is a misguided sentiment about human worth. Hundreds die needlessly every day for the sake of human dignity

and that

[t]he only way it would be wrong for the government to make use of your body after death (if you don’t leave instructions to the contrary) is if there was a You that survived death. Otherwise using the harm principle: there’s nobody around to be harmed so it can’t be wrong.

While it is sad that someone would choose to use skulls for sexual practices (yes, I wouldn't want to have her as my friend), I don't see, from a rational point of view, what the crime is. She did not do this in public. She did not share this with someone else who did not want to see it. She (presumably) obtained the skulls and bones legally. (If not, she should be charged for this! I have no clue how one could obtain skulls and bones, but let us assume it is possible...) Now, the argument that she violated the peace of the dead is irrational. It is the only one that may not form the basis of a legal charge, because there is no proof that such peace has been violated.

While I find the woman's practice disgusting, I can't claim we have the right to enter her flat and stop her. If she disturbs the neighbors, yes. There are many other disgusting practices for which people are not charged for crimes. Extreme body modification is such an awful practice. These people pierced a hole below their lips so the can have another exit for their tongues. Of course, they do this to attract attention. (But if we see an African woman with enlarged lips, we talk about different cultural practices which become the subject study of an anthropologist (or a preacher who will seek to convert them to the right faith).)

I think that neither the skeleton-collecting woman nor the people who modify their bodies are commiting crimes. (Compare this to the state: it thinks that the former do commit a crime, but the latter do not.) I don't like either of them and one may wonder if society has to play a role for their decisions, or if it is something in their DNA that makes them behave this way. Be it as it may, a scientific inquiry of these practices is more appropriate than putting them in jail.

There will be no justice (Greece's financial scandals)

People ask me, from time to time: why is Greece in such a mess? The answer is simple, but, simply, incomprehensible to non-Greeks: for years, the government and its friends have been stealing the money, slowly but steadily, creating an ultra-corrupt system in which there is not a single culprit but a continuum of individuals. Recently, one, only one, member of previous governments (ex-minister of defence),  Tsochatzopoulos, was arrested for embezzling, stealing, etc., money of the order of magnitude of 1 to 2 billion euro. But he was one of them, only one, the one who, probably, was not liked by anybody else any more.

A couple of years ago, the then French minister of finance, Christine Lagarde, passed on to the Greek government a list of 2000 individuals with accounts in Swiss banks, asking the government to investigate for possible tax evation. Of course, the government did nothing.

Meanwhile, Greece fell into deeper and deeper crisis, resulting in the recent rise of fascists who offer protection to individuals and promise them an eventual "solution". In a bankrupt Greece with huge immigration problems and a dysfunctional police the gangs offer quick and dirty solutions. The state cannot respond. The fascist party declares that "Greece is for Greeks", beats non-Greeks up, makes a lot of noise, attracts more and more supporters, and gets noticed as being bad for Europe.

Lagarde's list was discovered by a Greek journalist, Kostas Vaxevanis, who made it public. In response, Greece’s slow and cumbersome justice system moved with stunning swiftness over the weekend to arrest and charge a respected investigative journalist. "Greece arrests the messenger" was the NY Times op-ed piece yesterday. (See also here.) If we compare the reaction of the Greek justice now with a few months ago (they did nothing) when a member of the fascist party (currently a member of parliament) physically attacked, on live TV, a member of the communist party, we will indeed be amazed at the stunning swiftness that the justice system can exhibit when it wants to do so.

Vaxevanis' trial took place a few hours ago. He was found not guilty. But the question remains: will there be any justice regarding the culprits of the crisis? The answer is: NO.

Greek man arrested for blasphemy and religious insult (and other violations of freedom of expression in Greece)

It is not clear, as I maintained in the past, whether Greece is a theocratic state or not. A recent event confirms this in the affirmative:

A 27-year-old man was arrested in Greece for blasphemy against famous Greek monk, Elder Paisios, Business Insider reported.
Paisios, an Orthodox monk from Cappadocia who died in 1994, [is] highly venerated in Greece and Russia, and formal canonisation as saint in the near future has been speculated.
The unnamed suspect set up a Facebook page using the mocking name Geron Pastitsios, which is a Greek pasta dish.
The arrest was agitated by neo-Nazi Golden Dawn [neo-fascist] party, according to some Twitter users.
Three articles of the Greek Penal Code punish whoever "by any means blasphemes God". Article 199 states that "who publicly and maliciously and by any means blasphemes the Greek Orthodox Church" shall be punished "by imprisonment for not more than two years".

Such things happen from time to time in Greece. But I'm sure that it is not blasphemy against religion which is punishable; only blasphemy against the Greek state religion is punishable. I doubt that anyone would be arrested in Greece for insulting Ahura Mazda or Allah (and they should not).

In 2003, an Austrian writer, Gerhard Haderer, was prosecuted for his book The Life of Jesus, which reportedly portrayed Jesus as a hippie. He was acquitted in 2005.

Elder Paisios is the favourite persona of many reactionary, white supremacist, conspiracy theorist, extreme right-wing Greeks, the prototype of whom being a certain Dimosthenis Liakopoulos who, maintains, among other things, that Elder Paisios has prophesied about the future of Greece, that Vladimir Putin follows Paisios' teaching and is a big brother for Greece, and has many conspiracy theories and explanations about everything, maintaining a conspiracy page. Oh, yes, he also maintains that Greeks are supreme beings because they came from outer space. A few years ago, a blogger was arrested in Greece for linking a blog which was making fun of Liakopoulos.

With the rise of the fascist movement in Greece, due to the financial crisis, the rise of such arrests are growing. It is an alarming phenomenon. The linking of the extreme right and religion has always created big problems.

Freedom of expression is suppressed in Greece.


P.S.  Just today, I became aware, via justar-lawblog.blogspot.se, of two similar incidents:

In 2007, there was a performance, in Athens, of the well-known (musical?)  "Jesus Christ Superstar" of Andrew Lloyd Webber. The person in charge of the performance was sent to court. He was acquitted, but he faced threats and insults.

Yesterday, a crowd of Greeks protested against the upcoming performance of  "Corpus Christi" by Terrence McNally.

Thirty angry religious Greeks, with icons of saints in arms, among them some priests, and with the assistance far-right group, with Greek flags in their hands, appeared Thursday evening at the theatre in order to prevent and stop the performance Corpus Christi scheduled to take place next week.
[Fortunately] the court ruled against their will.
But the protesters were not happy with the decision. They went to the theatre and demanded that the announcements of the performance be taken down amidst signing of Byzantine hymns and the Greek national anthem.

 The line between what is considered blasphemy or not is, in Greece, fine. Sometimes the state will punish you, sometimes not. But in any case, you will face the anger of [certain] people who will not leave you alone.

Pope's ex-butler vs. Pope's sex cover-up

It is quite remarkable that the reaction of the Vatican to the stealing of confidential documents by Paolo Gabriele, the Pope's ex-butler, was so quick. In almost no time, the Pope decided that it was illegal to have documents revealing corruption be stolen, and reacted by sending Gabriele to the justice. He may face a few years' imprisonment in an Italian prison (because the Vatican is not a State and has no prisons).

Now, compare this with the sex cover-up by the Pope. For decades, one could molest children from his position as a priest in the Catholic church, without fearing any legal prosecution.  The Pope, particularly when he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 to 2005, protected the abusers through the Church’s Canon Law and ignored the victims. It took years and years for him to say a lukewarm sorry, without ever acknowledging that he actually protected the sex abusers and, therefore, without facing the legal implications. For a great description of the Pope's involvement in the sex scandals, I recommend Geoffrey Robertson's, The Case of the Pope.

For stealing of documents, one faces the law. For abusing children, thousands are protected by the Church. I don't think more should be said.

As for the argument that the Pope is the head of a State, and that he has immunity from the law, this is wrong. According to international law, the Vatican is not a State. Here is a quick explanation for this, by  Anthony Aust, international law expert on statehood and sovereignty.