The 'judicial murder' of death row inmates does not only incriminate the elites of the American States and Federal judiciary.
It also incriminate the prison guards and other lower order penal and other functionaries. For whom, their participation in the ghastly process have become just 'a part of their job.' A rather Kafkaesque affair.
Arkansas is one of 31 states in the United States with the death penalty, compared with 19 states which have given up their questionable 'right' to inflict capital punishment on people convicted of murder.
This shows that Arkansas believes, still, in the law of retribution and revenge. An 'eye for an eye', 'a life for a life.' An 'Old Testament' penal policy.
Which places it and the other 31 states on par with the conservatism and the judicial anachronism which one might expect to find in countries with less enlightened approaches towards crime and punishment.
Not what you might have expected from the nation which prides itself on its purported exceptionalism, as a role model for other nations of the world to follow.
If fact, judged by how it treats its less fortunate citizens, including the poor and those tried, convicted and sentenced for criminal offences.
America, in this respect, really has nothing to be proud of, and sets a negative, as opposed to a positive example.
Where crime, punishment and reparation and rehabilitation is concerned, the message is not to do as America does.
Of course, it is unlikely that the current controversy will effect any significant and positive changes in the retributively, politically and profit driven penal and judiciary systems in America.
Especially with the Obama Administration having now been replaced with a Republicon one.
This 4 year period will continue to be part of the long and dark night which is still holding sway over American prison, penal and judicial reform.
Until the bright day of such reforms, the 'judicial murders' will continue.
In the meantime, Governors such as Asa Hutchinson will be condemned, for the rest of their lives. To bear the sense of guilt which all people of conscience would be feeling.
Having been responsible for doing, at best, nothing to prevent the killing of men whose lives were entrusted to his discretion. And at worst, acting to expedite their deaths.
In the final analysis, it is pointless to argue that, in exercising what is not an immutable law, but a man-made one, it exterpates ones guilt in perpetrating 'premeditated judicial murder.'
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