April 23, Rick Halperin, director of the SMU Dallas Human Rights Program, for a commentary about the history of the death penalty in the U.S. Published in History News Network under the heading Despite Popular Opposition, The Death Penalty Marches on Unabated: https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/185486
Twenty five years ago, on a beautiful day in late April, 1998, I witnessed a lethal injection execution in the death chamber in Huntsville, Texas. At that time, Frank McFarland was the 458th condemned inmate to be put to death in the United States after executions resumed in January, 1977. McFarland was the 150th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas, which resumed state killings of inmates on December 7, 1982.
The world in general, and this country in particular, were very different in many ways. But one of the pathetic constants still in effect in America today is the barbaric practice of executing condemned inmates across the nation.
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