Audio Tapes of Georgia Executions Air on NPR, ABC-News Nightline, and Pacifica national radio

 Audio tapes describing executions in Georgia were broadcast nationally by National Public Radio and ABC-News Nightline on May 2, and by Democracy Now! Pacifica national radio on May 3. The tapes, recorded by members of Georgia's Department of Corrections, became public record after defense attorney Mike Mears subpoenaed them in a lawsuit he brought challenging the state's use of the electric chair. These "Execution Tapes," which narrate the executions of 22 inmates in Georgia's electric chair, can be found on-line at http://www.soundportraits.org/on-air/execution_tapes/

    Friday May 4, 2001

Brutality gets an airing

Death penalty tapes put the US to shame

There have been about half a million murders in the US since 1976 when the supreme court restored the death penalty. Since 1977, just over 700 people have been executed, more than 500 of them since 1993. Given that 19 of the 50 states did not impose the ultimate punishment in this period, these figures, compiled by Amnesty International, starkly demonstrate the random and arbitrary nature of judicial killing in America. A federal government study recently confirmed independent findings that racial and geographical factors have a big impact on death penalty application. In 80% of the 700 cases, the victims of the relevant crime were white. Conversely, African-Americans have been disproportionately targeted for execution. The US stands accused of flouting international standards by continuing to execute the mentally impaired, providing inadequate legal representation, executing people who were minors when they committed their crime, and keeping condemned prisoners lingering on Death Row for periods exceeding 10 years. States such as Illinois have declared a moratorium on executions because of alarm over a number of miscarriages of justice. Liberal American opinion agrees with the consensus in European countries that the US position is morally untenable and increasingly out of line with global trends. Since the US restored the death penalty, 60 countries have abolished it. A condition of Turkey joining the EU, for example, is its renunciation of the death penalty. Nor can the US authorities show evidence that the death penalty works as a deterrent - the reason being that it does not. Since George Bush is an enthusiastic hangman, leadership on this issue will not come from the top. But the imminent execution of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh has forced the matter to the fore. If entrenched US attitudes are to be changed, a massive public education effort is required. That is why the airing on public radio this week of grisly tapes of executions in Georgia's electric chair is so important. Listening to a killing, listening to the callous, gallows humour of the guards, listening to the murderous popping of enormous electrical surges, is very different from contemplating execution in the abstract. That most states now employ lethal injection makes no odds. The brutal result is the same. Perhaps, finally, America will listen up - and begin to awaken to its shame.

 ABC News

Thursday May 03 02:52 AM EDT

Hear Two Georgia Executions

By ABCNEWS.comSome 51 percent of Americans would support a law replacing the death penalty with mandatory life imprisonment, according to an ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll.Georgia's prison system made sound recordings of all 23 executions conducted in the state between 1983 and 1998.Portions of some of the tapes, which were played on public radio stations Tuesday, are the first documentary evidence of an American execution since a public hanging in Kentucky 65 years ago.Georgia is believed to be the only state to have taped executions. On the tapes, prison officials provide a dispassionate, minute-by-minute commentary, starting with guards securing the condemned man in the electric chair and ending with doctors declaring him dead.ABCNEWS' Nightline will play excerpts of two of the tapes tonight: the 1984 executions of Ivon Ray Stanley and Alpha Otis Stephens. Stephens' electrocution had to be repeated because he was still breathing after the first time.The tapes came to light when they were subpoenaed by Mike Mears, a Georgia criminal defense lawyer, who was challenging the state's use of the electric chair three years ago. They were obtained by documentary radio producer David Isay and broadcast on New York's WNYC and other public radio stations around the country.