500th Inmate Executed Since Revival of Death Penalty

Despite appeals from a conservative Christian minister, Andrew L. Smith was executed Friday in South Carolina--making him the 500th person executed in the United States since the revival of capital punishment in 1976.

Smith spent 15 years on death row for killing an elderly couple in 1983. His execution was the fourth in the last month in South Carolina and in some respects is hardly an unusual case.

But to commemorate the 500th execution, a group of ministers and other death penalty foes engaged in peaceful civil disobedience at the Broad River prison in South Carolina, the site of the execution. They dipped their hands in red paint--symbolically accusing the state of having blood on its hands--and briefly attempted to block traffic outside the prison, leading to nine arrests, according to state authorities.

Other protests were scheduled in 26 states and 15 countries, including several nations that have abolished capital punishment in the two decades since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the legality of the death penalty. The high court had declared the penalty unconstitutional in 1972, then reversed field four years later.

South Carolina Atty. Gen. Charles M. Condon defended the executions, noting that 70% of Americans favor capital punishment. Smith’s execution should be “an occasion to remember the victims--the men, women and children who were slaughtered by 500 coldblooded killers,” he said.

In fact, Condon said “500 is an inadequate figure. Many of these murderers killed more than one person.”

But actor Mike Farrell, president of the board of Death Penalty Focus of California, a nonprofit group that favors abolition of capital punishment, lamented Friday’s milestone.

“It is profoundly distressing that today, just a week beyond the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, America is shamed by its 500th execution since the reinstatement of the death penalty,” Farrell said.

“As the world’s leaders grope their way toward answers to the fundamental human questions and the cause of human rights is increasingly recognized as the key to those concerns, the fact that the greatest, most powerful and arguably the most advanced nation in the history of the world continues to systematically kill its own citizens is a tragedy,” Farrell added.

Farrell and other critics of capital punishment contend that those executed have often been represented by inadequate lawyers at trial and that execution is disproportionately used against the poor and minorities.

Smith was convicted of killing Christy Johnson, 86, and his wife, Corrie Johnson, 82, after a dispute that erupted when they refused to loan Smith a car. Smith confessed to the crime shortly after he was arrested, but there were discrepancies in his story and he had to be given heavy doses of psychotropic drugs for four months before state officials deemed him competent to stand trial, according to John Blume, one of his appellate lawyers.

Smith had no history of violence and was a model inmate and a peacemaker on South Carolina’s death row, according to his lawyers and others who wrote Gov. David Beasley urging him to grant clemency to the 38-year-old inmate.

Among those pleading for Smith’s life was Robert McAlister, a political consultant and volunteer minister who served as chief spokesman to the state’s former Republican governor, Caroll Campbell. McAlister said that he met Smith shortly after he arrived on death row and participated in McAlister’s volunteer ministry program.

“Andy has a strong faith in Christ. . . . I would have no inhibitions whatsoever if I could wave a magic wand and have Andy released, with the caveat that he was released into the custody and care of me and my wife. I would have no problem going off and leaving him alone at home with my wife,” McAlister said in a letter to Beasley that was attached to Smith’s clemency petition.

But several of the victims’ relatives told local newspapers that they felt Smith deserved to die for the violent crimes. Christy Johnson was stabbed 26 times with a butcher knife and his wife was stabbed 17 times.

On Friday afternoon, Gov. Beasley, without explanation, denied the clemency request and the U.S. Supreme Court turned down two requests for stays of execution. Smith was killed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m. He uttered no parting words in public.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Death Row Numbers

Andrew L. Smith was executed in South Carolina on Friday, becoming the 500th person executed in the U.S. since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. Below are figures for executions and death row populations by state.

*--*

States with Inmates on death row Executions death row Texas 164 436 Virginia 59 40 Florida 43 387 Missouri 32 87 Louisiana 24 82 Georgia 23 123 South Carolina 19 71 Alabama 17 167 Arkansas 17 41 Oklahoma 13 149 Arizona 12 121 Illinois 11 161 North Carolina 11 207 Delaware 8 17 Nevada 7 89 Indiana 6 45 California 5 513 Utah 5 11 Mississippi 4 63 Maryland 3 17 Nebraska 3 11 Washington 3 17 Montana 2 6 Oregon 2 24 Pennsylvania 2 222 Colorado 1 3 Idaho 1 22 Kentucky 1 38 Wyoming 1 1 Ohio 0 189 Tennessee 0 100 New Jersey 0 15 Connecticut 0 5 New Mexico 0 4 South Dakota 0 2 Kansas 0 2 New York 0 1 New Hampshire 0 0

*--*

Sources: Death Penalty Information Center, NAACP Legal Defense Fund