There are spaces of sorrow only god can touch.
                                                                                                                                Sister Helen Prejean

After a 10-year hiatus of the death penalty, execution returned to the United States in 1977 when Gary Gilmore died by firing squad in Utah. The Gilmore firing squad consisted of five volunteers. One of these five received a rifle with a blank cartridge; thus, all five members of the volunteer squad returned to their lives guilt free.

Historical forms of execution include crucifixion, drowning, beating to death, impalement, boiling, burning at the stake, hanging, beheading, drawing and quartering, stoning, gassing, the electric chair, and lethal injection.

Today, lethal injection is considered the most humane form of execution. The fatal injection is administered after a sedative and and a paralyzing agent. For ethical reasons, a physican does not participate; however, following medical procedures, the injection site is sterilized.

1589 executions have been carried out in the United States since the moratorium was lifted.

1 of 8 members of death row have been exonerated since 1973, largely because of misidentification or false confession.

Witnesses are notoriously unreliable. False confession is easily coerced.

Even Patrick Sonnier had a mother who loved him.