Human capital - Adam Ward

26.7 x 36 cm - Acrylic on cardboard
Article in Daily Mail

Human capital - Shot at Dawn, 1918

Victor Manson Spencer was in 1915 als 18-jarige in het Nieuw-Zeelandse leger gegaan als vrijwilliger. Hij loog over zijn leeftijd, want eigenlijk was hij te jong. Na vele gevechten, oa in Galipoli, verliet hij zijn regiment, lijdend aan shell shock. Hij werd opgepakt en veroordeeld wegens desertie. Hij werd geëxecuteerd op 24 February 1918 om 6.45 Hij werd in eer hersteld in 2006.

Click here for New Zealand television report on th five shot-at-dawns that were exonerated

Human capital - Doctor Lee Hartman

Klik hier voor een artikel van de kleinzoon van Dr Hartman in Texas Tribune.
Dokter Lee Hartman woonde als gevangenispsychiater meerdere executies met de elektrische stoel bij. Hij deed experimenten met drugs zoals LSD op gevangenen met mentale problemen om de genezende effecten ervan te onderzoeken. Hij was psychiater geworden omdat hij zelf aan een manisch depressieve stoornis leed. Hij noteerde bij iedere executie hoe de veroordeelde zich gedroeg. Het viel hem op dat een buitenproportioneel aandeel van de geëxecuteerden Afro-merikaans waren, en velen waren in zijn ogen onterecht ter dood veroordeeld want ontoerekeningsvatbaar. Hij werd een fel tegenstander van de doodstraf.
Hij pleegde zelfmoord door een overdosis pentobarbital te nemen, wat later gebruikt werd als executiemiddel.

Acrylic on paper, 42 * 29,7 cm (A3)

Human capital - Do not execute Warren Hill

both 60cmx 60 cm, acrylic on canvas

fill in the petition now

7 August 2012: Texas executes Marvin Wilson, 54, who had an iq of 61. State attorneys that Wilson's claim was based on a single test that may have been faulty and that his mental impairment claim wasn't supported by other tests and assessments of him over the years.

18 July 2012: Texas executes Yokamon Hearn, 33, who suffered from a fetal alcohol disorder that should disqualify him from execution.
In 2004, a federal court spared Hearn less than an hour before he could have been taken to the Huntsville death chamber so that it could consider arguments that he was mentally impaired and therefore ineligible for the death penalty. That appeal subsequently was rejected.

24 July 2012: Marcus Druery, 32, was denied motions that deem him unfit for execution on the grounds of mental disorder. Druery’s lawyers say their client is schizophrenic and doesn’t have a rational understanding of why he’s scheduled to die.
The prosecutor did not argue that Druery is mentally ill, but did insist he meets the competency criteria for execution.

23 July 2012: Warren Hill, the death row prisoner in Georgia who has been diagnosed intellectually disabled, was granted a stay of execution, 90 minutes before he was scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection. The Georgia supreme court unanimously decided to postpone the execution.
20 February 2013: Warren Hill, an intellectually disabled prisoner, has been spared the death chamber just 30 minutes before he was due to die by lethal injection in Georgia despite a US supreme court ban on executions of people with learning difficulties. This was the second time in seven months that Hill has come close to the death chamber. Warren Hill, 53, had already taken an oral sedative of Ativan to help calm himself for the gurney before he learned of the stay of execution.

Beside the fact that all the above recent cases concern Afro-Americans, and people with mental impairment, capital punishment itself should be abolished. It is inhumane and medieval.

Albert Camus: "Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders."
http://www.deathrow-usa.com/
http://claimyourinnocence.wordpress.com/

Postscript
Warren Hill was executed in January 2015 - Guardian story January 27 2015

Human capital - Do not execute Warren Hill (works on paper)

all 42 x 29.7 cm (oil pastel o/p, oil pastel o/p, pencil o/p)