I did not get my Spaghetti-O's, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.-Thomas Grasso (Executed in Oklahoma)

Kenneth Lee Boyd, come on down, you are the next contestant on the “Capital Punishment Show”. Kenneth, do I have a surprise for you. You are the 1,000th person to be executed in the U.S. since 1976! Rod, tell Kenneth what he as won. Kenneth, as lucky number 1,000 you will receive a free steak dinner from the NC Department of Corrections. Next you will spend 30 minutes on the finest gurney that money can buy. Now get ready, for the final prize, you will receive an injection of lethal drugs that will take you on a tropical vacation to Hell.

All it took for Mr. Boyd to become “Mr. 1000” was killing his wife and father-in-law in front of his own two children. You would think that it wouldn’t take as long as it did to execute someone after committing such heinous crimes. After all, it happened back in 1988. But good things come to those who wait. My elementary school teachers used to say that patience is a virtue and I believed them. Now I have proof that they are right. Can you believe that Mr. Boyd was ungrateful being the lucky man? He actually had the gall to say “I’m a person, not a statistic”.

The death penalty issue in the United States is a touchy subject to say the least. There is no middle ground. After all, someone can’t be partially dead. The paradox of the debate is that the “Religious Right” is mainly in favor of executions and the “Liberal Left” is for the most part opposed to executions. On paper that kind of logic appears a little backwards. That’s why I avoid trying to explain it to my Korean friend, Jin. He might end up having an aneurysm trying to understand why religious people want to fry wrongdoers.

When it comes to politics I have to declare myself as an Uber-Independent. Frankly I think the leaders of both parties should be dipped in syrup and staked on an ant hill then replaced with the party of “common sense”. The Democrats have the backbone of an elephant seal, but if someone called me a Republican I’d likely rip their tongue out and nail it on my wall. I am actually a supporter of the death penalty, but I’m certainly not a religious person (unless Hillbilly Buddhism is now recognized as an official religion).

A lot of my acquaintances have given me their opinions about the death penalty, and they seem to dislike it. These aren’t a bunch of backwoods rubes; they are highly intelligent people who have several valid points. Hopefully I won’t alienate them too much because you can’t afford to piss off half your readership when you’re doing an independent column. But this article is “only for those with true grit, and I am chock full of that, man.”

Now hold on for a moment before you declare me a flag sucker. As with any government program the death penalty is riddled with more holes than a paper plate blasted with a shotgun, and that’s what my people mentioned first. Frankly they are right. The program is a goddamn fiscal nightmare. In my home state of North Carolina it costs around $2.16 MILLION more to execute someone than it does for non-death penalty cases. Lord knows the lawyers must love the death penalty. To get assigned to a death penalty case is like winning the lottery with all of those high priced appeals that are sure to ensue, and don’t forget those possible book and movie offers.

The guesswork needs to be taken out of the equation to eliminate all those damn expensive appeals. For instance there is no way that “Freeway Killer” William Bonin should have had 14 years before he got the gas chamber after being convicted on 10 counts of murder. If a person is 100% guilty they should be put to death, but nobody should ever be fried on circumstantial evidence.

Another prime example of the pitiful state of the appeal process is the Gerald Stano case. From 1969 until his arrest in 1980 Stano murdered 41 women ranging in age from 13 to 35. Thankfully he was apprehended in Florida where he had a date with “Old Sparky” in 1986. For some reason he was granted an indefinite stay and not executed for another 12 years. What the fuck were they waiting for? Can anyone tell me?

One would think that the consequence of eating 100,000 volts of electricity would deter people from committing such vile atrocities. Unfortunately that isn’t the case Junior. Louisiana has the highest murder rate in the country (13 murders per 100,000 people) and they love to put people in the dirt. Conversely, Maine has the lowest murder rate (1.3 murders per 100,000 people) and they don’t have capital punishment as an option. The South has far and away the highest incidence of capital punishment, but we also have the lowest education and highest religious affiliation rates as well. Could there be a correlation there?