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A28 u.s. news
Dialuna 21 Maart 2022

Firing-squad executions get the greenlight in South Carolina

(AP) — South Carolina states to still use the electric uled less than a month after
has given the greenlight to chair and one of four to allow the passage of the new law.
firing-squad executions, a firing squad, according to Prisons officials had previ-
a method codified into the Washington-based non- ously said they still couldn’t
state law last year after a profit Death Penalty Infor- obtain lethal injection drugs
decade-long pause in car- mation Center. and have yet to put together
rying out death sentences a firing squad, leaving the
because of the state’s in- In June, the South Carolina 109-year-old electric chair as
ability to procure lethal Supreme Court blocked the the only option.
injection drugs. planned executions of two
inmates by electrocution, Attorneys for the two men ar-
The state Corrections De- saying they cannot be put to gued in legal filings that death
partment said Friday that death until they truly have by electrocution is cruel and
renovations have been com- the choice of a firing squad unusual, saying the new law
pleted on the death chamber option set out in the state’s moves the state toward less
in Columbia and that the newly revised law. humane execution methods.
agency had notified Attorney criminal-defense lawyer — shooters will fire their weap- They have also said the men
General Alan Wilson that it introduced the firing squad ons. The high court halted the have the right to die by lethal
was able to carry out a firing- option. He argued that it scheduled executions of Brad injection — the method both
squad execution. presented “the least painful” State officials also have cre- Sigmon and Freddie Owens, of them chose — and that
execution method available. ated protocols for carrying writing that officials needed the state hasn’t exhausted all
Lawmakers set about tweak- out the executions. The three to put together a firing squad methods to procure lethal in-
ing state law to get around “The death penalty is go- shooters, all volunteers who so that inmates could re- jection drugs.
the lethal injection drug situ- ing to stay the law here for are employees of the Correc- ally choose between that or
ation. Legislation that went a while,” Harpootlian said. tions Department, will have the electric chair. The state’s Lawyers for the state have
into effect in May made the “If we’re going to have it, it rifles loaded with live ammu- plans, the court wrote in an maintained that prisons offi-
electric chair the state’s pri- ought to be humane.” nition, with their weapons unanimous order, were on cials are simply carrying out
mary means of execution trained on the inmate’s heart. hold “due to the statutory the law, and that the U.S.
while giving inmates the op- According to officials, the right of inmates to elect the Supreme Court has never
tion of choosing death by fir- death chamber now also in- A hood will be placed over manner of their execution.” found electrocution to be un-
ing squad or lethal injection, cludes a metal chair, with re- the head of the inmate, who constitutional.
if those methods are avail- straints, in the corner of the will be given the opportunity Now that a firing squad has
able. room in which inmates will to make a last statement. been formed, the court will South Carolina’s last execu-
sit if they choose execution need to issue a new order for tion took place in 2011, and
During South Carolina’s by firing squad. That chair According to officials, Cor- any execution to be carried its batch of lethal injection
lengthy debate, Democratic faces a wall with a rectan- rections spent $53,600 on the out. drugs expired two years lat-
state Sen. Dick Harpoot- gular opening, 15 feet away, renovations. er. There are 37 men on the
lian — a prosecutor-turned- through which the three South Carolina is one of eight The executions were sched- state’s death row.

Time to retool census? Some think so after minorities missed

(AP) - Is it time to rethink be mostly scrapped because gest between-census effort to response. Eventually, data the count used for allocating
the census and other sur- disruptions caused by the take the measure of the U.S. related to people’s addresses, congressional seats.
veys that measure changes pandemic produced fewer population, the American demographics, businesses
in the U.S. population? responses in 2020. Community Survey, produc- and jobs would all be linked Any effort to revamp how
es 11 billion statistics from together. the count is conducted will
Policymakers and demogra- The undercounts in the 2020 interviews with 3.5 million need to be protected from
phers have been asking that census were blamed on the households each year, and In 2030, when the next cen- similar efforts to misuse the
question since results re- pandemic, natural disasters the once-a-decade census tal- sus takes place, the program count for political purposes,
leased by the U.S. Census and political interference lies every U.S. resident for could help count people with said Paul Ong, a professor
Bureau this month showed from the Trump administra- a count used in divvying up good administrative records emeritus of urban studies at
Black, Hispanic, American tion, but undercounts of ra- federal funding and congres- or links to other records, and UCLA.
Indian and other minority cial and ethnic minorities are sional seats among the states more resources could be de-
residents were undercounted nothing new to the census; as well as redrawing political voted toward households “The 2020 enumeration was
at greater rates in 2020 than they’ve been persistent for districts. that are the hardest to count, a wakeup call,” Ong said.
in the previous decade. decades. Census Bureau Director “The Census Bureau has a
Even before the release of Robert Santos said in a recent very important and funda-
On the top of that, results In recent years, the cost of the 2020 report card earlier interview with The Associ- mental function in our so-
from a version of its most censuses and surveys have this month, the Census Bu- ated Press. ciety. It is the keeper of our
comprehensive survey grown while public partici- reau had been developing demographic truths.”
that compares year-to-year pation rates for surveys have new ways of gathering data. Relying on administrative re-
changes in U.S. life had to declined. The bureau’s big- Chief among them is the em- cords may have its own prob- From a purely civic perspec-
bryonic Frames Program that lems because some groups, tive, Terri Ann Lowenthal, a
would combine all kinds of such as people in the country former congressional staffer
data sets, including adminis- illegally, often have little pa- who specializes in census is-
trative records from the pri- per trail. sues, worries a greater reli-
vate sector and government ance on administrative re-
agencies, as well as surveys Besides naming an unusu- cords at the expense of public
and censuses that have been ally high number of politi- participation will be one less
staples of Census Bureau da- cal appointees to the Census thing that engages everyone
ta-gathering for decades. Bureau, the Trump admin- in the U.S., no matter their
istration unsuccessfully at- background.
Under the concept, one data tempted to use administra-
set such as an individual’s tive records to get a tally of “If you are in a millionaire’s
IRS file would be linked to the number of people in mansion or living in a tent
another, such as the individ- the country illegally so they under a bridge, you matter to
ual’s Census Bureau survey could be eliminated from the census,” Lowenthal said.