To the Editor:
You argue that the death penalty is “legally suspect and morally wrong,” among other reasons because several attempts were required to find the vein to administer the lethal injections during recent executions.
Our society now reserves the death penalty for the most heinous crimes. Can subjecting the perpetrators of such crimes to discomfort akin to that experienced by many of us while giving a blood specimen during a doctor’s visit be a responsible basis upon which to abolish the death penalty? If so, it truly is time to ask what our society has come to.
Darryl W. Jackson
Washington, Dec. 15, 2009
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 