THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 27, 1996 TAG: 9601270268
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BOSTON GLOBE
DATELINE: SMYRNA, DEL. LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
First the warden strapped Billy Bailey's ankles together. Then he pulled a black hood over Bailey's face and tugged it down to his chest. Finally, as two hooded men flanked him on the platform of the wooden gallows, he placed a noose with a greased knot around Bailey's neck and fit it snug under his left ear.
It was then, under stars brightened by a moonless sky, that the warden pulled a lever with both hands at 12:04 a.m. Thursday. Witnesses recalled a clap of wood and the sight of Bailey plunging toward the ground, then his dangling body spinning hard. Prison officials pulled a curtain across his form, and 11 cold, wind-whipped minutes later, an anonymous voice called out that Bailey was officially dead.
Bailey's hanging, the first in this state in half a century, came amid what many described as the most extraordinary week of capital punishment since the United States resumed executions 20 years ago, a week that has catapulted a fading issue into the forefront of the national consciousness.
Along with Thursday's execution here, a convicted child rapist and killer died before a five-member firing squad in Draper, Utah, early Friday. It was the first such use of that form of capital punishment in 19 years, since the infamous execution of Gary Gilmore.
In addition this week, there were lethal injections in Virginia and Texas, in a trend that opponents said could bring the number of executions in the country this year to more than 100, perhaps double the 56 in 1995.
Hardened foes of capital punishment were hopeful that the fundamentally brutal nature of this week's hanging and firing squad and the publicity surrounding them would stun the public - and move them away from what they see as a growing desensitivity toward capital punishment, fed by the antiseptic, almost medical nature of lethal injections.
``When we euthanize someone in the middle of the night, it's like taking your dog to the veterinarian,'' said Kevin O'Connell, the co-president of the Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty, and one of about 100 protesters who sang hymns and rang a bell outside the prison walls during the Bailey execution.
``But a hanging means that a man's neck is snapped,'' O'Connell said. ``That is a spectacle. It makes it a real consequence. And you're going to see more weeks like this one.''
Bailey was convicted of shooting an elderly couple, Gilbert Lambertson, 80, and Clara Lambertson, 73, in 1979, after he walked away from a prison work-release program, robbed a liquor store and broke into their farmhouse in Cheswold, Del.
Bailey, who is one of 23 children and had an IQ of just 75, only said he could not recall the shootings because he had a blackout from alcohol and Valium.
``All these people feel sorry for him?'' asked Betty Wharton, 52, the Lambertsons' daughter, as she looked at the protesters. ``He blew my father's head off. We had to have a closed casket at my father's funeral.''
As the death-watch spectacles grew in both states, officials in Delaware and Utah went to great pains to convince Bailey and John Albert Taylor, the convicted child killer, to choose the less publicly objectionable form of execution, that of lethal injection.
Bailey was one of six inmates on Delaware's death row in 1986 when the state changed its form of capital punishment from hanging to lethal injection, so all six were given their choice. Bailey refused to decide, saying that asking a man to choose how he wants to die is worse than the hanging itself. Given his refusal, the default method was hanging. As recently as last weekend, the prison warden visited Bailey in his cell to ask him to change his mind.
``They really wanted him to choose lethal injection,'' said Edmund Lyons, Bailey's attorney. ``They know it makes the state look like a bunch of Neanderthals, with such a barbaric method. I have certainly put the choice to Billy as recently as two days ago, but I didn't think it was my job to lobby him just so we could feel better.''
In Utah, Taylor chose the firing squad partly to draw attention to capital punishment, and partly because he said he did not want to ``flop around like a dying fish'' when it came time to die. His decision has proven a statewide embarrassment.
For opponents of capital punishment, the month has proven to be a boon, including the release of the movie ``Dead Man Walking'' and the highly publicized clemency granted to a female death row inmate in Illinois.
Said Ronald Tabak, the president of New York Lawyers Against the Death Penalty, ``These cases are likely to cause people to think about the question of killing human beings through the deliberate action of the government, even though it is obvious it has nothing to do with fighting crime.''
Still, supporters of the death penalty, who represent a majority of Americans - 70 to 80 percent in some polls - remained unfazed and said this week would pass without spurring change.
``People who think the firing squad is inhumane should ask the convicted murderer why he picked it,'' said Michael Rushford, president of the California-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
IN VIRGINIA
The only accepted forms of execution are electrocution and lethal
injection. Since lethal injection was instituted as a form of
execution in Virginia last year, no inmate has chosen to die in the
electric chair.
KEYWORDS: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT EXECUTION DEATH PENALTY by CNB