Spenkelink execution triggers fears of wave of legal killing

Press, 28 May 1979, Page 8

Spenkelink execution triggers fears of wave of legal killing

NZPA-Reuter Miami Florida A Florida state legislator Mr Andy Johnson, who watched the convicted murderer, John Spenkelink, die in the electric chair on Saturday, has announced he will introduce a bill to end executions in Florida. Denouncing the electrocution of Spenklelink as sickening and barbaric, Mr Johnson told reporters: “We sat there and saw a man sizzled. If you leaned forward and looked close,

you could see that he sizzled again and again.” Both supporters and opponents of the death penalty believe that Saturday’s execution will bring a wave of executions among the nearly 500 criminals under sentence of death across the United States. Spenkelink was the first American executed against his will in 12 years. During that period, courts looked favourably on appeals against the death sentence.

Mr Johnson’s bill to end executions stands little chance of passage through the Florida legislature, where there is believed to be a sizeable majority in favour of capital punishment. A former United States A 11 o r n e y-General, Mr Ramsey Clark, who helped to prepare the last of Spenkelink’s futile appeals, has expressed the belief that more executions will now follow. “I believe we will abol-

ish the death penalty,” Mr Clark said in Washington. “It’s a question of when and how many lives will be lost in the meantime.” Utah’s Deputy AttorneyGener a l (Mr Michael Dreamer) said he hoped Spenkelink’s death would lead to the execution of all those who have legally been condemned to that fate. Spenkelink, aged 30, a vagrant, argued that he had acted in self-defence when he killed a fellow vagrant in 1973.