United States Disciplinary Barracks - Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment

See also: Capital punishment by the United States military

The USDB houses the U.S. military's male death row inmates. Since 1945, there have been 21 executions at the USDB, including fourteen German prisoners of war executed in 1945 for murder. The last execution by the U.S. Military was the hanging of Army PFC John A. Bennett, on April 13, 1961, for the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old Austrian girl. Bennett's execution took place four years after it was approved by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. All executions at the USDB thus far have been by hanging, but lethal injection has been specified as the military's current mode of execution. As of June 2011, there are six inmates on death row at the USDB, the most recent addition being Timothy Hennis in 2010. Andrew P. Witt is currently the only Air Force member on the USDB death row.

The execution of Army Pvt. Ronald A. Gray, who has been on military death row since 1988, was approved by President George W. Bush on July 28, 2008. Gray was convicted of the rape, two murders and an attempted murder of three women, two of them Army soldiers and the third a civilian taxi driver whose body was found on the post at Fort Bragg. On 26 November 2008, a federal judge granted Gray a stay of execution to allow time for further appeals.

Within the prison, Death Row is located in an isolated corridor away from other inmates.

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Famous quotes containing the words capital punishment, capital and/or punishment:

    “Capital punishment kills immediately, whereas lifetime imprisonment does so slowly. Which executioner is more humane? The one who kills you in a few minutes, or the one who wrests your life from you in the course of many years?”
    —Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)

    “There was a sound of revelry by night,
    And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
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    The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;
    A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
    Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
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    But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!”
    —George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    “That thing of hell and eternal punishment is the most absurd, as well as the most disagreeable thought that ever entered into the head of mortal man.”
    —George Berkeley (1685–1753)