A murder convict in the US state of Tennessee at the 11th hour chose to die by electrocution than by lethal injection.
Stephen West was convicted of rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl and her mother around 30 years back. On Wednesday his clemency plea was rejected by Tennessee’s Governor Bill Lee.
He was electrocuted on Thursday and declared dead at 7:27 pm local time (00:27 GMT). He was the 11th person to be executed in United States this year. In 29 US states death penalty is legal.
Several people in US are against death sentence. Many countries have abolished the practice and, in the countries, where the practice is still legal it is rarely being applied.
The critics say that, “Since we are not God and we cannot give life so why should we have the right to take other person’s life?”
But the counter argument is, “What to do with the people who commit heinous crimes? If the death sentence is abolished, then the criminals would not shy away from killing or raping others as they would know that the punishment would be mild.”
