This editorial is a compilation from a discussion held by the editorial discussion.

About to die and stripped of all belongings other than his boxers, Richard Glossip’s execution came to a sudden halt when it was discovered that the final ingredient in the State of Oklahoma’s three-part lethal injection cocktail was not present. They had potassium acetate. Which, while helpful for de-icing runways, was not the potassium chlorate needed to carry out the death of Glossip.

This last minute stay of execution (which happened last Wednesday) was just the most recent happening in a long and winding string of events that incite questions regarding the death penalty and its procedures in America.

Glossip was sentenced to die for the 1997 murder of Oklahoma City motel owner Barry Van Treese. The sentence was based almost entirely on the word of the confessed killer, a 19-year-old motel maintenance man and meth addict named Justin Sneed. Sneed admitted that he beat Van Treese to death with a baseball bat, but said that Glossip made him do it.

In exchange for testimony against Glossip, Sneed was given a life sentence, which he is serving at a medium security state prison. Glossip’s lawyers noted that Sneed changed his story several times before he admitted to the murder, then made a deal to receive life in prison in return for implicating Glossip.

In the face of mounting evidence that Glossip was innocent (as he has pleaded all along), his execution was scheduled for January. The execution was pushed back, however, when the Supreme Court agreed to consider a claim, brought by Glossip and other death-row inmates, that Oklahoma’s lethal-injection drug protocol would cause them severe pain and suffering (which would be a violation of the eighth amendment). The court ruled against the inmates in June, and Oklahoma immediately rescheduled Glossip’s execution. He was supposed to die last Wednesday, but, as previously explained, was not.

This long, drawn-out and questionable process does a pretty good job of summing up the major flaws of the death penalty in America. Those in favor of the death penalty would like to say it’s only for those who are the “worst of the worst,” but it seems that there’s a little too much bargaining involved for that to be the case. The death penalty is doing a pretty terrible job at being a fair means of punishment and the majority of The Mentor editorial board doesn’t think the arguments for it at this point are logically sound.

It seems obvious that the death penalty isn’t being implemented fairly and evenly across the board; this is depicted by Glossip’s place on death row and Sneed’s relatively light punishment, which he received by, in essence, sending another guy to die instead. With death being the “ultimate punishment,” it seems only logical that if a country is going to implement it, it must implement it justly so as to not inflict undeserved punishment. Seeing as how that has yet to be attainable, it would be more logical to simply retire capital punishment and choose other, less “final,” but just as brutal punishments such as solitary confinement within a life sentence.

The debate surrounding the death penalty brought some disagreement among our editorial board – the morality at its center being the main point of discrepancy – but both those for and against capital punishment agreed on the fact that there is, in some shape or form, a problem with the current implementation of the death penalty. So, it looks like the justice system has some work to do.