This awful case epitomises the case for abolition in my view. Grant was kept on Death Row for 23 years while legal argumentrs caused delays to his execution. Then it was botched; the cocktail of drugs used is not up to the job. Grant finally died after 15 minutes of convulsions and vomiting.
While I agree that whoever administered the drugs should've been more careful to do right (sincerely), this issue brings up a serious question which has been discussed somewhat.
What does a murderer deserve?
While it may appear that this is what we've been talking about the whole time(and if it is...welp.) I mean it in this sense: Grant kills one person and is put in prison. Later, while on leave, he kills another. He's just robbed two people of their lives and deeply affected two, maybe more, families. He goes to jail again and, after 23 years or so, is eventually executed for what he did. His execution is botched and he dies in agony.
Didn't he deserve that? Didn't he deserve exactly what he gave to those people given back to him? Just because someone suffers, that doesn't automatically make the suffering evil.
So, what does a murder deserve? True, if Grant had been kept in prison, he would never have murdered that second person. But, as I have learned, inmates pass their secrets and ways on to each other while they're in jail and thus each becomes the worse for the experience, morally. If Grant had been executed (properly) right away, he would never be able to corrupt anyone else, which he may have done. One solution is to keep everyone in isolation...but the complications with that become pretty clear. What did Grant deserve?