| | Words in the News |
INTRO | | Douglas Thomas was executed in Virginia, America, for a crime he committed as a juvenile. Defenders of human rights criticised the execution, claiming that America is out-of-step with the rest of the world.The BBC's US correspondent in the US, Stephen Sakur, reported. |
IN FULL | |  | Listen to the report in full |
|  | 13th January 2000
Capital punishment in the US |
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NEWS 1 | | | Listen to the first part of the report |
| | | When he was seventeen years old Douglas Thomas shot his fourteen year old girlfriend’s parents while they were sleeping. Last night Thomas was executed by lethal injection. Before being taken to the execution chamber he acknowledged that he deserved punishment, but he said it was unfair that he was paying the ultimate price while his co-defendant, his girlfriend, who was charged as a juvenile, had the chance of a normal life. |
WORDS | | lethal: something that can kill people
injection: a means of getting a drug into a person by using a syringe execution chamber: a room in which criminals are put to death ultimate price: here, the most powerful penalty that a judge can use - death co-defendant: "co-" is used to form words meaning that someone does something with someone else. A defendant is the person accused of a crime in a trial: Douglas Thomas's girlfriend was accused with him juvenile: a child or young person who is not yet old enough to be regarded as an adult by the Law |
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| NEWS 2 | | | Listen to the second part of the report |
| | | Opponents of the death penalty say America is out-of-step with the whole of the rest of the world. The US signed an International Charterprohibiting the execution of juveniles more than twenty years ago. But Congress insisted on an exclusion clause for seventeen-year-olds. The general public seems generally unmoved by the controversy. Only a handful of protesters gathered outside the prison where Douglas Thomas was executed. |
| WORDS | | death penalty: the punishment of death, used in some countries for people who have committed very serious crimes out-of-step: not keeping in line with
Charter: a charter is a document describing the rights or principles of a group or organisation prohibiting: not allowing exclusion clause: a section of a legal document which makes an overall rule not apply to a particular person or group of people. In America juveniles are not allowed to be executed for any crimes they have committed. Congress has brought in a clause so that this rule does not apply to 17 year olds, only to those aged 16 or under
controversy: a disagreement about something that many people do not approve of which often leads to a lot of discussion and argument handful: a small quantity of something |
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