Readers write

32 years is too long to be on death row

Tennessee is not alone as it continues the deplorable practice of executing murderers long after the crime itself was committed. Tony Carruthers has just had his death sentence put aside for a year, via reprieve by Gov. Bill Lee. The reason was that the executioners could not find a vein into which they could viably inject the fatal mix. Apparently, the state is confident that a year from now, Carruthers’ veins will be healthier or another type of execution will be devised.

All this for an individual found to be mentally incompetent and who was accused along with one other person of a triple murder in 1994! Trial and punishment famously are supposed to be fair in the former and swift in the latter. One can argue the morality of executions, but taking a life 32 years after the crime amounts to murder by the state itself.

FRANK BRENNAN, ACWORTH

Warnock’s outrage over gerrymandering is misplaced

The AJC dutifully published Georgia U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s feigned outrage over the likelihood of GOP gerrymandering in Georgia, the same thing Democrats have done wherever they’ve had the chance.

Georgia Democrats have a long tradition of using racial fear to drive voter turnout. Former Gov. Lester Maddox built a career on it. Warnock has simply updated the manual: different target audience, same strategy. Keep your voters convinced they’re under attack, keep them furious, keep them showing up.

Democrats gerrymander gleefully in Illinois, Maryland and New York and call it progress. Republicans do it in Georgia and it’s Jim Crow. The outrage isn’t about principle. It’s about power.

Meanwhile, Black voter turnout keeps rising through every law Democrats call an existential threat to democracy. Warnock warns that democracy is a “house on fire.” It isn’t. The house on fire is the Democratic Party’s ability to win Georgia honestly. When you’ve drifted so far left that the race card is your only ace, maybe the problem isn’t the map.

PAUL MILLER, ALPHARETTA

Why can’t we have high-speed rail in the U.S.?

These days, there’s much talk of rising airline tickets and the shutting down of small air carriers such as Spirit because of the skyrocketing cost of airline fuel. These small carriers transport people from smaller cities and airports around our country.