from the cruel-and-unfortunately-becoming-usual dept.
The Center for American Progress reports:
Man Remains Alive Nearly 2 Hours After Injection
Using an unusual concoction of drugs this afternoon, Arizona attempted to execute a man on death row. One hour after he was supposed to have been lethally injected, however, Joseph Rudolph Wood was still alive, "gasping and snoring." Wood's lawyers filed an emergency request to stay the execution and give the man life-saving help, but it was too late: After two hours, he died.
Wood's execution almost didn't occur today. Just three days ago, a federal appeals court put the lethal injection plans on pause, requiring the state to disclose "the name and provenance of the drugs to be used in the execution" and "the qualifications of the medical personnel" performing the execution. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme court reversed that lower court's ruling, and, after another brief stay by Arizona's Supreme Court, the execution continued as planned
All this conflict has arisen because overseas drug-makers have raised moral objections to their products being used in executions, and refused to sell the medications for that purpose. As the usual drugs used to lethally inject inmates have been pulled from the shelves by their makers, the American justice system has turned to untested, often undisclosed, drugs to kill its inmates. Those drugs are usually made not in pharmacies but in drug compounding facilities not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.
What's more, administering lethal injection violates the Hippocratic oath, to which doctors must adhere. That means that the people performing the injections are often less qualified to do so.
Wood's extended survival through execution is only one of several horrible results from this conflict. Just last month, Oklahoma botched an execution, leaving inmate Clayton Lockett writhing in pain for 43 minutes before he suffered the massive heart attack that ultimately killed him. And before him, there were more: Eric Robert, for example, turned purple and gasped for 20 minutes before he died back in 2012. Michael Lee Wilson was said to have screamed, "I feel my whole body burning" before he eventually died during his execution.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday July 24 2014, @11:29AM
If we're going to have the death penalty, let's switch back to methods that we know work quickly and effectively like the firing squad or the guillotine. The whole point of lethal injection is to convince juries that what they're ordering done is a painless medical procedure by dressing people up in medical-like costumes, when it is plainly neither painless nor medical (in fact, doctors aren't allowed to be involved).
Besides that, I'm pretty sure many of those who are in favor of the death penalty would actually be volunteering to be in the firing squad or pull the guillotine lever, which would make executions simpler and more emotionally satisfying.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 24 2014, @11:45AM
But those people are also the people that argue that punishment must be something scary, not the easy way out. Like prison must be worse than starving to death, otherwise people would steal bread just to go to prison.
You are not likely to convince those people that the death penalty should not be a form of torturing a person to death.
(Score: 1) by egcagrac0 on Thursday July 24 2014, @11:51AM
How about we turn it into a game show [imdb.com], where the prisoner has to escape from a deathmaze. Maybe they get a full pardon if they make it out, and their beneficiaries get $5000 for each obstacle they clear / 5 minutes they survive.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:04PM
I'm more in favor of Roman-Style Gladiator fights to the death.
We have the arenas, we have a population full of bloodthirsty hicks who are willing to spend money to see UFC fights, why not? It would be a perfect fit to the "bread and circuses" theme, savage decadence against the backdrop of a crumbling empire.
The possibilities are endless. Cars with spiked battering rams, flamethrowers, 2x4's with nails, maces, bolas, nunchaku, whatever. We could do team deathmatches. Gladiators would win perks like conjugal visits and X-Boxes and shit. And when a gladiator has another in submission, instead of looking to an emperor for the thumbs-up or thumbs-down, there will be an announcement in a rumbly low-pitched voice over the PA system: "Finish Him!"
(Score: 4, Funny) by egcagrac0 on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:25PM
I smell a spinoff in the works already.
Text to 435455 (GDKILL) to finish him, 435483 (GDLIVE) to show mercy. Standard text messaging rates apply. By participating in this vote, you are opting in to receive occasional promotional messages from our partner network.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Thursday July 24 2014, @03:25PM
If I remember correctly, the Running Man [wikipedia.org] involved leaked footage of a military helicopter massacre. Thank goodness [collateralmurder.com] nothing like that [youtube.com] could happen [theguardian.com] in real life [huffingtonpost.com].
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by tathra on Friday July 25 2014, @03:54AM
careful with that idea. the book ends with the protagonist flying a plane into the skyscraper where the network is housed, killing the executives and hopefully ending the show for good.
(Score: 2) by Oligonicella on Thursday July 24 2014, @03:55PM
Bullshit. You're talking out your ass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 28 2014, @03:47PM
I'm afraid good sir it's you who's talking out of your ass: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Thursday July 24 2014, @12:04PM
I never understood why they got rid of hanging myself. You put the knot on the side of the neck and as long as you have a decent drop its gonna snap the neck and break the spinal cord instantly. As a bonus those inmates that wish to donate their organs will be able to do so, which several have tried to get either hanging or firing squad for this reason and were denied.
But I really have a hard time feeling sorry for these beyond obviously guilty ones, like the one a few months back that huffPo tried to drum up sympathy for who had botched his own execution by repeatedly stabbing himself in the arms so they couldn't find a decent vein. That scumbag had raped and tortured a pregnant woman before burying her alive...and I'm supposed to feel bad that it took an hour for the piece of shit to die? How long did it take his beaten and raped victim to slowly suffocate? I said there if they wanted it faster take him out back and put him down like the rabid animal that he was.
I thought it was hilarious though that the writer wrote this big bleeding heart piece on the shitbag and even on huffpo the majority was "oh he suffered? Great, probably not half as much as his victim but you can't win 'em all". Protip: If you are gonna write an anti-death penalty piece don't pick as your example a piece of garbage that bragged about his rape and murder and left his DNA all over the victim, doesn't really help your case.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday July 24 2014, @12:30PM
What about those who were in fact not guilty at all, as has been the case with at least 144 people [deathpenaltyinfo.org], or a whopping 10% of those sentenced to death?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by quacking duck on Thursday July 24 2014, @01:13PM
Hairyfeet specifically stated lack of sympathy for those who were *beyond obviously* guilty, suggesting some sympathy or unease in cases like those you cite where there's been uncertainty or worse in a system that's imperfect and even biased against certain groups of people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25 2014, @05:59AM
There is no such thing as obvious guilt. That is the point of having a justice system. How can you tell the difference? Even people that dedicate their lives to it are still wrong 10% of the time. Why do you think you can do better?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RaffArundel on Thursday July 24 2014, @01:41PM
Hey, look - feel free not to share your fetishes... oh wait, sorry, read that wrong. The answer here is that it is even easier to screw up a hanging than the various issues we have had because of EU pharma activism. I'm going to guess that slowly strangling is worse than snoring yourself to death.
So we have this situation:
1. Capital punishment is determined by the state, and some choose to employ it. In all(?) recent cases it is lethal injection.
2. The original supplier of the drug decided to suspend sales to support their view that capital punishment is wrong.
3. States have had to scramble to meet legal requirements, since any manufacturer in the US publicly disclosed would be hammered by the anti-death penalty groups it is hard to find the drugs necessary to do it correctly.
4. States make due with what options are left to them, and so you get this situation.
So the problem as I see it is that instead of addressing point #1, which of course makes #2-3 moot, there are activists who are trying to back-door their goals bypassing legislation. Obviously having no legal way to meet the "no cruel and unusual punishment" requirement would make capital punishment de-facto impossible. That is until someone comes along and finds profit in it, despite the backlash from opponents. I'm not familiar enough with the "plan" to know if that is the small victory they want until they can sway voter opinion. It seems that the argument that innocent people may be executed doesn't dampen the majority's desire to keep capital punishment. Typically, these arguments and rulings (such as the one that nullified the aggravated rape clause in Texas) simply tighten up the existing laws, demonstrating a desire from the voters for a death penalty of some sort.
As for hanging, it is interesting to note that more people on California's death row have died from suicide than from either the gas chamber or lethal injection. Just a guess, but I would hazard that in most of the cases hanging is the most available. Make of that what you will.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by choose another one on Thursday July 24 2014, @05:46PM
If the supplier is in the EU then they are simply meeting their legal requirements - nothing to do with their view on capital punishment - in fact European companies are usually quite happy to sell anything to anyone unless legally blocked from doing so (at least in the arms industry). the US likes to try and project its laws outside its borders, but turnabout is apparently not fair play - and in this case the EU is only regulating what EU companies may do in the EU (exporting from it), not trying to control what they do in the US.
There are plenty of standard anaesthetic drugs that states _could_ use but then apparently they risk depriving US hospitals of the same drugs because of the EU export ban. That is the bit I have trouble understanding - a country as large and technically advanced as the US has lost the ability to make basic drugs (beyond cannabis). How have they let that happen ?
Also there are plenty of other easy options - if it has to be injection, use a heroin OD, not a cruel or unusual way to go, and supplies and skills to administer are on hand in most prisons. Or look to other industries - if the meat industry can (apparently) humanely kill anything from day old chicks to buffalo in slaughterhouses, can they really not manage to come up with a humane way to kill a human ? Or just straight hypoxia (see below). Hell, even beheading done badly doesn't make the condemned suffer for as long as 2hrs - plenty of videos around the web, but I don;t think you'll find one that took that long. It can hardly be argued that it is an unusual punishment these days either, and there's Plenty of expertise for the southern states to tap into just over the border.
The real reason is in a sense the most shocking - the executioners actually _want_ the death penalty to be cruel, as cruel as they can get away with within the constraints of the constitution. If they can make lethal injection as cruel as they can and blame their opponents for forcing them to do it badly, then so much the better. The BBC did a documentary on this exact issue a few years ago (look up "how to kill a human") and found better alternatives to lethal injection, took them to lethal-injection supporters in the US, and had them rejected - the essential reason for rejection: not cruel enough.
(Score: 2) by RaffArundel on Friday July 25 2014, @01:38PM
Thanks for pointing that out, I was operating under the impression they were still following the 2005 directive which didn't ban dual use anesthetics. Apparently, they added an export restriction on those in 2011. In a way it is kinda disappointing - I liked the idea that they were making a stand and losing money when they didn't have to.
It didn't happen - obviously the ability never disappeared, just the will to do so. Dow Chemical produced napalm and Agent Orange resulting in a huge backlash during the Vietnam War. US Pharma apparently wants to avoid that. In fact, the most recent execution in Texas (IIRC) had a stay filed because the drug was supplied by an anon compounding pharmacy (of course, who know, they are anonymous) so clearly it can be done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 24 2014, @01:41PM
If the state followed the 8th Amendment, we wouldn't be in the position to feel sorry for the scumbag. Fine, kill him, but it's not ok to torture him in the process.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 24 2014, @01:56PM
Look at how England prosecuted its prisoners in the 17th century. You will find it nicely lines up with the 10 bill of rights. When they got around to killing someone they actually usually did it sorta fast. But if they wanted to make an example of you they would use 'cruel and unusual'. Under those standards that it took an hour or two is not bad. These dudes if they wanted to do 'cruel and unusual' they would make it take days and in public. It was not uncommon to torture people to get them to confess to anything. Because under the prisoner is under duress they can say 'just confess and it stops'. People will at that point say anything.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Alfred on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:39PM
FREEDOM!
(the caps filter doesn't like braveheart)
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Thursday July 24 2014, @05:10PM
:-)
(the caps filter doesn't like ASCII smileys either)
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 2) by compro01 on Thursday July 24 2014, @03:10PM
It has an unfortunate tendency to sometimes pull the head off, which is rather messy.
(Score: 1) by Nollij on Thursday July 24 2014, @03:33PM
It also has a tendency to not break the spine, and the person hangs until they asphyxiate.
From what I've read, it's a very traumatic thing to watch.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday July 24 2014, @11:49PM
Bet it doesn't take two hours though.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sir Garlon on Thursday July 24 2014, @12:14PM
I seriously doubt the average citizen who supports the death penalty has the conviction to do that. You've giving them too much credit. Furthermore, I suggest that the people who have really thought the matter through might be willing to pull the trigger, but would be far from happy about it. Personally I would not do it, and that's why I am opposed to anyone else doing it on my behalf.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 2) by Oligonicella on Thursday July 24 2014, @04:02PM
Recidivism. Your only other option is life in prison without parole.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MozeeToby on Thursday July 24 2014, @01:05PM
Nitrogen hood. Quick, painless, doesn't require any special or toxic equipment at all.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by compro01 on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:34PM
And therefore unacceptable to the capital punishment advocates.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Friday July 25 2014, @04:04AM
in other words, they're sadists and/or sociopaths so their opinions shouldn't matter.
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Thursday July 24 2014, @04:28PM
Seriously good idea. It's simple, effective and as humane as you could possibly make an execution. The guy falls asleep and never wakes up.
Is there any good reason NOT to switch to this kind of execution?
(Score: 1) by helel on Friday July 25 2014, @04:25AM
So far as I can tell, any method of execution that makes use of harm most people understand is unacceptable. Pretty much everyone knows that without oxygen you'll asphyxiate so we can't do that but pumping "chemicals" into a prisoner if fine because most people don't know the actual mechanism of death.
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Friday July 25 2014, @02:33PM
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4681401&cid=45994975 [slashdot.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by chewbacon on Thursday July 24 2014, @01:10PM
Studies done on heads immediately after decapitation showed signs of consciousness for a brief time. It's not an instant death as you may believe. Albeit the study that comes to mind was done by a doctor back in the days when the guillotine was widespread. It wasn't exactly the peer reviewed study we demand today. The doctor called the name of the man beheaded and his eyes opened.. He did this more than once.
Personally, I'm not too offended by these mishaps in execution if it is uncommon and not due to negligence. In this case it sounds like it maybe. These men were convicted of particularly heinous crimes to get to death row. Think of the pain they inflicted on their victims and the ripple effect to the victim's friends and families.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday July 24 2014, @01:19PM
> Think of the pain they inflicted on their victims and the ripple effect to the victim's friends and families.
Allegedly. Given the huge flaws in the US so-called justice system, I would not be willing to bet anybody's life on any of the convictions being sound.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:49PM
I've long suspected that death would not be instantaneous with beheading, despite what advocates like the Revolutionary French believed, not least because of the (in)famous experiments where animals heads have been kept alive after decapitation. There are also numerous instances where people have described stuff like eyes and mouth moving in the seconds following decapitation and other signs of continued brain activity - deliberate or otherwise.
Biologically, you are cutting off the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain, allowing blood in the cranium to drain out, and introducing a massive trauma to the top of the spinal column. Other than the shock from damage to the spinal column, I think it dubious that it would even introduce instant loss of conciousness, let alone loss of life - it certainly doesn't if, for instance, you were to use a ligature to achieve a similar effect. At the very least, the victim would have until the oxygen levels in the available blood fell below the levels necessary to sustain at least some level of conciousness, and that could well take several seconds or more.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Darth Turbogeek on Thursday July 24 2014, @11:10PM
If you want to punish someone, then death aint it. Throw them in a cell, lock the door, let tthem rot for 40 years. Death is the easy way out.
But then again, civilized countries and people think the death penalty is pathetic with far too much chance of killing innocents.
(Score: 2) by bucc5062 on Thursday July 24 2014, @01:38PM
I pondered (when these news items pop up) why they don't use an overdose of Morphine or Heroin. It seems more simple than some concoction of drugs, it seems more effective (given the number of deaths from drug overdose), and from the criminal's viewpoint, the mind is gone before the body goes so I would guess, they don't care.
I'm no fan of the death penalty. I read an article that stated people on death row vs life in prison without parole cost the state way more dollars. The death penalty has also been shown to not be much of a deterrent and given the screw ups by the legal system, innocent people can be killed. I favor the Life in Prison without parole or pardon. Separate them from the general population, limit their access to people and let them rot in a cage till old age kills them.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2) by tomtomtom on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:41PM
Unlike in Europe (where it's commonly used e.g. for labour and terminal illness pain relief), as I understand it diamorphine/heroin is illegal even for medical use in the US (you can probably blame the war on drugs for that). A large enough number of people are also allergic to it that that may be a problem.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday July 24 2014, @03:14PM
It's a problem if you're allergic to something that's going to kill you anyway? But I suppose we're splitting hairs about humane treatment here anyway.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by khedoros on Thursday July 24 2014, @06:59PM
(Score: 2) by tathra on Friday July 25 2014, @04:15AM
you might be surprised to hear this, but morphine and heroin overdoses rarely cause death when used alone. most of the time when somebody dies from an opioid overdose, its because they're mixing it with other respiratory depressants (alcohol, benzodiazapines, etc). the other times, when they arent doing dope while drunk, its because their dealer suddenly got an incredibly pure batch and they do their 'normal' dose, effectively doing 3-5x more than they're used to, likely in a different setting than usual (for some reason i'm not to sure of, tolerance is tied to setting - different setting means less tolerance; weird, i know). that whole "the mind is gone" thing isn't true either, unless you're just talking about nodding off, which just means they've fallen asleep.
(Score: 1) by Jiro on Thursday July 24 2014, @05:07PM
The point isn't to convince juries of anything.
The death penalty is restricted in pointless ways because of death penalty opponents who challenge as many death penalty cases as they can from as many angles as they can so that the penalty is nibbled away bit by bit. Every so often the ploy fails and a court rules that a particular method, done in a particular way, is legal. The end result is that executions always use particular methods in particular ways because now that they have been vetted by the courts, it's much harder for death penalty opponents to sue than if the executions were done in other ways.
The same people who claim that our refusal to use guillotines or firing squads shows how hypocritical we are, are the ones who would tie up the execution in the courts if we did use those methods.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday July 24 2014, @11:43AM
> Using a cruel and unusual concoction of drugs
FTFTFA
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 24 2014, @11:58AM
Why bother with something expensive and artificial?
Why not just use a nitrogen or helium atmosphere?
Or for that matter, carbon monoxide?
(Score: 2) by nightsky30 on Thursday July 24 2014, @12:04PM
That's a waste of helium, which is leaving us already.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday July 24 2014, @12:48PM
Nitrogen then. Plenty of that.
The only "problem" with it, as far as I know, is that it gives you a somewhat euphoric final few moments, and some people don't think that's a good thing.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rivenaleem on Thursday July 24 2014, @01:25PM
We should be lowering them slowly into a vat of concentrated acid, that'll teach them!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:26PM
Plus, if they botch the helium execution, the prisoner will be left with chipmunk-voice, adding insult to injury.
Now that is cruel and unusual.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Buck Feta on Thursday July 24 2014, @12:12PM
Or water?
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 1) by Lazarus on Thursday July 24 2014, @06:55PM
>Or for that matter, carbon monoxide?
Because it would make our government murdering citizens look much too much like what the Nazi's did. It's insane that we still let the ignorant conservatives, with all their talk of limiting government power, murder people if they're allowed power over others. We really need to marginalize our savage throwbacks.
(Score: 2) by weeds on Thursday July 24 2014, @12:49PM
Seems to me that someone (Conrad Murray) already knows how to do this:
from http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=113188 [medicinenet.com]
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Thursday July 24 2014, @01:27PM
Conrad Murray was a doctor. Of course doctors know how to do it right, but their oath prohibits them from being involved in executions.
Result is that the prisons use medically untrained people to perform what is essentially a medical procedure - and then everyone seems to get surprised when they **** it up and can't hit a vein etc.
(Score: 2) by weeds on Thursday July 24 2014, @01:57PM
Being involved, fine, but I doubt that the knowledge of how to kill someone with the drugs he used is a secret.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 24 2014, @04:32PM
> Being involved, fine, but I doubt that the knowledge of how to kill someone with the drugs he used is a secret.
Kind of like how to program is not a secret but if you hire an amateur you'll get amateur results?
(Score: 2) by compro01 on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:38PM
Because
A. The companies that make those drugs aren't allowed sell them for the purposes of executions.
and
B. If you obtained them anyway through side channels, redirection, or whatever, sales of the drugs will get prohibited to anyone in the entire state or even the entire country, which results in "Sorry, we're not going to be able to do your surgery. The state government decided they needed to kill people with the drugs we need, so now we can't get them anymore.".
(Score: 2) by weeds on Thursday July 24 2014, @03:34PM
Well, State does plenty of work for itself, how about State makes it's own execution drugs?
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 2) by compro01 on Thursday July 24 2014, @03:49PM
That's somewhat what they're trying to do, by contracting the making of the drugs to local companies. But said companies don't appear to possess any great degree of competence at this kind of work, as this incident illustrates.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Friday July 25 2014, @04:24AM
not to mention that buying, selling, or possessing drugs for which you do not have a prescription is illegal. in an ideal world, the state would not be above the law.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 24 2014, @12:57PM
The suffering of those being executed is not an unfortunate side effect but the reason why executions are done the way they are.
(Score: 1) by FuzzyTheBear on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:02PM
There's an article in the Laws of this land that are against it. State sponsored murder is not a torture session. They choose to do something that does not affect crime incidence. the death penalty has over and over be shown totally ineffective against murderers , be they mentally challenged or not. If you insist on the death penalty , though it solves nothing , not even the family's desire for vengeance , not justice , vengeance ,then a firing squad is the way to go. Quick and can't go wrong . 10 guys , 10 rifles and 9 bullets.
Anything else is babrabian in nature and shows how low the instincts of the Americans are.Most of the civilised world has long moved off from it.
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Thursday July 24 2014, @03:18PM
I smell either a potential cost-cutting measure, or a guy who forgot to load his rifle here. Is the 10th guy the prisoner, or the guy who tells them when to fire?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by Nollij on Thursday July 24 2014, @03:38PM
I believe it's to maintain anonymity of the executioner. No one knows who actually fired the shot (at least one would be a blank) that killed the person.
Same as the executioner hood, or multiple hangmen pulling different switches.
(Score: 2) by compro01 on Thursday July 24 2014, @03:56PM
One of the rifles is loaded with a blank. It's supposed to allow the firing squad members to rationalize their consciences clear by believing that they were the one with the blank and thus they didn't kill a person.
(Score: 1) by Ellis D. Tripp on Thursday July 24 2014, @04:07PM
or completely inexperienced, and unable to detect the difference in recoil between a blank and a real round.
"Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up, you end up with a lot of scum on the top!"--Edward Abbey
(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Thursday July 24 2014, @08:27PM
Sounds like a lot of theatrical hand-wringing bollocks to me.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Thursday July 24 2014, @04:09PM
What about 12 guys, 12 rifles, 5 live rounds, 7 blanks? On the balance of probability, no-one knows who makes the fatal shot. And there's enough redundancy in case anyone gets twitchy.
Or what about 12 guys who are allowed to read the court transcript, meet the prisoner and then choose live rounds on a probabilistic basis? If you think the prisoner is innocent, choose a blank. If you think he's possibility guilty, mix a bag of live rounds and blank rounds and choose one. If everyone fires and the prisoner lives then the prisoner is free to go.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday July 24 2014, @09:00PM
Judge, jury, AND execution squad? There is a reason these roles are best separated! (There is also a reason executions are no longer public: See Foucault's _Discipline and Punish_)
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday July 25 2014, @04:14AM
I watched an interview with a Texas(?) prison guard who participated in death penalties. A man he executed was later found to be innocent. This left him very shaken and questioning his life. In such circumstances, a person could commit suicide. Instead, he became campaigner against the death penalty.
I'm suggesting that if death penalties are going to be performed, a person should only participate if they're personally satisfied about the prisoner's guilt rather than following an order then discovering the order was based on inaccurate information or faulty logic. If there was some autonomy in the process, people could rationalize subsequent discrepancies. This would reduce the emotional burden on individuals who act on behalf of the state.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday July 25 2014, @04:37AM
Did you see the movie, "Monster's Ball" with Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thorton? Even if they are guilty, for any other human to decide they deserve to die is a _difficult_ thing, because we are not infalliable. Even some modicum of decency, such as prohibiting "cruel and unusual" punishment, is really only a bone we throw to ourselves. That is the real reason Foucault suggests the executions moved from open air, public events (think: Braveheart with William Wallace), because the mass of the population might at some point realize that they had more in common with the condemned that the victim, and then the gig would be up. Same thing happened when the Supreme Court of the United States of America put a moratorium on the death penalty because it seemed that most people being executed were, um, minorities. This was lifted, but the work of the Innocents Project out of Cardoza Law School suggests that it should not have been. I have had people say, oh well, if we have to occasionally execute an innocent person to keep the crazed sodomite mass murderers in check, it's worth it. Another person immediately said, "Yeah, unless the innocent person is you!" Turns out that is less important than he thought: executing an innocent person makes us murderers, and it is better to be executed for murder when you are innocent, than to execute some one who is innocent, even if you had know way of knowing. Botch != our bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25 2014, @08:13AM
Yes, the reason being that either one of those can refuse.
If the executioner doesn't get the choice, we might as well label the bullet "executioner" and the guy pulling the trigger "judge".
(Score: 1) by SecurityGuy on Thursday July 24 2014, @04:26PM
This should never be true. We should never do this because it's been proven we occasionally execute the wrong person. For that matter, we should not execute because we occasionally execute the wrong person. I'd allow it as an option for the convicted, though. If you are sentenced for the sort of crime that often carries the death penalty now and would rather have the death penalty than society spend a $million or so jailing you for the rest of your life, fine.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday July 24 2014, @11:25PM
Could be some unforeseen consequences there. If suicide and/or assisted suicide are not available for some reason (or you don't trust that it won't fail and leave you in more pain than before), a desperate soul might see the extended version of death-by-cop as a justified way to go. Then you get cancer patients going on a rampage and opting for the death penalty. Real messy, expensive, painful way to get the end you can't get elsewhere.
Personally, I think a person should have to right to choose when to go out, and have a humane method available so it doesn't get into the lives of people who don't choose to participate.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25 2014, @08:17AM
That did happen in the dark ages. If you killed someone, you could repent, accept Jesus and go to heaven. But if you committed suicide, you didn't have time to repent and accept Jesus, so you were guaranteed to go to hell. As a result, people who wanted to commit suicide became murderers so they could be executed and go to heaven.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 28 2014, @04:06PM
Whoever said that religion was illogical?!
(Score: 1) by subs on Thursday July 24 2014, @09:06PM
If causing suffering is the purpose, then why not bring back hanging, drawing and quartering [wikimedia.org], or the good 'ol breaking wheel [wikimedia.org]? Oh, I know why, because this isn't the fucking dark age [si.edu], so I advise you to board the nearest train back to the 14th century and let the rest of us to progress beyond our lowest instincts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25 2014, @04:30AM
Don't attack the messenger. The typical proponent for the death sentence is ironically often Christian. If they could get away with it, they would institute the stoning of pregnant teenagers for being such filthy whores and cutting off people's hands for theft, like their "Good Book" suggests.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 25 2014, @06:52AM
If torture is not the point why not use one of the available methods that are painless, fast, reliable and cheaper, such as N2?
Besides, again and again officials get caught off-guard, expressing "Let the ********** suffer!11" attitudes...
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday July 24 2014, @01:16PM
For all that the USA has given to the world, for all the scientific achievements, the sportsmen and women who have striven to achieve ever more difficult goals, and for the entertainment industry that fills our televisions and music players - I admire America and Americans.
But for things like this, swiftly followed by cries that stoning or beheading are 'barbaric' when conducted by others, I hang my head in shame for mankind and in dismay for the US in particular. You are capable of so much but insist on racing to the bottom of the pile.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 24 2014, @02:39PM
but we're WINNING the race, so we're pretty happy about it
(Score: 2) by mendax on Thursday July 24 2014, @08:27PM
The infliction of unnecessary pain is antithetical to the 8th Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. That is the problem with the death penalty. There really is no way to prevent it. Well, mostly. There are only two ways of inflicting instant death I can think of that will cause no pain whatsoever. The first is what they do with animals at the slaughterhouse. They stun them with a slug to the head, rendering the animal unconscious instantly. The second is vaporization such as what happens in a nuclear blast at ground zero or what befell the victims of Mt. Vesuvius at Herculaneum. By the time the nerves register any pain, the brain is already boiling.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1) by darkfeline on Friday July 25 2014, @01:03AM
I'm surprised by how barbaric some of the comments are. No matter how cruel or wicked the condemned is, there's no excuse for "an eye for an eye" behavior. If you're bent on inflicting as much pain as or even more pain than the criminal did, how are you different from him? Because you have "justice" on your side? Hitler had justice on his side too, until he lost. Everyone thinks what they do is right, after all. I don't care whether society approves or disproves of the death penalty, since there are reasonable arguments for both sides, but if others think it's an excuse to vent their own sadistic tendencies, I want no part in it.
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(Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Friday July 25 2014, @05:41AM
The drugs being used will certainly result in death given at high enough dosages and administered so as to gain access to the intravascular compartment successfully. In fact there are a number of other drugs that would work too.
This is a weird sociological anomaly. Clearly anyone with a rudimentary understanding of physiology and pharmacology has refused to be involved in this process because these brutes are clearly amateurs.
It's another example of the adage that "before change, comes absurdity".
(Score: 1) by Tom on Friday July 25 2014, @09:30AM
As a European, I'm far away from the realities of the death penalty, but seriously? I thought killing each other is our species' primary skillset.
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