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Matt Ford writes in The Atlantic that thanks to a European Union embargo on the export of key drugs, and the refusal of major pharmaceutical companies to sell them the nation’s predominant method of execution is increasingly hard to perform. With lethal injection’s future uncertain, some states are turning to previously discarded methods. The Utah legislature just approved a bill to reintroduce firing squads for executions, Alabama’s House of Representatives voted to authorize the electric chair if new drugs couldn’t be found, and after last years botched injection, Oklahoma legislators are mulling the gas chamber.
The driving force behind the creation and abandonment of execution methods is the constant search for a humane means of taking a human life. Arizona, for example, abandoned hangings after a noose accidentally decapitated a condemned woman in 1930. Execution is prone to problems as witnesses routinely report that, when the switch is thrown, the condemned prisoner "cringes," "leaps," and "fights the straps with amazing strength." The hands turn red, then white, and the cords of the neck stand out like steel bands. The prisoner's limbs, fingers, toes, and face are severely contorted. The force of the electrical current is so powerful that the prisoner's eyeballs sometimes pop out and "rest on [his] cheeks." The physical effects of the deadly hydrogen cyanide in the gas chamber are coma, seizures and cardiac arrest but the time lag has previously proved a problem. According to Ford one reason lethal injection enjoyed such tremendous popularity was that it strongly resembled a medical procedure, thereby projecting our preconceived notions about modern medicine—its competence, its efficacy, and its reliability—onto the capital-punishment system. "As states revert to earlier methods of execution—techniques once abandoned as backward and flawed—they run the risk that the death penalty itself will be seen in the same terms."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mendax on Monday March 16 2015, @10:39PM
In a nutshell, there should be no death penalty. If it is considered wrong for a person to kill another, what makes it morally justifiable for the state to do it? Does it have a higher morality? To quote Mahatma Gandhi, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Life in prison without parole seems more just. Ask someone who has been in prison about what life is like there and you'll find that it's a pretty awful life, especially in the high security pens. They're unpleasant and dangerous. It's no wonder they pass out psychotropic prescription drugs in these places like they're candy.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Tuesday March 17 2015, @01:47AM
The reason why I am against the death penalty is a bit simpler than that: it's irreversible. If later on you find that the fellow you just executed is actually innocent, there's no way to bring them back. On the other hand, if you've sentenced a person to prison and evidence later comes up that exonerates them you can still set them free and try to undo the mistake. The criminal justice system, run as it is by people, will never be completely perfect, and even if someone has been convicted beyond reasonable doubt that isn't always 100% certain. Capital punishment demands that level of certainty if you have a criminal justice system that is serious about its purpose. Better to sentence a hundred criminals to lighter sentences than they deserve than to execute one innocent person.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mendax on Tuesday March 17 2015, @04:57AM
I agree with your reasoning as well. It is pretty much well established that many people have been executed in the United States who were later found to be factually innocent. But my point was if you want to punish someone, killing him rather than condemning them to a potentially long life in a very unpleasant and dangerous maximum security prison is not a better approach.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Eunuchswear on Tuesday March 17 2015, @10:47AM
If your maximum security prison is "dangerous" then you're doing it wrong.
Watch this Heartland Institute video [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by mendax on Tuesday March 17 2015, @07:42PM
Dangerous only because of the dysfunctional, dangerous people in it. The problem with maximum security prisons is that officials cannot keep inmates locked in their cells indefinitely. They must be let out for exercise in the yard, meals, and library use occasionally. And then there is education, medical and psychological appointments, and so on. It's a fine balance.
Supermax-type confinement should only be used be used on those where it's absolutely necessary. Having said that, prisons use that far too often.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.