The chaotic end of the death penalty

In regard to recent botched executions, Josh Marshall's comment ( "The End of the Death Penalty" ) sums up a lot of my own thinking:

He goes on to say:

 

Joseph Wood ws shot nine times by Police during his arrest. This guy had an atypical constitution and wasn't going to go easily, something that the authorities may have forgotten since his death sentence 23 years earlier.

Cruel and unusual punishment in his last 119 minutes indeed, but what system takes 23 years to carry out a death sentence? Isn't that also cruel and unusual punishment in itself?

Talk about 'humane'.

 

Last week I put my dog of 14.5 years down. I sat with him and rubbed his head as he went painlessly. Why can't the same chemical that every vet has be used on people assigned the death penalty?

 

Yeah, but how much of a dose? And maybe what works on dogs doesn't work on humans. After all, onions and grapes are toxic to dogs, but good for people.

One of our cats had a stroke which paralyzed her rear legs, plus congestive heart failure, and other serious problems. But when we took her to be euthanized, the first lethal injection did not kill her. It didn't even render her unconscious. Nor did the second. I think this stuff is not so simple.

 

Because prison business is big business, and business comes way before humanity, to our cost.
Congrats for having your friend for so long, you must have had some great times.

 

You completely misunderstand me. The merits of the death penalty are not the issue here.

You're right to surmise that I'd rather we not execute people, but that's not the point.

No, I don't think those analogies apply here at all.

The fuckups aren't the problem -- the fuckups are increasingly common symptoms of a deeper problem.

In all of the First World, the death penalty hangs on in just a few U.S. states. It inspires a lot of revulsion worldwide.

That would be completely irrelevant -- except for the fact that the revulsion seems to be practically unanimous among the groups whose cooperation you most need: the medical profession, drug makers, etc.

Imagine trying to fly planes under these circumstances. Let's say all the trained pilots refused to work with you, so that you had to use amateurs. And let's say manufacturers refused to supply any new planes, or any parts for old planes.

The problem is not with the death penalty as such. Rather, it's with doing execution as a pseudo-medical procedure.

If we switched back to firing squads or hanging, there would be no problem. We have plenty of bullets and rope, and plenty of willing experts in putting those things to use.

But the U.S. is (apparently) unwilling to go back to the old ways. Why is that?

In the linked article, Josh Marshall argues that, even in our most conservative states, we don't have the stomach to execute people -- unless we have a doctor in a white lab coat sanitize it for us.

So what happens when the doctors won't play?

I don't hear of any state legislature considering bills to switch to a simpler and more effective low-tech method. Have you?

 

What rogue49 said. We're human, we know how to kill people. My big beef with the death penalty is not killing someone, but killing the wrong person. I think it has been misused, I think racism and sloppy work has been involved sometimes. But that doesn't mean it's not potentially effective. But I know innocent people have been put to death and that needs to be fixed now. There is never an excuse for that and there are probably D.A.s in Texas that should be prosecuted.

 

Of course we do. So why don't we do it in the simple and direct way, instead of trying to shroud it under a hospital gown?

 

I would be ok with direct, but not to make it a spectacle. It's like a mad dog. Just put it down and move on.

 

The death penalty is nothing more than committing murder because we hate someone so much we don't ever want to see them again, and we're not willing to pay to lock them up and care for them for the rest of their lives. And if we're going to do that we'd damn well better be absolutely sure we're killing the right person, because you can always let someone out of jail but you can't take back an execution.

People who want their old testament justice so much they should have to actually follow the same laws: No less than two adult unrelated witnesses with no conflict of interest who warned the person of the law and received a response confirming the perpetrator understood their crime and intended to commit it anyway, and after they testify those demanding the death penalty should be the ones to carry it out.

You want him dead? You kill him yourself, his blood is on your hands. If you can't live with that don't pass judgment on others.

 

The current problem with the death penalty is that the drugs which were accepted as humane are no longer available so the states have been faking it which has lead to inhuman situations.

So why should they be allowed to fake it?
There has to be transparency as to what they are using and proof that the people who are doing the administering of the drugs are trained to do so.
All of this is kept hidden by out of date laws.

If we are going to have the death penalty it must be totally out in the open so there can be no question as to its nature.

 

The Onion actually captured the tone of the way some states have been handling their executions so much than I could ever state it.

Executioner Enters Lethal Injection Room With Bag From Home Depot | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

 

I agree.

That is excessively stringent to the point of being worthless.

I am strongly in favor of this for two very different reasons. It would let the people who seriously want deadly justice to have it. OTOH it would force the loudmouth wimps to "put up, or shut up."

BTW, regarding the "him," would this law only apply to male criminals? I ask because I live in a "redneck" state where reasonably attractive females of a certain ethnicity very rarely receive the death penalty despite comitting henious murders.

 

You certainly have flair for a dramatic turn of phrase. So hear goes.

How about the idea that society takes murder really seriously? That society decides that some murders are so heinous that the only punishment fitting is the death penalty? like killing law enforcement officers, the people who put themselves out there to uphold the laws? Maybe it's not hate, it's preventive. And if you think it's not preventive, don't ask the people on death row. Ask the people who are not on death row.

I don't believe in any religious mythology, so I certainly am not going to base justice on some fantasy. I will use ethics and reality.

I am a trooper, a law enforcement officer. When taking this job, I had to be willing to kill in the line of duty. I also pass judgment on people every day. I judge whether I am going to enforce the law at any particular point. Usually dealing with minor traffic infractions. But I do pass judgment. And someday I might have to decide to shoot to stop someone, and there is a good chance that will kill the person. But if I know that I made the right decision, that I was justified at that moment in protecting life, my own or someone else's, then there will be no blood on my hands. Because I acted correctly, and ethically. My response will be based on someone else's actions. Their action will lead to their own death. They will provoke my response. I won't be the aggressor. And yes, pointing a gun at me will get you shot. Everyone knows that.

 

@omega as much as I agree with you concerning the nature of your job and the choices you have to make wouldn't you agree there is a difference between the choice you make to protect yourself and others when someone is firing a weapon and a government choosing to strap someone down, who ten percent of the time may not be guilty, and shooting them full of a toxic mix of chemicals that they refuse to disclose to the public?
Sorry about the very long run on sentence but I hope you got my point.
As a society we have certain responsibilities that individuals do not.
You make choices on an individual basis in your role as a law enforcement officer.
What you do is the result of the decisions our society has made.
We need to be aware of the real reasons for why we're making these decisions and not just go off of knee jerk reactions.

John Oliver pretty much nails it,

 

Red, if you look back at my second response then you'll see that I think there are deep seated problems with the death penalty as it is currently applied. But I still think it is a potentially useful tool. I don't think that a couple botched executions is a reason to throw it out. Those are engineering problems. Fix it and move on. I wouldn't cry if the death penalty were legislated out of existence either, though. It's a tool.

 

I was using the genderless "him" mainly because it worked best in the sentence compared to trying to fit in a singular "them". Speaking statistically though it may as well be gendered since women are about twenty times less likely to get the death penalty than men for the same crime, assuming they were convicted in the first place which is also many times less likely.

And then of course there's the racial disparity on top of that. "Try not to be black" is the best advice you can give people sometimes.