How To Execute People In the 21st Century 1081
HughPickens.com writes 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 also 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."
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 also 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."
HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Really simple. And that nobody is willing to supply the Propofol should tell you that some nation is stuck in the deep and dark past on this issue (and apparently has some problems with manufacturing some medical drugs...). The world has moved on and realized that there are no acceptable excuses to execute anybody in a modern society, it is time to join it.
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
If America wants to execute people, THEY WILL.
Psychopaths sympathize with that statement.
I'm sorry you're too simple minded to understand that some people are not worth letting live
I'm sorry you're too simple minded to realize how flawed your justice system is, and how many innocents had their lives taken by it.
Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:5, Insightful)
Face it: Yes, it is wrong to kill any human being. Some people, however, have committed crimes so heinous that they no longer qualify as human beings, just because they happen to have a particular DNA sequence.
.. and some people decide that's because they don't believe in the same god, don't accept the same society rules, are homosexuals, ..
Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:5, Informative)
I believe you need to read Rosseau. There is something called "The Social Contract", which is something of a "shrink wrap license" you agree to by being born
We have gone over this time and time again that EULAs are unenforceable. therefore Rosseaus "social contract" is bunk.
Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:5, Informative)
There is something called "The Social Contract", which is something of a "shrink wrap license" you agree to by being born into a society, that by doing so, you agree to abide by that societies rules.
Ridiculous. You can't agree to anything just by being born; you aren't even sentient at that point. There is no meeting of the minds, no clear agreement. If this so-called "social contract" existed, it would be a contract of adhesion which no human being in history ever explicitly agreed to, and any competent court would throw it out with prejudice after a cursory hearing.
Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ridiculous. You can't agree to anything just by being born; you aren't even sentient at that point. There is no meeting of the minds, no clear agreement. If this so-called "social contract" existed, it would be a contract of adhesion which no human being in history ever explicitly agreed to, and any competent court would throw it out with prejudice after a cursory hearing.
Try using that argument to opt out of the "income tax" portion of the social contract.
Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:4, Insightful)
The "social contract" is a fiction created by the elite to keep the rest of us in line. It's something to which we are all supposed to accede, yet it's only enforceable one way. Rich men don't go to jail unless they harm other rich men or have in some other way broken the elite's kleptocratic rules in some way.
The (very few) times in our history when there has been something like a working social contract were periods when there were grass roots movements to enforce those rules. Labor unions, the civil rights and women's movements of the 20th century were a few such institutions.
And make no mistake: the rapidly metastasizing surveillance state is nothing more than an effort to make sure such institutions can never again exist.
Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:5, Insightful)
The "social contract" is a fiction created by the elite to keep the rest of us in line. It's something to which we are all supposed to accede, yet it's only enforceable one way. Rich men don't go to jail unless they harm other rich men or have in some other way broken the elite's kleptocratic rules in some way.
Very much this. A more elaborate form is "It is God's will", thereby neatly cutting of any avenue of discussion or escape, especially if the religion in question is executing people rejecting it.
And make no mistake: the rapidly metastasizing surveillance state is nothing more than an effort to make sure such institutions can never again exist.
I fully agree. The surveillance-states currently being busily established and justified with lies, lies and more lies are motivated by one thing: Those in power are terribly afraid of those they are supposed to serve.
Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:4, Insightful)
The only real term in a "social contract" is "Society (i.e. the government) may change the terms of this contract in any way, at any time, prospectively or retrospectively, and the individuals all remain bound by it."
In other words, it's bunk.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
> you agree to by being born into a society, that by doing so, you agree to abide by that societies rules.
I have no doubt you actually believe that horseshit. That statement makes some of the more hilarious proclaimations Christians are so fond of saying seem rational and reasonable in comparison.
Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:5, Interesting)
you agree to by being born into a society, that by doing so, you agree to abide by that societies rules.
That is categorically not what the "social contract" means. The "social contract" is an expression that one must suspend some "natural rights" (i.e. the freedom to "do whatever you want") in order to obtain the benefits of living in a society (i.e. to protect rights that need social defense). Like any contract, it's one that must be entered into consciously, not by birth or decree; the perversion of such a "contract" to mean one inherits it by birth is a road to domination and stagnation. Being born conveys only liberties, not responsibilities. Being a member of a community conveys both. It is up to a person to choose the latter, and it is up to a child's guardians to convey the benefits and consequences of such a contract. And it is up to every person to negotiate the social fluidity of all of these.
Society's rules are also not static, and they typically only change through rebellion. This process can be peaceful or bloody, just or unjust, depending on the rules and the rebellion. The most just and peaceful evolution comes from a confluence of evolving "social contract" that challenges outdated or unwarranted rules; the least comes from the collision of an unflinching status quo with an unflinching reality. Wars are often fought, in either case, and often the "social contract" is discarded wholly in the process.
The people you listed above, had they been freed, elderly and in a different world? They would have little purchase to do any further harm. That isn't to say there is no reason to guard against a resurgence of past monstrosity, and it isn't even to say that the world isn't better absent some of the worst monsters. But the world changes—nay, people change the world—and tossing monsters into a world that was once their own but isn't any longer... doesn't give them a lot of leeway.
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Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:5, Informative)
False dichotomy. You are asserting that the option is to execute or parole after some maximum term. You are intentionally neglecting the option of life in prison without the chance of parole. Your argument is rendered almost entirely moot by such a sentencing option.
The following countries have abolished "Life without parole":
Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brasil, Cape Verde, Columbia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Kosovo, Macau China, Mexico, Montenegro, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Portugal, Republic of Congo, Serbia, Spain, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vatican City, Venezuela
The following countries have life sentences, but have mandatory consideration for parole after some set period:
Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Caech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Georgia, Greece, India, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Republic of Macedonia, Republic of Moldova, Monaco, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Switzerland, Republic of China, Turkey
So no, the argument is not "moot".
Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:5, Interesting)
The first time Hitler tried to seize power in Germany via a coup, he was arrested and used his trial to gain publicity, and rallied a lot of people towards his cause while he was in prison.
Which by the way, 20 people died in his coup attempt, something that would probably have made him eligible for the death penalty in the US (felony-murder doctrine) which had he been executed, it would have averted his eventual reign which itself lead to WWII.
Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:4, Insightful)
Honest question, since there's a list of nazis up above: if an elderly Adolf Hitler were forced to live in prison for 50 years and released into modern life, what more harm could he do?
I dare say he could produce an astonishingly smelly old man diaper.
In a Machiavellian sense, he could be used, for example, as a figurehead to drum up support from the people who he was able to drum up support from before, in order to follow a political agenda. He could also be used in a campaign of renewed anti-semitism, and he could function as the Nazi equivalent of Nelson Mandela when he was jailed for his statements (which he would be, in Germany). At which point he could be a martyr. He could also be assassinated via a false flag operation in order to create a martyr. If he weren't senile, he could run for Chancellor - there's precedent for ancient men as Chancellor: Konrad Adenauer, born in 1876, was elected in 1949 at the age of 73, and served until 1969, when he was aged 87.
I could think of many dozens of ways he could himself cause trouble, and I can think of many more dozens of ways he could be symbolically used by someone else to cause trouble. Who would have thought a presumptive nobody like Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria could have been used to touch off WW I? And Hitler would have not really been a presumptive nobody, had be been released under the conditions you imply.
Re:Your justice system is flawed, too. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is the failure of a criminal justice system based upon punishment and not rehabilitation. With a system based purely on rehabilitation, with specific crimes where risk of server consequence is high, no rehabilitation, no release. That becomes much more feasible where detention conditions are much more humane and the concern is protecting the public, whilst still endeavouring to achieve rehabilitation.
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
And there your stance becomes obvious: You are not after justice, you are after revenge. In revenge, you do not mind killing a few innocents with the guilty, with justice, that is completely unacceptable.
Other interesting fact: The Soviet Union had that sort of legal model where punishing the guilty was considered far more important than not punishing the innocent. Beware what people you associate with here.
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Re:HOWTO (Score:4, Insightful)
Deserve? Deserve what?
Justice is about making wrongs right. What does it mean to deserve? How does it square with justice?
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As we do not know what happens after death, we do not know what these people actually get.
and frankly, I dont care, they could be reincarnated as a powerb all jackpot winner for all I care
killing somebody is not a form of punishment and hence cannot be "deserved"
If that were true, wouldnt you see more people in prison for life appealing for death instead of the other way around? If it was not a punishment these DR inmates would not be wasting money and time on appeal after appeal (unless you are mistakenly believing that EVERYONE on DR is innocent)
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be confused about the definition of "punishment". One central requirement is that the person punished can learn something from it.
Re: HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Being wrongly convicted and dying in a gas chamber due to organ failure is different from being wrongly convicted and dying in a cell due to organ failure how, exactly?
Well, I can think of a few differences:
The system should be fair, equitable, efficient, and effective. We should rehabilitate those who can be rehabilitated and execute those who cannot. Keep it simple, efficient, and constantly improving.
Executions are never really "fair, equitable, efficient [or] effective". Legals costs make them expensive and inefficient, in America they are predominantly performed on black prisoners which makes them more racist than fair or equitable, and since they are more expensive and have a lower deterrence value than life in prison they are not terribly effective. Frankly, all it does is satisfy a very primal urge to see a simplistic punishment applied to the person who we believe has done wrong. There's a conservative part in all of us that wants to see death dealt to those who have wronged us, but unfortunately, that's neither practical, reasonable nor moral.
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm with you -- certain heinous crimes deserve the death penalty. However:
In many cases, we cannot be certain that the individual who has been judged guilty, actually is. We know from the various exoneration projects, where convicted death row inmates have been proven innocent with more advanced forensic techniques (DNA, etc.) that the system regularly makes horrific errors, sentencing the innocent to death. Even just a cursory understanding of how our justice system works will make any reasonable person aware that it is error-prone. And we must not put people who are not actually guilty to death. Ever.
Consequently, this is my position: Until or unless technology allows us to unequivocally, zero-possible-doubt, 100% certain determine actual guilt of the actual crime they are being tried for, we cannot afford to engage in killing as punishment without becoming the very worst kind of criminals ourselves.
So as things stand right now, I am solidly against any use of the death penalty.
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Interesting)
Better Arguments Needed (Score:5, Interesting)
Showing zero remorse for doing it is despicable.
I completely agree...but isn't this what you are also doing too? Wanting to kill someone while showing zero remorse about doing so? If you are going to argue for the death penalty a far better argument is to say that it removes any possibility that the person can ever re-offend and thus protects society. The problem is that, as practiced in the US, this is very hard to argue. Those convicted are held in prison for a decade or longer and even then there are a shockingly high percentage whose convictions are quashed when carefully examined.
If you want to argue for the death penalty then you need to restrict it to cases where the evidence is overwhelming and you need to make it rapid. Even then mistakes will be made which is why I have so much trouble with the concept. About the only time I would think that it is justified is when you have someone whom you cannot safely imprison e.g. the IRA terrorists in the 1980/90s who used their contacts with the terror organization to threaten guards' families unless they got special treatment while in prison: something which almost lead to their escape. In these cases I would argue that the need to protect society from extremely dangerous criminals might make it justifiable but I'd still have concerns.
Re:Better Arguments Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely agree...but isn't this what you are also doing too?
I don't think there's a need to feel remorse for ridding society of someone about whom otherwise never give another thought, but who comes to our attention for being a satisfied murderer of innocent people. Supporting the removal of that person from existence isn't the same as wanting to kill anyone.
If you want to argue for the death penalty then you need to restrict it to cases where the evidence is overwhelming and you need to make it rapid.
Overwhelmingly clear guilt, yes. Rapid enough to not be dragging the victim's family back into appeal hearings for decades - which is insane. But too hasty does indeed increase the risk of errors in judgement.
Re:Better Arguments Needed (Score:4, Insightful)
While that story is terrible, I am a bit sceptical. Do have any evidence to show that it actually happened, and is not just an urban legend that you're repeating with no supporting evidence? I found nothing related when I did a quick search for the story. Fundamentally, it seems a bit unlikely that the system would release someone who was convicted of murder in the first degree to "make room", and double unlikely when he seems to be highly unrepentant and has not been in prison long enough for his "mentally retarded" girlfriend to move on.
Of course, the recidivism (ex-convicts committing another crime after release) rate is highly variable between countries, for instance Canada has a recidivism rate of around 13% while the United States has a recidivism rate of around 60%. However, even in the United States the recidivism rate for people charged with murder and released is around 1.2%, the vast majority of released murder convicts never commit another crime (let alone another murder). The criminals most likely to be caught and sent to prison again are burglars, drug dealers, fences and illegal arms dealers. And they would never be subject to the death penalty, anyway. I suspect the very low murder recidivism rate for murderers is because most murderers are released long after their most violent years have passed.
So you might frame the question, should society murder the 98.8% of murderers who will never commit another crime to stop the 1.2% who will?
Re:HOWTO (Score:4, Insightful)
It is however killing somebody in cold blood
No, it is just completing what the murderer chose to start.
Murderers rationalize their crimes in exactly the same way.
Yaz
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Interesting)
In my country, these crimes happened quite recently (and got a lot of media attention), the criminals were caught and convicted, but not all got life in prison. Maybe they should move to where you live after getting out of prison.
1. Two school students murdered a 17 year old girl (using an axe, a hammer and a metal bar) then cut her body up into very small pieces and threw those pieces outside, while keeping one piece i the fridge for eating later. During trial one of the murders said that what they did was not cruel because they killed the victim before cutting her up. They got 20 years, hopefully they are not released sooner for good behavior.
2. A girl (17 years old) was waiting for a bus when a car stopped and the two guys in the car offered a ride. The girl refused (smart), bu then thee guys just forced her into the car, raped her then put her (still alive) in the trunk and lit the car on fire. The ciminals were previously convicted on multiple lesser crimes. At least these guys got life in prison. And they probably will have a "great" time while in prison.
In both cases a noose or a bullet would have been more appropriate.
Or at least the prison should be how it was when my country was part of the USSR - no TV, no complaining that you do not like the conditions there and also hard work for some. When people got out of prison they did not want to return there at all, unlike some criminals now who get out of prison, start committing crimes again and go back to prison shortly after.
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Your complaint is misdirected. The problem with those guys is not the lack of death penalty, it's that they're released when they're still dangerous.
And you haven't addressed his key point. Mistakes do happen, and more often than people thing. This includes some of the most heinous crimes, where if the guy is wrongly condemned, everyone is screaming for his head. When later on you find out that the accused was actually innocent, if they're in prison, you can let them go and write them a check to at least partly compensate for the injustice done to them. But you can't dig out a corpse and reanimate it back to life.
Re:HOWTO (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. As a member of society, I have some say in what happens in my justice system. I wish for my justice system to permanently remove the individuals they described from society such that there is no chance of them interacting with anyone ever again. I do not believe we can, nor do I wish to dump resources into attempting to fix somebody who's so broken that they'll chop up human beings to eat them or set children on fire. I honestly don't care whether it's possible - in theory - to "fix" somebody like that. I merely want them removed so they're gone forever and nobody has to deal with them - including the prison guards.
That I'm willing to entertain methods of execution which cause those individuals no pain ought to demonstrate that I take no joy in their killings. The gut reaction seeking vengeance is to have them killed as painfully as they killed their victims. As a civil member of society, I'm content to have such persons go to sleep and die peacefully. There's no bloodlust there; merely a desire to have them permanently removed from society in the hope that the rest of us civil beings can live normal, happy lives without them.
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
If America wants to execute people, THEY WILL. Not having the drug sold to them will not change that
But it will cause change. One of the reasons many people oppose the death penalty is that the system is so dysfunctional. Condemned prisoners sit for decades on death row. Some of them are exonerated while waiting. The system is overwhelmingly tilted against the poor and minorities. The process of trials, and appeals, is hideously expensive. The botched executions and unavailable poisons just pile on more dysfunctionality. People may be in favor of the death penalty in principle, but fewer and fewer people are in favor of the way it is actually carried out. Those of us who oppose the death penalty see no reason to "fix" the system, and instead prefer to keep it as dysfunctional as possible until there is enough popular will to abolish it.
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Every single "problem" with it, can be resolved with common sense approaches.
That is not going to happen. Way too many people see any "fix" as a step away from abolition. The more involved people are with administering the death penalty, the more they tend to oppose it, even if that is not their public position. Meanwhile, they make a lot of money off the dysfunctionality. So the people best placed to "fix" the system, are the least inclined to do so.
It is silly to support the death penalty because it could theoretically be fair and sensible in some alternative universe. If you
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
As always, The Onion [theonion.com] says it best.
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason, not excuse, to execute someone is simple, they've executed someone else themselves. This isn't a difficult concept really.
Cavemen throughout history agree. Enlightened people can see that by murdering somebody in revenge, you do not bring somebody killed back to life, you just have one more murder and one more murderer.
Re:HOWTO (Score:4, Insightful)
Enlightened people can see that by murdering somebody in revenge, you do not bring somebody killed back to life
You probably need to refresh yourself on the meaning of the word "murder."
I would, though, like to hear your opinion on sending a man to work every day so that a bit of his paycheck can be used to buy breakfast, lunch, dinner, and much more for the person who raped his wife to death. Each day, he gets to do another little bit of work so that actual murderer can enjoy another day of reliving his conquest, and perhaps even reminding the dead woman's husband through letters or during occasional hearings how much he enjoyed the crime he committed. Your desire to keep an unrepentant, deliberate sex-torturing murderer alive and supported by, among other people, the surviving family of their victims is a strange urge. You want his indirect victims to look across the breakfast table at the empty chair where their raped to death mother used to sit, while the person who horribly stole her life is having scrambled eggs bought with their tax dollars. You truly are enlightened!
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason, not excuse, to execute someone is simple, they've executed someone else themselves.
So the State, having decided that murder is illegal, resorts to murder as "punishment". That is hypocrisy of the highest order.
The problem with the death penalty is that you can't undo a mistake. Innocent people have been executed before; DNA evidence is getting people released from Death Row (see, for example, Anthony Apanovitch).
In cases where guilt is 100% proven beyond all shadow of a doubt, there is still the moral issue of the State, which represents the people, being party to murder when the State (ie. the people and the laws they have agreed to live by) forbids it.
Instead of people being terminated quickly, painlessly and with no suffering, now they are fully aware of the end of their life as it happens. This is clearly a much better solution.
The bolding is mine. Under what system of ethics do you follow where killing a person and ensuring their suffering right up until they die is viewed as a better solution?
What happens when a person commits a particularly horrendous crime? Suppose it takes around 20 minutes for lethal injections to work; how long would you have them suffer? The whole 20 minutes? Longer?
I'm sorry you're too simple minded to understand that some people are not worth letting live, but thats the reality of it..
In whose opinion? That may be your reality; it certainly isn't mine.
When someone murders another innocent being, plans it out, does the execution and shows no remorse at all (all of these things are the requirement for the death penalty in most places) ... and it happens to be your loved ones ... then get back to me on your high and mighty horse, until then ... stop pretending you're so enlightened. You aren't, you're just naive and selfish and ignorant of reality.
How many people go on to live better and more fulfilled lives knowing that this person is dead? Retribution is a very natural, normal emotional response. That doesn't mean it's the healthiest response.
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
"I'll take 'arguments that can be used against prison and kidnapping as well' for 10 points."
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
So the State, having decided that murder is illegal, resorts to murder as "punishment"
What you're showing, here, is that you don't actually understand what the word "murder" means.
Chasing the revenge vote (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what this is all about - chasing the "revenge" vote where it's more important for justice to be seen to be done instead of actually done. Such folk would be much happier with the Chinese system of a more than a 99% conviction rate.
But do we really want to go that way? Letting the state have that much power sets things up for the execution of people who annoy the state instead of
Re: HOWTO (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize that it costs significantly more money to see a death-penalty case from start to finish than it does to see a case where the penalty is life without parole?
The trials are more expensive to run.
There are many more appeals steps that are expensive through the legal system.
It costs twice as much to house a death-row inmate during the appeals.
All-in-all, it costs nearly 3 times as much to see a death-penalty case from start to finish vs. a non-death-penalty case. Also putting a person in jail for life, without parole, means they are never "left to their own" since they will never see freedom again...very slim chance they will be a danger to anyone again.
Re: HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
I truly think we're in terrifying territory when "We can't afford to keep this perfectly healthy guy alive so lets kill him" is even part of the conversation.
Rehabilitate and release. If they can't be rehabilitated, move them into psychiatric care because they are clearly broken.
But don't kill. Its 2015. We're supposed to be *better* than that.
Re: HOWTO (Score:5, Informative)
The reason there are mandatory appeals, a long pre-execution process, and significant legal expense above and beyond life imprisonment is simple: executing someone cannot be reversed and cannot be adequately compensated should an innocent person be executed. "Blatantly obvious" is not a legal standard, and the United States constitution requires that states afford their citizens equal protection under the law.
Unfortunately, even the current expensive process has proven inadequate. Carlos DeLuna [1] was executed in 1989 despite provably not committing the crime. Cameron Todd Willingham [2] was executed for an accidental fire in his own home, based on the testimony of "arson investigators" whose conclusions were not based on scientific evidence or best practices. If you really want to see how bad it can get with reduced legal barriers to execution, George Stinney (1944) was propped up on phone books at age 14 and electrocuted to death after a two-hour trial. His conviction was officially vacated 70 years after his death. Though not documented specifically in this case, the electric chair frequently causes eyes to dislodge from their sockets or explode.
There are thousands of cases where "convicted criminals" were later found to be innocent; many of these were crimes like murder that would be eligible for the death penalty [4].
I don't want to live in a country that shrugs off the risk of murdering innocent people. Bringing the cost of an execution and life imprisonment to parity would only serve to magnify this already-tangible risk. The marginal (supposed) increase in victim closure between an execution and life imprisonment is not worth this risk, regardless of its magnitude.
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/nat... [theatlantic.com]
[2] http://www.newyorker.com/magaz... [newyorker.com]
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
[4] http://www.law.umich.edu/speci... [umich.edu]
Re: HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that killing someone to save a buck is even worse than killing them for revenge, right?
But hey, if you insist that your state should have the right to kill you if it sees fit, good for you. I don't trust mine with that power, but maybe that's just me.
Because they aren't a dog, no matter how much some people like the idea of "subhumans" who can be terminated at will.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are you americans so squeamish about executing people? Surely you want to just watch them suffer, take a life for a life etc etc?
Just make sure it's barbaric, if you're executing somebody, you should see what that means? At least ISIS is honest about their barbarity, take a note from them.
In the mean time the rest of us in the civilised world will continue to look on with horror and disgust.
Re: HOWTO (Score:4, Interesting)
The death penalty is not vengeance in the least. It is a possible penalty for very serious crimes. Generally it's only reserved for the worst of the worst. It's not something taken lightly, but it is one alternative. This is very different from ISIS kidnapping innocent people, touring them and finally publically murdering them. Don't think ISIS is "honest" or have any other redeeming qualities. They are the Nazis of this century and are deserving of being wiped from this planet as quickly as possible.
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Informative)
You can expect anything you want, but it isn't happening. Here for example, is an innocent executed by Texas using a bogus "expert."
http://www.newyorker.com/magaz... [newyorker.com]
You've never heard of the "Innocence Project", I take it.
Vengeance by the state is certainly not the same as revenge, it is a severely broken system, fed by an electorate that is easily swayed by simplistic made-up origin stories (Fox News), prosecutors who want scalps for career advancement, and in love with militaristic nonsense; and a system which is disproportionately harsh on minorities.
Re:HOWTO (Score:4, Insightful)
Except people who commit crimes don't really care all that much about the punishment. Harsher sentences don't lead to reduction in crime. Criminals are the kinds of people who think, "Hey, what's the punishment for killing somebody?"
Re: (Score:3)
the other question is does it really matter? if they committed a crime* big enough to command death, does it really matter how?
* - take out cases where people were found innocent after the fact. I am generally talking about clear cut cases with witnesses that hold up, maybe even video evidence. - example of people who deserved it, timothy mcveigh and the boston bomber when his time comes
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Or just nitrogen. Same effect, easier to handle. Just make sure you have an ECG hooked up too, so you can make sure the condemned is well and truly dead before you expose them to oxygen again.
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Nitrous Oxide isn't a bad idea, followed by CO2 or N2 displacing all the O2, or simply lowering the pressure. Valium drip followed by ex-sanguination might be an effective method as well.
I'm generally not happy with the death penalty for various reasons, but if you're going to do it, do it right.
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't.
It isn't enough to say don't. You need to tell the lovers of death WHY it's a stupid idea.
Here goes.
1. It's pointless. It's not an effective deterrent, at least not for all people, otherwise you'd never need to use it.
2. It's prohibitively expensive. Most of the costs involve legal wrangling, after all, but that's still part of the cost.
3. It is irreversible. If you figure out you got the wrong person, you can't fix it.
4. Even if you have the right person, it's not actually punishing HIM (or her,) since death is the ultimate fate of all living organisms.
The person you would execute is receiving the exact same thing your own beloved child is doomed to get the day you conceive him or her.
If that's a punishment then why, oh why, would a person EVER become a parent knowing that the child would be condemned to such a horrible fate?
What did any (and indeed, EVERY) innocent child do to deserve that?
5. If you think you're getting the person being executed an earlier start on his/her eternal punishment, consider that eternity is the exact same duration,
regardless of when it starts.
6. In as much as there IS no eternal punishment, in the place many people believe their imaginary friend consigns "bad" people when they die, as it turns out.
Magic-evil-fire-land is just as imaginary as the men and women in red body-suits with pitchforks. Even were the PLACE real, why would someone who rebelled against "god" punish people for DEFYING him? Wouldn't "the devil" reward people rather, making Hell a cool, hip, happening place to spend eternity, rather than a boring, sordid "heaven" where all you get to do is tell "god" what an awesome, amazing, wonderful creature he is? Also, remember he created everything, including evil... so yeah, there are so many logic holes in the narrative to which Magic-evil-fire-land belongs that it's not worth the time to continue to examine this point. The place is fake, the punishment nonsensical and its occupants are imaginary.
7. The people you punish are the friends and family of the people you kill, who often had nothing to do with the crime, even when you DO have the right person.
8. If you DO have the right person, consider the very real possibility that he or she is performing suicide-by-court-system and that you are playing right into a would-be suicides hands, by allowing, condoning, or supporting this stupid, counterproductive, barbaric practice.
9. The executioner is morally and ethically no better than the person being executed; the "state" saying it's okay to kill the person being executed, which is often for killing someone, cannot be done without it saying, PERFORCE, that SOME killing is okay. The state sanctions the exact thing, ironically, that it's punishing. You'd have to hire someone to kill the executioner after the deed is done if you're really interested in justice.
10. The idea that it's a punishment of the guilty having been thoroughly debunked, now let's briefly examine vengeance. You don't get, as an individual, or as a society, revenge on or against a person you've killed, or else, the act of conceiving a child is VENGEANCE exacted upon that child as by conceiving him or her, again, you're condemning an innocent person to DIE. In fact, the individual concerned is ESCAPING justice, since the DEAD don't suffer AFTER they're dead. Executing a criminal is like asking people for tickets to prove they've paid for something after that something is done, and if a person turns out not to have a ticket, ejecting the individual from the thing, when he or she was GOING TO LEAVE ANYWAYS!
11. It's a cowardly act to execute someone using someone else's hand. If you're going to have the death penalty, the person passing sentence should be obliged to execute the person, and in as grueling and gruesome a fashion as possible. Maybe if the judge had to take the condemned's life with HIS OR HER OWN
Re:HOWTO (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, came here to say this. The solution is to realise that we're in the 21st century, and we no longer need any of this "eye for an eye" nonsense.
It's more expensive than life imprisonment, it's more likely to have catastrophic consequences if a miscarriage of justice occurs, and it's less of a punishment.
Re: (Score:3)
It's more expensive than life imprisonment, it's more likely to have catastrophic consequences if a miscarriage of justice occurs, and it's less of a punishment.
If the prospect of life imprisonment is more of a punishment than death why do most of the prisoners on death row fight tooth and nail and tie up the appeals process to get out of the death penalty?
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Interesting)
Most humane way to execute someone:
Bullet (or bolt gun) to the head, followed by organ donation to more worthy human beings. This may be ugly, but it is very humane.
Least humane way to execute someone:
Put them in a box till they die, funded by money that could have been spent saving lives.
I'm opposed to the death penalty, but my opposition starts at the most common method -- putting them in a box until they die because someone was too afraid of the automatic appeals process required for a faster death penalty.
Re:HOWTO (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it's too humane. The condemned doesn't just die peacefully, they die after a brief euphoria. For many people this offends their sense of justice: It feels like an evil person has gotten away because they didn't suffer sufficient pain to balance out their crime.
Re: (Score:3)
Sadly true. Oddly enough, that makes the executioners much closer in kind to the executed than most people are.
Perhaps they should look at the fact that nobody will sell them the drugs and no physician will help them and take a hint.
Re: (Score:3)
It's time to start running!!!!! (Score:3)
Make it a real deterent or stop. Penalize Mistakes (Score:5, Interesting)
Execution is not a deterrent because they take place behind walls and virtually no one sees them. Out of sight, out of mind. If they are going to execute people, then do it in the public square in a way that shocks people (hanging, guillotine, etc). Couple that with executing prosecutors and cops who through malice or complete incompetence cause an innocent person to be executed. Like as not, the latter will reduce to an absolute minimum the former. And when an execution does happen, people will be shown the consequences if they murder in no uncertain terms.
If you don't do it in public, then don't execute people. Without being a real deterrent it serves no purpose and is more merciful than keeping them in a cage (but for fuck's sake, stop giving them TVs and other shit that makes the time go fast).
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, you could just not execute people. You know, seeing as how so many innocent people have been sent to death by racist juries or prosecutors extracting confessions from them with unethical measures. And how it costs a lot more to execute someone than it does to keep them in prison for the rest of their life. But that's just crazy talk! We can't have a vengeance-based legal system with thinking like that!
Please stop. Just stop (Score:5, Insightful)
Please stop killing people in the name of justice. Just stop.
Re:Please stop. Just stop (Score:5, Insightful)
But justice in the USA is mainly about revenge. Legal types even have a fancy name for it: "retribution." Protecting society is a secondary purpose, but that doesn't require the death penalty. It only requires keeping people locked up until they are no longer a danger, but we can't even get that right.
If the main purpose of justice were rehabilitation, there would be no killing in the name of justice, and people wouldn't come out of prisons more dangerous to society than when they went in. And prisons would be much nicer places, more like hospitals or universities than like dungeons.
Unfortunately, we are not a very smart nation.
Re: (Score:3)
Justice has several purposes. Deterrance, protection, rehabilitation and 'retribution' - providing comfort to the victims. The problem is that there is another very negative element too: Collective vengence. The social desire to see those who offend society made to suffer. Worse, this can be counterproductive to the rehabilitation role: Programs aimed at educating prisoners are widely seen as 'soft on crime,' while there is widespread support for any policy that increases the difficulty released prisoners f
Re:Please stop. Just stop (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Please stop. Just stop (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.innocenceproject.or... [innocenceproject.org]
Re:Please stop. Just stop (Score:5, Informative)
job description? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:job description? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nitrogen asphyxiation? (Score:5, Informative)
It's a bit odd that there isn't more consideration given to the idea of death by nitrogen asphyxiation [slate.com]. It seems to be a fairly foolproof and painless method of execution, if we must have the death penalty.
Re: (Score:3)
This. Several states still have old disused gas chambers that should be easy to retrofit for nitrogen asphyxiation. I'm not a fan of the death penalty because even today we have innocent people being jailed and/or executed, but if we must do it, this is probably the best and most humane method.
Re:Nitrogen asphyxiation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nitrogen asphyxiation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider at one extreme, public decapitation. However, only 'barbaric' cultures do this. So, the quest in the USA in particular was for a more 'humane' method, one that, incidentally, does not traumatise the executioner or the witnesses too much. (And that's a thing to consider. You probably don't want the sort of person who really, really enjoys their job to be an executioner in the first place [the normal solution to this is to appoint a condemned prisoner, but that has other problems]); and you probably don't want to send your humane executioner insane simply from doing their job either).
And so, the quest for 'humane' methods that don't traumatise anyone, which historically got side-tracked by the shiny of technology (poison gas, electricity).
Lethal injection goes to extreme lengths to pretend that all is sweetness and unicorns: victim is put gently to sleep, then paralyzed (so on-lookers don't freak out---of course if prisoner is not unconscious, this is the stuff of nightmares), then heart is stopped (apparently agonising if not unconscious). So. Many. Ways. To. Go. Wrong.
And it's all down to the pretence that the state can kill someone 'humanely'. Without upsetting anyone, not even the condemned.
Re:Nitrogen asphyxiation? (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I think the death penalty's quite barbaric, but if we must have it, then that is the way to go.
Re:Nitrogen asphyxiation? (Score:4, Informative)
CO2 is the primary driver of respiration. Breathing high levels of CO2 makes you feel like you're asphyxiating, just like when you're holding your breath. It's painful and miserable.
Its strange (Score:3, Interesting)
Considering that assisted suicide techniques are well-researched and well-documented, it seems very strange that they wouldn't simply use any of the preferred, pain-free methods such as the exit bag. What gives?
Re:Its strange (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, I may support the death penalty in limited cases*, just in a 'it can always get worse' deterrent. But even I bang my head when I hear somebody spouting that it wouldn't hurt enough.
My thought is that you're putting down a 'mad dog' at that point. There's no real point to making them suffer.
Plus, Nitrogen asphixiation:
1. Requires no drugs from countries that might refuse to export them to us if we use them for executions.
2. Resources are readily available from any industrial gas supplier, including welding shops.
3. Requires no trained medical staff
4. Does NOT require tying the prisoner down if you use a chamber
5. Is really, really hard to screw up.
*My general rule is '3 or more, or deliberate torture for one'
Self-service options. (Score:4, Funny)
Give them the choice of suicide or ______________. (fill in the blank)
I'll start: Using /. beta on an old smartphone while waiting in line at the DMV.
I'd like to solve the puzzle please. (Score:3)
No messy chemicals, no "everyone in the firing squad missed on purpose" no accidental decapitations, no trashing around under electrical shock, just a thin rod removing the part of the brain that makes humans function.
Why not hypoxia? (Score:4, Interesting)
With hypoxia (lack of oxygen), you just fall asleep and, if continued long enough, die painlessly.
Hypoxia is easy to implement, just replace the air in the room with 100% nitrogen. There will be no suffocation reflex, since that requires carbon dioxide. It is a completely painless way to die.
Nitrogen Asphyxiation (Score:3, Insightful)
* Our atmosphere is around 80% nitrogen so usage can't be restricted, very inexpensive to purify, doesn't consume resources needed elsewhere (ie medically)
* Painless and humane: the victim just goes to sleep. They may become giddy beforehand
* No risk of leaks or poisoning as long as the areas around the chamber are open to the outside air... the chamber needs only be moderately airtight
Ideally this would be the time to reflect that perhaps, after numerous proven instances where innocent people were put to death or narrowly avoided it with a death-row exoneration, that a 21st century civilized society should abandon this barbaric practice, but if saner heads don't prevail at least there is this ideal method of it.
Humane Methods and Definitions (Score:5, Insightful)
The guillotine was originally adopted by the French as an evolved and humane method for taking a human life and, considering what we've seen with alternative methods this past century, I have to agree: It's fast, relatively painless (quite possibly completely painless when one considers the shock reaction of the body,) somewhat messy, but has great symbolic and even theatrical value. Granted, the upper classes world-wide hate this device with a fearful passion, but that is actually part of its value.
Re: (Score:3)
The guillotine .. It's fast, relatively painless
So several seconds of awareness and sensation (see here [howstuffworks.com]; SFW as it discusses the physiology) is perfectly acceptable to you?
I don't agree that the State murdering a person when the State has deemed murder illegal to be anything other than hypocrisy.
Just use missiles with a twist of imagination. (Score:3, Funny)
If you guys attach one with duct tape to every missile you shoot at foreign country, your death rows would be empty in a few days ....
Win/Win ?
Head ripping off (Score:3)
Head ripping off is considered a most humane, swift and painless method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfsMMVgIToA [youtube.com]
There is no way. (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.theatlantic.com/nat... [theatlantic.com]
Any idea that you can "humanely" murder someone is a damned lie.
Moreover, remember the Central Park jogger case? Where they rounded up five minority scapegoats and said they brutally raped a pretty white girl? Everyone, including Donald Trump himself, was rallying to execute these kids. Now, it turns out they were all innocent. They spent 15 years of their lives in jail and they were LUCKY because they weren't executed. They had all of their primes taken away from them but they still get to live what's left.
The death penalty is for revenge, not justice. And the ones who pay the price when we're wrong isn't the prosecutors. Life in jail means innocent people have a chance. Death penalty removes that chance and replaces it with a false sense of faith in the system.
Re:There is no way. (Score:4, Interesting)
The death penalty should only be used when there is absolutely no doubt of guilt.
What about the mentally ill?
Horrific things happen with the mentally ill (bus passenger decapitates another [nytimes.com], for example). Do they deserve the death penalty?
Or how about (Score:5, Insightful)
Or how about we stop this barbaric practice? It's 2015. We're not living in the fucking middle ages anymore.
What the fuck is wrong with Americans, I swear.
Ho-ho-ho (Score:3)
Yes, DiSKiLLeR, why don't we take death more seriously?
Squaring the circle (Score:3)
constant search for a humane means of taking a human life
There is no such thing. Either you accept the fact that by killing someone you leaving the humane domain, or you renounce killing people.
I'd prefer americans to stop that archaic and illogical practice.
People aren't precious (Score:3, Interesting)
Every example I've seen of someone executed "who was innocent" has been scum otherwise. Certainly, they may have been innocent of that specific crime, but they've generally been worthless wastes of human flesh causing misery to the people around them for their entire lives.
And even IF they were perfectly innocent people, so what, really? This world is infested with 7 billion people. They're not precious snowflakes, they're utterly, completely, expendable. We cheerfully will cut out healthy tissue to excise a tumor; if we occasionally sweep up a non-scum person, really, so what as long as the bulk of bad guys are correctly executed.
Oh, and to the original point? Gravity's free. Put them in a cement 100' silo with a stair to the top. Either they starve to death, or jump off the top. Either way, it's toxin-free, zero-cost, energy-efficient, and afterwards crows get to eat, so it's green too.
Capital punishment is so over (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not bring back banishment? (Score:4, Interesting)
2. Their life to that point is effectively over.
3. We avoid all the problems with execution.
4. Considering that the only countries that would take them would probably enslave them, they'll die anyway.
"most humane" ? No. "Less troubling" ! (Score:4, Insightful)
Executions are by no means done the most humane way, nor is anyone attempting to do them the most humane way. They're done the most telegenic way, so as not to bother the audience: Having your butt stuffed with cotton *before* being executed is not humane, but hey, that way no shit comes out when they kill you, and you die clean and smelling great !
To me, humane (if there is a "humane" way to kill people) would be quick and painless. Drugs or electrocution aren't. I'm fairly sure guillotine is the most reliably quick and painless way, but the blood ! You almost feel like you just killed someone !
The root of the argument is punishment itself (Score:4, Interesting)
There are a lot of posts here and elsewhere saying that we should "just stop," that capital punishment is immoral and should be abolished forever.
Is ANY kind of punishment moral and justified?
Is it logical that the severity of the punishment should be proportional to the offense?
How do you decide what is the most severe form of punishment that is moral and justified, if punishment of any kind is moral and justified?
Re: (Score:3)
Now that's a sign of Idiocracy! It's only benign if you are one of the people the dictator wants to keep happy. Ferdinand Marcos was a "benign dictator" for years until he started treating the right people the same way he was treating the wrong people. Robert Mugabe was seen as that for a long time too.
I challenge you to find one dictator of the 20th century who didn't have people killed without trial.
Oh, but this time it will b