Death Penalty and botched executions

[hossenpepper]

Bring back public guillotines!! Now THAT was entertainment! Just ask Henry VIII...

 

[DiO'Bolic]

Bring back public guillotines!! Now THAT was entertainment! Just ask Henry VIII...

I guessin' it would be kinda hard for good old Henry to have an opinion on the guillotine since it wasn't invented for some 200 years after his reign. I believe Henry preferred the ax... now those were good times!

 

[hossenpepper]

I guessin' it would be kinda hard for good old Henry to have an opinion on the guillotine since it wasn't invented for some 200 years after his reign. I believe Henry preferred the ax... now those were good times!

Sorry didn't qualify it as beheadings in general. Axes are so middle ages...

 

[fushingfeef]

It's easier on so-called civilized society to have a death penalty when we're not the ones who have to personally administer it. There used to a more direct andpersonal connection between the wronged ones and justice. If someone did someone in your clan/family wrong, you went after them as a group and got your satisfaction. Now with state-run death penalty the waters are much cloudier.

I could say that we don't have a right to kill if we're going to say killing is against the law, but there are lots of things we agree to allow in the interests of having a stable society. We allow police to use force to subdue and detain people (temporarily) without trial, in the interests of a greater good. But if a non-authorized individual does this, they can be charged with assault & kidnapping.

However, death is permanent. And while removing certain guilty criminal individuals from participation in society leads to a greater societal good, it is hard to say that removing them from the face of the earth does anything for the greater good. As many studies have shown, there is no real cost savings in a death penalty. It's arguable whether the punitive aspects of being put to death outweigh the horror of lifelong imprisonment--frankly, if I had a choice between the two I'd rather just die.

I'd say until we can find a way to reverse death, using it as a punishment fits into the definition of "cruel and unusual punishment" which the law purports to protect us against. It sucks, because emotionally I totally want remorseless killers of the innocent to be killed swiftly and to feel some of the terror of their victims. (You toucha my kids, I breaka you face). But intellectually and legally, it's difficult to make a logical argument to support it.

 

[GNTLGNT]

Scott, do the really nasty types eat with the general population or do they get their food at their cells?

Because if it's the latter, I'm thinking they can be told, "We'll invite the victim's family to help with your food prep now and then. We're not going to tell you which days, though."

Every now and then, say, "Oh, the victim's family stopped in three or four days ago to help with the food. How'd it taste?"

...it's hard to separate "nasty" in ANY inmate populace...they are ALL nasty in some way, shape or form...I keep most of the stories to myself-because honestly, if you don't work around them everyday-and I don't even get the FULL barrage of ick in Medical, but you just wouldn't believe...to address your question though, unless they are in SMU(Special Management Unit)or Segregation, that's the only place in our Institution where they wouldn't be dining with hundreds of their fellow felons...ours is an open/dormitory style camp-no barred cells...and your idea is an excellent one...I am probably just going to sideline myself on this issue from here forward, because I am so jaded now by being immersed in the reek of lawbreaking and brutality, that I am in NO way impartial...I firmly believe in what I said earlier...kill em all, and sorry about yer luck chum...

 

[GNTLGNT]

I owe you another beer someday sir...very well said. I keep hearing about "moral" plane? Where were the person's morals that killed a kid, or raped then strangled a woman like the guy who was just put to death in Oklahoma? Morality would have been putting a bullet in his head and saving everyone some money and would have also been a helluva lot more merciful than anything he showed his victim.

...yeah man, we are of like minds...and that's not to say I don't see the other side of the equation, it's just that when it comes to this-I am completely heartless....

 

[GNTLGNT]

Gotta say first that I'm against the death penalty. Too much room for error that an innocent person is killed by mistake. Also that murder is murder, no matter who does it.
But. If someone MUST die, here are my two points of view:
1) If they can put a dog or cat down with one shot that works instantly, costs thirty bucks and doesn't seem to cause them any pain, why can't they do it for people?
2) Instead of using cute and fully innocent animals for drug or cosmetics testing, use these animals instead.

...here's the irony in that question, the drug a lot of Vets use for animal euthanasia-is Pentobarbital, the SAME drug that has been used well for human execution-but now the manufacturers won't supply it for that....

 

[GNTLGNT]

...and now I'm hungry for barbecue.

...sorry, couldn't resist....

 

[Neesy]

I am a Leo...

Bring back public guillotines!! Now THAT was entertainment! Just ask Henry VIII...

Sorry didn't qualify it as beheadings in general. Axes are so middle ages...

We will have to be very good this summer if you are coming to the King Kon - did you say you are bringing guns (or was the Cowboy?)

Spoiler

 

[Lord Tyrion]

The problem that I have is not that DNA wasn't around back then, but DNA has shown how much we can have wrongful convictions. There are plenty of other cases, of eyewitness accounts that turn out to be wrong, of victim identification that turns out to be wrong or even malicious, of informants testifying falsely to protect themselves, and any other number of circumstances where someone could get convicted wrongly and DNA never enter into it.

This is my biggest problem with the death penalty. There have been too many people exonerated that doesn't make me comfortable to keep using it. I think there is an assumption that all police agencies are the same as those seen on CSI with police using this fancy high tech equipment to make sure they grab the right person, when that's not the case. Many cities and counties are underfunded and I'm sure it impacts their ability to investigate crime. High priced defense lawyers take advantage of this by poking holes in police procedure.

My other problem is that prosecutors have convicted people they knew were innocent. There was this documentary where a suspect was exonerated with DNA evidence and he was still convicted because prosecutor got a FBI expert to testify to the jury that DNA evidence is not really conclusive. Then there was the case shown on CNN where the prosecution hid evidence to get a guilty verdict and they fought tooth and nail to keep the conviction after DNA evidence showed they got a wrong conviction. As a society we say we want justice, but in practice, it's going to be up to a bureaucracy administer it, which is fundamentally going to have its problems.

 

[EMTP513]

I was curious if our members saw the news report of the botched execution,of the inmate from Oklahoma..I wonder how you feel about the death penalty..if it was okay..myself,I found that I was thinking of the victim of his act(s),and it closely parallels a Richard Christian Matheson(son of Richard Matheson,prolific horror sci/fi writer) story,called, 'Please Help Me'..personally, I cannot really summon up much sympathy for this guy..wondered what you all think.. of course we have SK to thank for his writing on The Green Mile,and I just wonder what the rest of you all feel about the death penalty, and whether it should be administered..

Well you're doing better than I am then, because I found (and still find) myself not being able to summon up ANY sympathy for him. Not in my heart anyway. I can summon up a morsel in my head (I'm not gleefully glad he suffered the way SOME people are) but in the part that harbors the soul, I can still find no sympathy for him. But I suppose my judgment is being seriously compromised by the fact that someone tried to kill me by shooting me - and would have succeeded if paramedics and life flight hadn't been there to intervene on my behalf. Also, I have an only child and if anybody killed her would render me no longer a parent to anyone.
I don't want to pay for someone to take 45 minutes to die though, especially since as a paramedic who actually knows how to place an IV, I can't possibly understand why they used a doctor who was inexperienced at doing it, which is the only reason finding a viable vein would fail.
Otherwise, I'm generally for it. I was raised by Republicans who are still conservative. Nobody in my family has a single solitary liberal thought. I'm considered the black sheep of the family.

 

[mjs9153]

Maybe I should edit my response from little,to none sympathy emtp..sorry you had such terrible pain in your life.Hang in there,thank God you lived through that..hope you enjoy the MB and you will find many nice folks here..

 

[Neesy]

Well you're doing better than I am then, because I found (and still find) myself not being able to summon up ANY sympathy for him. Not in my heart anyway. I can summon up a morsel in my head (I'm not gleefully glad he suffered the way SOME people are) but in the part that harbors the soul, I can still find no sympathy for him. But I suppose my judgment is being seriously compromised by the fact that someone tried to kill me by shooting me - and would have succeeded if paramedics and life flight hadn't been there to intervene on my behalf. Also, I have an only child and if anybody killed her would render me no longer a parent to anyone.
I don't want to pay for someone to take 45 minutes to die though, especially since as a paramedic who actually knows how to place an IV, I can't possibly understand why they used a doctor who was inexperienced at doing it, which is the only reason finding a viable vein would fail.
Otherwise, I'm generally for it. I was raised by Republicans who are still conservative. Nobody in my family has a single solitary liberal thought. I'm considered the black sheep of the family.

Maybe I should edit my response from little,to none sympathy etmp..sorry you had such terrible pain in your life.Hang in there,thank God you lived through that..hope you enjoy the MB and you will find many nice folks here..

Yup, what mjs9153 said - come here and vent all you want - we are pretty friendly and sympathetic overall here. Take care of yourself and thanks for providing a much needed service to others. Being a paramedic is a tough job!

 

[EMTP513]

It's easier on so-called civilized society to have a death penalty when we're not the ones who have to personally administer it. There used to a more direct andpersonal connection between the wronged ones and justice. If someone did someone in your clan/family wrong, you went after them as a group and got your satisfaction. Now with state-run death penalty the waters are much cloudier.

I could say that we don't have a right to kill if we're going to say killing is against the law, but there are lots of things we agree to allow in the interests of having a stable society. We allow police to use force to subdue and detain people (temporarily) without trial, in the interests of a greater good. But if a non-authorized individual does this, they can be charged with assault & kidnapping.

However, death is permanent. And while removing certain guilty criminal individuals from participation in society leads to a greater societal good, it is hard to say that removing them from the face of the earth does anything for the greater good. As many studies have shown, there is no real cost savings in a death penalty. It's arguable whether the punitive aspects of being put to death outweigh the horror of lifelong imprisonment--frankly, if I had a choice between the two I'd rather just die.

I'd say until we can find a way to reverse death, using it as a punishment fits into the definition of "cruel and unusual punishment" which the law purports to protect us against. It sucks, because emotionally I totally want remorseless killers of the innocent to be killed swiftly and to feel some of the terror of their victims. (You toucha my kids, I breaka you face). But intellectually and legally, it's difficult to make a logical argument to support it.

That's what our friend, who's a Vietnam veteran, said. He said politicians send the common man to war and can sit back running their mouths about how we need to do this especially "since they're not EVER going to be the actual ones DOing it."
He doesn't agree with my view of capital punishment.
I said "What if I told you I'd be willing to do it," mostly to see what he'd say but I was kind of serious too.
"I'd think you were at least consistent then, but I can't say I would agree with capital punishment."
I just left it at that, bc I've never had to kill anybody and although I can't prove it, I think he HAS had to do the ugly deed, which is how he referred to it.
But when I asked if he "had to kill someone" he replied with "I refuse to discuss that with you." I think he has though because I've never met anyone so intensely against killing people as he is even after being trained by the Army to do exactly that.