Supreme Court Set To Hear Oklahoma Death Penalty Challenge

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
Can someone explain why it's so hard to use lethal injection to execute someone?

My vet doesn't seem to have any problem putting down dogs and cats -- and those animals don't appear to be in pain after they're administered their lethal injection...

Part of their injection involves a muscle relaxer that prevents them from moving. It could cause immense pain but they're incapable of expressing it.

That's the problem with lethal injection, what we seem to be finding more and more often is that it's causing a ton of agony the person just can't make that fact known.

Personally I don't see why we don't just knock someone out then go back to the guillotine. It's fast, effective, and mostly painless (particularly if drugs knock you out... no head staying conscious afterwards).

If we can't do that, why not throw someone infront of a train? I bet that's fast and painless.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

While this case isn't about the constitutionality of the Death Penalty itself and only applies to the method currently employed by Oklahoma, it wouldn't break my heart to see SCOTUS put a stop the executions nationwide. Do some of these people deserve to die? Maybe. But surely there are a great many who deserve to still live as well and we can't give them back life. Just because it's easier to doll out death on the written order of a Judge doesn't mean we should necessarily be doing it. The disturbing amount of people who have been found innocent post execution should give us all pause before being so adamant that the lives of others are forfeit in exchange for their crimes. One of the lessons that always stuck out in my mind when it came to situations of guilt or innocence(whether capital punishment was Involved or not) was Blackstone's Formulation.

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer",

Yes, its financially expensive to host the convicted on death row and more expensive to go through all the hoops of the appeals process. I think it's more expensive to the consciousness of a society though to doll out Hammurabi style 'Eye for an eye' justice. Particularly when our legal system continually demonstrates not just it's corruption by its ineptitude on a regular basis.

With that said, if the grounds for this case rests upon the perceived or actual pain undergone by those being executed then its going to be a really long and hard uphill battle with SCOTUS who has already ruled that executions do not need to be painless as long as purposeful and unnecessary suffering is avoided. Hopefully some sort of across the board standards will come of this because the other option is to go the Utah route where they are bringing back the firing squad if they are unable to procure the necessary drugs required for lethal injections.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
Can someone explain why it's so hard to use lethal injection to execute someone?

My vet doesn't seem to have any problem putting down dogs and cats -- and those animals don't appear to be in pain after they're administered their lethal injection...

I had the same conversation last year when my vet had to come to the house and euthanize my St. Bernard. It was right after one of the botched lethal injections and to try to take my mind off of what was going on, I joked afterwards that he better not let anyone know how quick and painless he was able to administer the injection and my friend had passed away peacefully in just a couple of minutes whereas the recently botched lethal injection took an unacceptably long period of time before the guy died in agony of a heart attack. And we're talking about a 160 lb dog so the analogue for a full sized man is pretty close. It's too bad that we treat our pets better than we do other humans though I'll stop there because it could quickly devolve into a debate about the merits of "assisted suicide" or our own right to choose when it's time to say enough is enough when we are terminal or in a situation we won't recover from enough to enjoy a decent quality of life.

a reply to: peter vlar

Yea. That's my biggest problem with the death penalty. The rampant corruption in the DA offices and police forces that push for wrongful convictions just so they can get a conviction. But I'd rather try to fix that problem than get rid of the death penalty. Every criminal we lock away for good has to be paid for with tax dollars. Look at Charles Manson, he was convicted during a time when the death penalty was abolished in California and because of that we have to pay to house him for the rest of his life. He even gets parole opportunities every so often (not that a parole board will ever grant him that, but still).

a reply to: Krazysh0t

The death penalty is cruel and unusual, imo.

But, then again, "cruel and unusual" is pretty subjective, no?

I mean, how do you objectively define cruel and unusual??

I would rather see 100 guilty men go free, then to see 1 innocent man charged with a crime he did not commit. --Thomas Jefferson

a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon

Yes it is, but I think that is on purpose. It lets society's morals of the day define the lengths we go to to punish our criminals instead of having it be some rigid think set in stone.

Yet on one hand Americans complain about Indonesia and China executing prisoners with a simple bullet or Islamic countries beheading, on the other hand, they support the murder penalty. Revenge is justice apparently. Hypocrisy all around.

America seems to be another case of Do as we say, not as we do.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon

Yes it is, but I think that is on purpose. It lets society's morals of the day define the lengths we go to to punish our criminals instead of having it be some rigid think set in stone.

I would prefer rigidity, morals shouldn't be shifting. What is right will always be right, and what is wrong will always be wrong.

a reply to: bullcat

You do realize that "America" isn't a single entity, its over 330 million people right? Not all of "America" supports capital punishment and the number of people in favor of it declines every year. In 2011 it was 62% in flavor, 2013 it was down to 55%. Back in '96 it was 78% in favor of capital punishment. One of the downsides of living in a democratic republic is that once representatives are in office they can enact or vote for whatever legislation their donors prefer as opposed to their constituency. The blanket condemnation of Americans as a whole when its a state by state issue regarding capitl punishment is born of ignorance particularly when looking at the actual statistics. You use Indonesia in your example for American hypocrisy but in the modern era, no US state has executed multiple prisoners simultaneously as was just done in Indonesia. We don't execute public officials for disagreeing with the President as North Korea executed 15 officials last year. Ad when you get down to the nitty gritty, the majority of executions are performed in a very small number of states. Texas being the largest offender and Oklahoma executing the highest number per capita. Some states have not bothered to sentence anyone to death. NY for example re instituted the death penalty in 1994 and has not sentenced anyone to death let alone executed them. Connecticut, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Oregon have only executed people who volunteered to be executed in lieu of appealing their sentence.

None of this means that capital punishment isn't a barbaric or archaic practice but its certainly not anywhere near as black and white and hypocritical American do as I say not as I do bull s# as you portray it and between the appeals process and the accepted methods, as inhumane and deplorable as I find it to be, its certainly a hell of a lot more humane than lining up political detractors and shooting them in the head or beheading them with a butcher knife. There's a huge difference between grasping how the constitution works with the 10th amendment giving individual states the right to engage in practices the rest of the country finds reprehensible and condemning the brutality of methods of execution and the lack of appeal process or proper judicial practices across the world.

I do not even understand why we need a firing squad?? A single bullet to the head would suffice. And seeing as it is in a controlled environment, it could even be accomplished with a .22 so as not to cause so much trauma for viewing during the funeral (if there is one) . Of all the alternatives offered for the death penalty, a single projectile point blank with the ballistic performance to penetrate the brain would not only suffice more than adequately, but is THE MOST humane option available.

originally posted by: LewsTherinThelamon

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon

Yes it is, but I think that is on purpose. It lets society's morals of the day define the lengths we go to to punish our criminals instead of having it be some rigid think set in stone.

I would prefer rigidity, morals shouldn't be shifting. What is right will always be right, and what is wrong will always be wrong.

But society's morals are more fluid. If we were to let the morals of yesteryear be constant then the Civil Rights movement would never have happened, slavery would still be here, and women would never be equal. Considering all that, why would you think legal morals being rigid is a good thing?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

But society's morals are more fluid. If we were to let the morals of yesteryear be constant then the Civil Rights movement would never have happened, slavery would still be here, and women would never be equal. Considering all that, why would you think legal morals being rigid is a good thing?

This is kind of what I was getting at--that moral truth isn't subjectively determined by what society whimsically deems good or bad. Like slavery or inequality--if those things are morally wrong today, then they were morally wrong 200 years ago, even if the majority of people supported them. Which is what the Bill of Rights was supposed to represent--a form of objective morality that cannot be changed.

Immorality can be determined by any behavior that infringes the rights' of the individual. Slavery and denying a group of peoples' rights for X reason is immoral because it infringes on the rights' of individuals.

a reply to: LewsTherinThelamon

Right, but the society the founding fathers lived in was rather hypocritical about these things. When they wrote "all men are created equal" originally, they were just talking about English speaking, white men, but they also realized the morals of the future would be different and that as long as the guidelines laid out in the Constitution of all men being equal then all will be well.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
.32 to the back of the ear would be "clean and quick" I think.

Certainly cleaner and quicker than they elected to carry out their crimes, anyway.

I tend to agree. There are a lot of drug cocktails that would be better than what we are using now. I like a massive dose of IV ketamine followed by a lethal injection of pentobarbital.

Many people here make no hesitation to approve of the execution of a human being. Would any of you be able to throw the switch yourselves? Especially with the high prevalence of wrongful convictions?

yea ill throw the switch sure why not. Id rather pull the trigger and know with peace of mind he went out painless though.

originally posted by: DYepes
yea ill throw the switch sure why not.

Because there's a good chance the person you are about to murder is innocent.


(source: innocentproject.org

ahh well you know, # happens. Ill say a prayer and move on. Just doing my job. I was not the one putting the man on trial. All I would do is flick a switch. I can live with that disconnect. If you could show me where I can sign up fr the honor of flicking the switch by all means, I will step up.

originally posted by: semperfortis

It seems like they can't just use something simple and effective without complicating it.... SHEESH

The Firing Squad would be the quickest and least painful.. They could even mechanize it... Bullet to the brain.. Quick, final...

Semper

Bingo. A mechanised firing squad would do the job as you indicate. The lawsuit itself is a tactical move to make the death penalty more difficult to operate in the USA. Since the anti death penalty campaigns can't achieve their aim outright they are looking for back doors to exploit.

a reply to: xpert11

Really? This is a conspiracy discussion site and you're fixated on killing someone at the command of a justice official and judge?

I don't know about those back doors, but it is quite evident that violent crime is not diminished by capital punishment.

Why are we so quick and eager to carry out such grave and dire orders? It just sounds to me like we're not really thinking for ourselves in a self-educated sense, rather satisfying a raging bloodlust fueled by emotional trauma.