It’s not primarily the gruesomeness of executions that makes people stand against the death penalty.
If I refuse to sell you a gun because I know you plan to murder someone with it, you’re not going to convince me with the argument “If you don’t sell me the gun, I’ll have to use this clawhammer instead!”
Got a cite for that? And in terms of costly legal reviews, I would posit that a person stuck in jail for the rest of their life is likely to spend a great deal of time trying to reverse that sentence by utilizing a variety of legal means in those same state and federal courts.
I agree that it’s not the gruesomeness of the execution that makes people stand against the death penalty. I’m saying that restricting access to the quick, efficient, painless process, then using the resulting slower, inefficient, painful executions as an argument against the death penalty is disingenuous and invalid.
Now, I believe that the death penalty needs to be there, but I’m not sure that I, as a juror, could invoke it except for crimes committed while already in prison. That is, if we as a society have taken pains to isolate you from us because of acts of violence you committed, yet you still commit similar acts while so isolated, you have shown that nobody is safe around you no matter the circumstances, and there is no alternative except to remove you from both the free and imprisoned populations. The only way to do that is, unfortunately, death.
They could probably even source a lethal dose of heroin without even being to leave the prison.
For that matter, why not laughing gas?
Agreed. But I think we could increase the caliber, or the load, or the number of weapons to ensure the result. I also agree about your thoughts on “meta-theater” to the point that I see the guillotine as being on par with the .45 bullet, or 00 buckshot, or name-your-death-weapon-here. Maybe I’m watching too much “Dexter” of late…
And don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing that we should gleefully start putting up Bullettime arrangements of shotguns and having death-sentence people forming a line, I’m just finding the life imprisonment method to be the easy way, and most cost-ineffective way, of sentencing someone to death.
I’ve also heard this, but I’ve heard that the reason that this is the case is because of the expensive drugs that are being used (which this article suggests are no longer available).
“Coughing, gasping, choking, clenching the chair”
Sounds like a typical visit to the dentist. What’s the problem? 
It’s actually the time and expense of the many appeals, most of them required up to and including multiple attempts at the Supreme Court. You’re jailing the prisoner for 10 or 25 years already, court time, lawyer time, transportation, expert witnesses, etc, etc,
I’ve always wondered that too. Surely there must be a dose of heroin (let’s call that dose a fuckton) that will kill any human no matter how resistant they are. Have a kilogram handy and keep pumping it in.
Well, that makes as much sense as any explanation, I guess.
Why should it matter? Given the amount of wrongful convictions (i.e. a number greater than zero), the death penalty is clearly, and unarguably wrong (it’s wrong anyway, but that’s like super-double-secret extra wrong).
If it “needs” to be there, how do you explain its absence in most of the modern-day countries we Americans tend to think of as “civilized?” Or even its absence in so many U.S. States, for that matter?
Ha, ha! It’s funny because a human being was tortured to death.
No, wait. That’s why it’s not funny. Shoo, you.
Because some people disagree with me. <sarcasm>Therefore they are wrong.</sarcasm>
I pointed out that it would be applicable in limited circumstances. What would you do with someone who, say, murders every prison guard or inmate they come in contact with?
In Response to GilbertWham,
From Wikipedia’s list of prison deaths:
Jesse Anderson
Leslie Bailey
Jeffrey Dahmer
Albert DeSalvo
John Geoghan
Colin Hatch
Richard Loeb
Nope. Never happens. Completely hypothetical.
You’re right…an innocent human being and her fetus were raped, sodomized, tortured and killed…which is why it is funny that he got a very small taste of what his victims went through.
Maybe there really is justice in the universe.
Send them to an actual prison, where they’re observed and controlled professionally, so that doesn’t happen, then close the clearly failing penal establishment wot allowed all them murders to get done? Or, you know, just not worry about it, as it’s clearly hypothetical bullshit?
“Or stay.” says Mother Superior.
