Forget that; with inhumane laws like this one on the books, SC just gave me yet another reason to never go there again.
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I’m in the camp that if the state is going to insist on executing people (as an anarchist, I don’t think the state should have that power), it should be by single combat.
If the convicted can defeat the state’s champion, then they should be allowed the luxury of exile.
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As long as they test it themselves first…
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Theoretically. But because competent medical professionals quite rightly refuse to participate in murder, the administering tends to be amateurish and shelf lives overlooked.
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Came here to say I approve of this only if it is used only for politicians convicted of corruption.
[ETA the second “only.”]
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Oh, well then, we have a few cueing up on that front. It just so happens…
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Also I suppose a medical professional’s training is focused on ways to keep you alive whereas a soldier’s training is focused on ways to make you dead so in that respect the guy with the rifle might be less apt to botch the job.
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Similar issue: the people who are morally opposed to the death penalty cannot serve as jurors for capital cases. So the people who get to decide guilt or innocence are made up mostly of people who have trust in the system and believe that innocent people never get convicted. The choice to pursue capital punishment in a trial therefore automatically leads to a jury who is more likely to convict than society as a whole.
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Let’s be clear, even if there were a practical way to stop all electrical activity in the brain nearly instantaneously, it would still be the state committing premeditated murder in the name of its people.
It’s no surprise that the Pontius Pilates willing to do that are also willing to commit torture.
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I think you’re trying to re-invent the wheel, a guillotine is simple, straightforward, and pulls no punches in terms of what it does.
That said, I think that capital punishment is cruel, inhumane, and mostly theater for sadistic assholes.
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What’s next for the ReGressives, Be-heading, Guillotine, Stoning, or one of my favs from the past, roll you up in a carpet and kick you to death. These f#cks won’t be happy until we are all pushing a cart of shit up a hill greased with human blood. Is this even the USA anymore?
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Traditionally, it’s entertainment.
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Yeah, no disagreement there, been a way to keep the masses happy since Roman times.
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The reason I said “most humane” is that the other two methods can have problems, and if there is a problem, there isn’t an easy way to “fix” it (quickly kill the person), so the person is essentially tortured to death.
If there is a firing squad problem (missed the mark a bit), this can be quickly rectified with another bullet. I’m also assuming that firing squads would be aiming for the chest, and that the ordeal would be over pretty quickly.
In contrast, I have a hard time thinking that the electric chair, under the best of circumstances, would be as pain free as multiple bullets to the chest. And if something goes slightly amiss with the Chair, that person is tortured to death.
Lethal injection is getting more and more dicey, since companies basically don’t sell this stuff any more. There was a good segment by John Oliver on this, but suffice to say that lethal injection has a lot of problems, and again, if anything goes wrong, the person is essentially tortured to death.
And that’s why I put firing squad as the “most humane” of this rogues’ gallery of execution methods. Now, if you set up your firing squad poorly, it could be just as bad as the others.
The real solution is to get rid of the death penalty. Ya know, join the rest of the modern world!
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Fun fact about guillotines: Beheading was originally a method of execution reserved for the aristocracy, but the French Revolutionaries decreed that the law in its majesty allow rich and poor alike to avoid the hangman. /s
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All things considered, I’d much prefer that to the chance my neck might break (but I’m more likely to die slowly suffocating).
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A common occurrence.
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Now who was it that came up with the idea to have the afflicted human face upwards on the guillotine, so they could see the blade coming? It’s on the tip of my tongue, can’t remember…
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A universal one until the practice of the long drop was introduced in the 19th century. In the Middle Ages, a condemned person might hire a couple of street lads to swing on his legs to speed up the process.
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