LOL A real life situatiion like in the movie “Law Abiding Citizen”. I am amazed that people are more concerned for a convicted killer than the murdered innocent person. So the killer should live while often a mother is condemed to work 2 or 3 jobs to support her kids now that her husband was murdered? Oh and the family suffers more because, guess what, no college now for the kids because this piece of crap murdered dad and gets to hang out, all expenses paid and not have to work. Nice. If you support letting the murderer live, then at least require that he be forced to work as many hours as necessary to support the family he destroyed at a minimum. Require that he work until late in the evening only to get up at the crack of dawn to support the family the way he just sentenced the mom. Why should the innocent family bear all the pain? Of course we need to remember that letting the murderer live will not bring back the person murdered but will very slightly bring some comfort to the family if they at least know he is being forced to pay back a part of the damage he has done. Also they will know that since some people care more about his rightto live, at least he is not sitting around watching T.V., working out in the prison gym, etc while mom is dying from all the work she has to put in to support the family
The intravenous line was placed in Lockett’s groin and covered with a sheet, according to prisons director Robert Patton’s letter to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, which included a detailed timeline.
It became dislodged and was not discovered until 21 minutes after the execution began and all the lethal drugs had been administered.
“The drugs had either absorbed into tissue, leaked out or both,” Mr Patton wrote.
“The director asked the following question, ‘Have enough drugs been administered to cause death?’ The doctor responded, ‘No.’”
So preliminary indications are that they are just incompetent?
In which way are these things really related?
Would she not need to work 2 or 3 jobs if her husband’s killer was imprisoned for life?
What if her husband murdered one of her children (perhaps the one from a different father). If he was spared punishment, he could still work to provide for his other kids.
Hey, strange idea: How if you structure society in such a that a way, that children’s needs like housing, education, food, medical insurance, etc are being taken care of regardless of the reason why there is only one parent?
And please don’t me you don’t have the money. At least not before you read http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/662837.pdf
Apropos the drugs used, I wonder if it’s from shady online vendors & bought directly by the prison? That sounds suitably cack-handed and lacking in oversight.
“You can say this without knowing what the drug was, what dosage was given to him, his medical history, or really anything else? Can assure us from with good evidence or at least from a position of strong authority that it is literally impossible for a substance, having been injected into your veins, to trigger your veins to collapse through any bodily process? If not, your claim is baseless nonsense.”
The drugs used in Oklahoma were midazolam and hydromorphone.
Please try to do a little research, before replying in a condescending way, or trying to make the person you’re discussing with look stupid. Because your metaphorically fell off your high horse there.
As for whether the execution was any more “cruel and unusual” than an execution by other means, is quite a dubious claim.
Midazolam and hydromorphone are some of the most abused drugs on the illegal market, and both, though especially the latter, are highly euphoric.
(Ironically, a similar combination of benzodiazepine and opiate is used in hospices in the UK to give terminal patients a death as pain free as possible.)
And as for any testing done, we already know that besides being euphoric, it’s also quite a lethal combination. Hundreds of substance abusers die of overdosing on this particular combination of drugs every year, and thousands more die through overdosing on other combinations of benzodiazepine and opiate.
These are related because she now is an absent parent because she has to work around the clock as aresult of the murderer choosing to murder her husband. As far as society paying for the medical, educatin school,etc that would be great but will never cover the emotional and financial toll that the killer has caused. Why would we be in favor of dismissing that. The family is severly impacted and the killer should at least be impacted as well. Why should he be excused from what he did. If society picks up the tab (you and I) make him pay back society like eveyone (but he should not be out free in the process). If the mother’s husband commited the murder of one of the kids, the rules still apply - lock piece of trash up and put him to work around the clock. Being in jail is no time to let a killer take a break from the work society has to do as a result of the killer’s actions. I have to go to work now; all of the criminals in jail should be requied to as well.
These are related because she now is an absent parent because she has to work around the clock as aresult of the murderer choosing to murder her husband. As fat as society ppaying for the medical, educatin school,etc that would be great but will never cover the emotional and financial toll that the killer has caused. Why would we be in favor of dismissing that. The family is severly impacted and the killer should at least be impacted as well. Why should he be excused from what he did. If society picks up the tab (you and I) make him pay back society like eveyone (but he should not be out free in the process). If the mother’s husband commited the murder of one of the kids, the rules still apply - lock piece of trash up and put him to work around the clock. Being in jail is no time to let a killer take a break from the work society has to do as a result of the killer’s actions. I have to go to work now; all of the criminals in jail should be requied to as well.
So far as alternatives go to drug cocktails and what not, why look further than your local slaughterhouse? A quick zap of current to knock the animal out, seconds later a bolt fired into the brain.
Extraction of entrails optional, but when you really want to be sure that dead is dead, removing the contents of the body cavity works.
Thousands and thousands of sizable mammals are killed this way every day without much fuss except for the voluntary herbivores among us… whats so special about people?
Ultimately, the person in the “botched” execution died. The issue is that they want people to die in a particular way that doesn’t inconvenience the people who came to watch a person die.
Yes, and if her husband had offed herself or had been hit by lighting, she’d be in the same position.
So in what way does killing the murderer help here?
And killing him covers this how? Except for some feeling of fulfilled revenge? Which the majority of Americans according to their religions should not even have?
Oh dear, I keep forget that American prisons are nearly the same as some Malibu Beach spa resort with free access to playstations (or is that unusual punishment, now that the XBOX 1 is out?) and all the sex you can ask for.
I would like to reiterate that I’m not looking to justify every carjacker that Texas wants to lynch- Half the people in prison right now shouldn’t even be there, and I’d even wager that there’s plenty of people on death row who could be completely rehabilitated given the proper resources.
I’m talking about a very rare and narrow classification where not only are the past crimes horrific, but part of a clearly visible pattern with an almost certain chance of recidivism. I only advocate the death penalty in cases of predatory offences. Child molesters, serial killers, serial rapists- These are people who rape and kill because it’s their nature. More often than not, they aren’t convicted of a single crime, but a pattern of identical crimes with dozens of victims.
Every bit of evidence we have shows that they can’t be rehabilitated. 99 times out of a hundred, those identifiable behavior patterns go all the way back to childhood. These people always reoffend if given the chance. That’s not my opionion- It’s coming from law enforcement, behavioral psychologists, neurologists. It’s literally an ingraned part of their psychology.
Maybe someday we’ll have the technology to rewire their brain and turn them into productive citizens- But then we’re talking Clockwork Orange / Dollhouse level stuff which, quite frankly, strikes me as far more horrific than any kind of execution.
As far as other countries go, every one you list also has courts and prisons and police. If the question isn’t about how those things are applied, but whether they should exist at all, then we’re dangerously close to the Libertarian “no government has authority to use force” rabbit hole. I really don’t want to go there, because it always ends up with two circular arguments pitted against each other.
We place criminals in prison for many different reasons. To deter others from doing the same, to rehabilitate them, to incapacitate them from committing other crimes. and of course: To punish, thereby letting victims as well as all other citizens know, that (some sort of) justice has been done.
In the case of capital punishment, we know that a majority of the population support it. It serves their sense of justice, that the ultimate crime also brings the ultimate punishment.
So yes, the death penalty does fulfill a function and fills a need for many.
(Otherwise, populist politician would be quick to abolish it, big there ever is a majority against capital punishment.)
As for religion and forgiveness, you conveniently forget to mention that Christian forgiveness doesn’t preclude that justice, through punishment, is also done.
In fact, it’s a very old principle in Christian theology/teachings, that forgiveness can only be obtained if the transgressor has done penance for his transgressions. In this case, the penance is the death penalty, which means that any contradiction between being a Christian and pro capital punishment.
It’s a fair cop. I believed that acquiring the drugs through secret sources also meant the public not being aware of which drugs were used and I didn’t research further. I went all internet-forum. I would like to ask, though, that if you make strong claim that contradicts the post in question, that you provide a short explanation or a link that would make morons like me stop and think - having read what actually happened it is fairly obvious you are right. None of this is to say I was right, it’s just that you were providing valuable information to the discussion and, based on the number of likes you got and the responses you got, you were completely ignored.
Executions take a very long time, and if you spend 15 years of your life wishing for someone else’s death every second of every day, do you think that when that death occurs you will suddenly be free? These people need therapy, not another death. If they are living under the fantasy that somehow the death of their abuser would bring them peace, then an execution will only disillusion them, not help them.
Maybe if they had the fortune of growing up in a society where state revenge against perpetrators of crime wasn’t considered the right thing to do then they wouldn’t have been burdened with this obsession to begin with. The experience they are going through may well be yet another cost of the death penalty.
In ancient Rome, a majority of the citizens supported free bread and the games. This is, perhaps, why argumentum ad populum is considered a logical fallacy.
One can interpret Christian theology in such a way as to support pretty much any ridiculous premise one wants. However, I do seem to remember that Christ guy was big on forgiveness with stuff like “turn the other cheek” and “let he who is without sin throw the first stone”. I have a hard time imagining Christ being with the 63% of USians that support the death penalty.
That means that for 39 deaths (assuming that each person independently has a 4% chance of actually being innocent), the expected number of innocents executed was 1.56.
The odds of no innocents having being executed is 0.96^39 = 0.2035 = 20.35% and the odds of an arbitrary number of innocents being executed follows a standard binomial probability distribution:
I mainly disagree with capital punishment, until we can actually guarantee everyone a fair trial, it shouldn’t be employed. However, there are reasons for keeping it around… aka crimes so heinous (for example intentional mass killings) where the evidence is overwhelming where I wouldn’t oppose it. That said, we should use reliable, quick and effective methods.
Morphine, heroine, all have the same problem as any lethal injection, they don’t work the same on everyone, and therefore are inherently unreliable.
Same with gas chambers/ oxygen deprivation etc… takes a while and that lends credence to the whole “suffering” argument.
Quick and painless euthanasia for humans is best accomplish with massive trauma… that may mean some blood… The guillotine is quick, effective, and never fails. Same with dead by crushing.
I’m sure I’m not the only one to think a necklace of detonation cord would be about as quick and foolproof as it gets.
Well whatdya know! En internet poster who admits to being wrong. Guess I’ve seen that too now, and I salute you good sir!
Now about the execution, first of all, this interesting piece of news: apparently Missouri has more less decided to score their barbs from a street dealer! (Who probably also made them wait for hours, and kept changing where they were supposed to meet…)
That’s at least how I interpret the following piece of news:
“The director of Missouri’s Department of Corrections confirmed that the state has paid $11,000 cash to a compounding pharmacy to obtain pentobarbital for executions. (Missouri Times, 2/10/14)”
Yes… You’ve read that right. They paid CASH for their pentobarbital. Probably only twenties and fifties…
About the drugs used in Oklahoma, I first heard about them on NPR this morning, but I found this link that goes into detail of how much they use.
As I recall they’ve used 50mg of both in Oklahoma, and Ohio is raising the amount used in their executions to 50 mg of both too.
If you want to know more about the two drugs, outside of pharmacological manuals, Wikipedia actually isn’t a bad place to go. (Though I’m usually sceptical about Wikipedia)
Midazolam is a benzodiazepine related to Xanax, and hydromorphone is related to heroin (Diacetylmorphine) and Opana (oxymorphone)
The two drugs aren’t particularly dangerous on their own, but the combination of the two is often lethal.
And as for dosage used?
Depends on who you are…
Hydromorphone is often used in hospitals (Dilaudid) and a typical dosage in an ER setting is 1mg-2mg.
Half of the 50mg used should kill most people, though opiates can be unpredictable, and for an addict with significant tolerance, 50mg is just a pretty good start to the day.
Though I’m personally against the death penalty for philosophical reasons.
(Though in this case I can’t really get super outraged, 11 month old baby and all)
I got to say that this particular combination seems like the ideal, or at least the least cruel, solution.
If you ever ask somebody who took a heroin/opiate overdose and almost kicked the bucket or were brought back, half of them will tell you about blissful euphoria and falling into a really deep sleep, and the other half will say they don’t remember anything, just taking the shot, blacking out and next thing they know a paramedic is standing and screaming at them.
Either way, it’s sounds like a definite improvement.
That “never fails” part is categorically false. (Unless partial beheadings requiring either bleed out or multiple strikes of the blade to kill the person don’t count as failure.)
Do you have any citations? I find the guillotine a horrific device, but that said, I couldn’t find any factual citations of modern guillotine failure, there were some citations of wooden guillotines swelling, and slowing the fall of the blade, but that was pre-french revolution, after which all guillotine would use metal rails. There are a few cases from an Algerian execution where a flap of skin keeps the head attached, but no multiple strikes of the blade or partial beheading.
