Posted on 04/23/2017 6:08:17 PM PDT by NRx
LAST week, the State of Arkansas, which had executed exactly nobody since 2005, put to death Ledell Lee for the crime of murdering Debra Reese in 1993. Why now — 11 years after the last execution, 24 years after the crime? Because the chemicals used for lethal injection were about to expire.
Reasonable people can disagree on the death penalty, but everyone should recognize the dark absurdity of an execution timetable set by a drug’s expiration date. And that absurdity provides a useful segue to the latest in my ongoing series of implausible proposals: That our modern way of punishment should be reconsidered, and penalties long dismissed as inhumane should replace medicalized executions and “civilized” incarceration.
That phrasing sounds too reasonable for the spirit of this series, so here’s the more outrageous version: Bring back the stocks and the firing squad.
The tendency in modern criminal justice has been to remove two specific elements from the state’s justice: spectacle and pain. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, pillories and stocks and whipping posts became museum pieces, the hangman and the firing squad were supplanted by more technical methods, and punishment became something that happened elsewhere — in distant prisons and execution chambers, under professional supervision, far from the baying crowd.
All of this made a certain moral sense. But the civilizing process did not do away with cruelty and in some ways it could exacerbate it. With executions, the science was often inexact and the application difficult, and when it went wrong the electric chair or the gas chamber could easily become a distinctive kind of torture. During the last century lethal injection, now the execution method of choice, had a higher “botch rate” by far than every other means of killing the condemned. Meanwhile, the lowest rate of failure (albeit out of a small sample size) belonged to that old standby: the firing squad.
I am not a huge fan of capital punishment unless the Biblical standard is applied, i.e. two eyewitness to the crime who stake their own lives on the veracity and accuracy of their testimony. That said, if we are going to do it, my preference is for hanging. It's fast, cheap and reliable. Even a botched hanging won't take longer than about ten minutes (some lethal injections have lasted over an hour!). And if the executioner knows his trade (the British had this down to a science) it can be done and over in less than a minute from the time the condemned sets foot on the gallows.
There has to be large quantities of heroin in evidence lockers.Why not just use that?
No point in the noose or the firing squad.
A modern stamping press would work just fine, thank you. 12” stroke distances can be as fast as a few thousandths of a second, and there would be zero failure rates.
Messy? Yes.
Effective? Hell yes.
155 mm howitzer at close range would do the job nicely.
Might turn out to have some deterrent effects once criminals saw photos and videos of the process in action!
If, and I mean if, we have capital punishment, I’m for hanging after a big does of an operating room style anesthetic. The hanging will still achieve the death, minus the mental trauma.
However, being a mug wump for many years on the issue, I’d rather avoid it if possible, and if necessary then only for some of the most vile crimes imaginable, and otherwise I’d prefer life with no chance of parole.
who would clean the mess up?
Why not just use the drug cocktail that’s used for “physician-assisted suicide”? We’re told that’s a blissful, and dignified way to shed the mortal coils.
Yes, I’m attempting to be sarcastic — but, it’s well neigh impossible to do so today. The same ilk of people (often, the very same individuals) who foam at the mouth in opposition to the death penalty (for the guilty, but healthy), also seem to support “death with dignity” (for the innocent, but unhealthy). The death penalty is immoral; but ‘assisted-suicide’ is at the pinnacle of the moral high ground (we’re given to believe). Stop using those immoral death-penalty drugs; and start using the super-moral assisted-suicide drugs. Don’t kill convicted murderers — give them a blissful death with dignity.
The French used a slightly cruder but equally effective machine two hundred years ago.
Put them under, remove organs for transplant, turn off machines when done.
The kim jong-un anti-aircraft gun method of execution seems effective.
I agree with you. Its the logical solution.
I sat with my dog when he was put down. He was gone in 5 seconds. He never knew what happened. It looked pretty humane to me.
“Put them under, remove organs for transplant, turn off machines when done.”
Too much motive for corruption.
People like Hillary Rotten Cankles would certainly bribe and kill for organs. They would even falsify evidence and bribe judges to get the right people condemned.
Mister Douthat believes that we are just too stupid to realize that he and his fellow anti-death penalty progressives will seize upon anything (drug expiration date included) so as to spare the life of all murdering criminals.
We do, of course, know much better.
Strap them down. Inject a mild sedative. Strap on an oxygen mask, introduce some nitrous oxcide, once asleep, switch to inert gas. Asphyxiation takes a minute or so. Keep the inert gas flowing for 45 minutes or so to ensure.
Inert gas such as nitrogen is easily obtainable, inexpensive, and it works.
D’ja ever wonder why they swab the injection site with alcohol?
Really.
The reason why the drugs SAT unused for so long is because their side isn’t concerned about saving wrongly accused men but rather fighting a system they don’t like.
What’s wrong with the mental trauma?
Why not just strap them down, head included, and use the same device they use to kill a cow with. Just put it right up to the top of his/her head and pull the trigger to activate the spike that goes 4-6” into the brain using air pressure. No gun powder or reloading needed. No need to bill the next of kin for the bullets used. Quick, clean, quiet, and fast. Can even do it a few times from different angles just to make sure there’s no mishap of the person somehow living like that politician that got shot in the head and lived to make every gun owners life as miserable as she can.
Maybe one from the top, one from the front, and one from each side. The first one should kill the person with them never feeling a thing. The other 3 pulls of the trigger lever is just for added surety and insurance. A job done right is a job done well. In fact a special device made just for this could be made to inject all 4 spikes at the same time. Easy peasy quick and dreary.
If it’s a really bad criminal; get the family(s) of the victim(s) involved in the fun and let them pull a remote trigger for each of the four spikes to the brain. Why should a technician have all the fun? Yes, this last bit is sarcastic, but not completely out of the realm. All the family members can hold a device with a button and all push it at the same time with only one of them actually activating the spike. That way they all feel like they were involved in ending the life of the one who ended the life of someone they loved. All optional of course and all about closure.
I sat with my dog when he was put down.
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