Posted on 12/18/2006 3:40:00 AM PST by Princip. Conservative
A federal judge ruled Friday that California's lethal injection methods are unconstitutional but can be fixed if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is willing to cooperate.
The records of previous executions expose "actions and failures to act" that have created a risk of cruel and unusual punishment, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose wrote in a 17-page opinion.
"This is intolerable" under the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment, Fogel declared.
There will be no executions in California while the case is pending.
"It sounds like the judge is saying, 'You've made progress, but you're not there yet,' " Stanford law professor Robert Weisberg said. "I guess that this will just continue to get negotiated, and the state will make the adjustments that he wants."
In a prepared statement, Schwarzenegger's legal affairs secretary, Andrea Lynn Hoch, said:
"As the ruling provides, the administration will review the lethal injection protocol to make certain the protocol and its implementation are constitutional.
"Gov. Schwarzenegger will continue to defend the death penalty and ensure the will of the people is represented throughout the ongoing court proceedings."
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Aren't you tired of those judges who have mercy for the criminals, but not for the victims and their families?
They hav the answer right on the street I have never understood why they dont use it. Give them a hot shot of Heroin.
I have seen so may die or be brought to the edge of dying by heroin and if given the chance they do it again. It has to be an easy way out. Use it.
I recommend one cupro-nickel coated lead pill weighing 168 grains be injected into the base of the condemned ones skull at a velocity of approximately 2,600 feet per second.
No pain at all would be possible.
Then we could let some idiot judge do the clean up.
L
"Aren't you tired of those judges who have mercy for the criminals, but not for the victims and their families?"
Yes and I'm tired of the media giving so much play to silly little judges like this, too. The most momentous death penalty ruling by SCOTUS was the re-instatement of the Kansas death penalty by a 5-4 vote (with Sam Alito doing what many people thought O'Connor wouldn't do). The Kansas Supreme Court had struck down its own DP as unconstitutional and the US Supremes surprised us. Also, SCOTUS ruled 5-4 to reject clemency for Florida's Clarence Hill who had become a poster-boy for the anti-lethal injection movement. Yet, those stories don't get much play.
Anyway, with Arnold at the helm, I think we'll get the death penalty going again in California.
This is insane. Who really cares if a murderer feels any pain the last few minutes of his life? Chances are, assuming he didn't sincerely repent, he's going to feel a whole heck of alot more pain after death. I say we execute people the same way they killed their victims.
*I do support a suspended sentence of death, to be implemented if hostages are taken to force a convict's release.
I like your kind of leathal ingection the best. But if they really want to use a needle, I'm sure there's plenty of alternatives.
Since when is the death penalty unconstitutional? Is everything that betrays Americans unconstitutional?
Also, when do these alledged judges have the last say?
Hanging and gun shots are the quickest and most painless way when done properly. They either terminate the brain function or at least disconnect brain function from the rest of the body.
Dying by poisioning (via injection or gas chamber) is supposedly a painful horrible death.
So I've been told anyway - never tried it myself :)
Morphine, actually, but yes. Hospitals do it every day. Granted, it won't satisfy a lot of people who think the death penalty ought to be painful, but it would end all of these silly court challenges.
How about this Idiot Judge come up with a process to kill people who have been given the sentence of Death, instead of just declaring the process unconstitutional.
One Stinking Judge changes all the rules, Nonsense.
I care. Just because a murderer may have lost his/her humanity, doesn't mean that I'm in a hurry to lose mine.
I say we execute people the same way they killed their victims.
I say a poster to a conservative forum should read the constitution and apply it when posting. Call for clearly unconstitutional acts are becoming all to common. The 8th Amendment is abundantly clear.
Numero 57’s eyes were still open, his mouth also open, his small face contorted into an expression of agony. What most impressed me, however, was the whiteness of his face. It had been pale before, but now it was little darker than the sheets. As I gazed at the tiny, screwed-up face it struck me that this disgusting piece of refuse, waiting to be carted away and dumped on a slab in the dissecting room, was an example of “natural” death, one of the things you pray for in the Litany. There you are, then, I thought, that’s what is waiting for you, twenty, thirty, forty years hence: that is how the lucky ones die, the one who lives to be old. One wants to live, of course, indeed one only stays alive by virtue of the fear of death, but I think now, as I thought then, that it’s better to die violently and not too old. People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has man invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases? “Natural” death, almost by definition, means something slow, smelly and painful.— Orwell, How the Poor Die.
I guess God is inhumane because the murderers are going to feel alot more pain than we can imagine.
And secondly, what's "cruel and unusual". That's totally up to interpretation. According to my intrepretation, a little pain during a killers last 5 minutes of life is far from cruel and ususual.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
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