Posted on 05/01/2014 11:56:15 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
US states may go back to electric chair and firing squads
Shortage of drugs for lethal injections leads states to consider alternative methods of executing prisoners
By Raf Sanchez, Washington
6:42PM BST 01 May 2014
US states may revert to killing their death row inmates with electric chairs, firing squads and gas chambers as it becomes increasingly difficult to source chemicals for lethal injections.
The EU has banned the export of one of the most common sedatives used in lethal injections, forcing US states to experiment with new "cocktails" of drugs for executions.
One such experimental recipe was used in the botched execution of an Oklahoma prisoner on Tuesday, leaving him to writhe in pain and die of a massive heart attack 43 minutes after being injected.
The shortage of execution drugs, coupled with fears the courts may intervene to ban experimental methods of lethal injection, have prompted states to look at alternative ways to kill prisoners.
Tennessee's legislature has passed a bill that would reintroduce the electric chair if the state was unable to find drugs for lethal injections.
The state's Republican governor is still weighing whether to sign it into law.
Missouri is considering a proposal to reintroduce both firing squads and gas chambers if it becomes impossible to carry out a lethal injection.
Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, said the laws were intended as symbols by conservative politicians of their commitment to the death penalty.
"It's about being even more blatant than the anti-death penalty side. To see this as a rational process is to miss the harshly divisive political atmosphere that produces these things," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Considering what ammo costs these days, hanging would be cheaper.
A good rope can be used over and over again.
Kind of strange how so many folks here are impeccable Constitutional scholars, but have no tolerance whatsoever for the Bill of Rights somewhere between the Fourth and Ninth Amendments.
Self-protection is our individual responsibility. But private vengeance, or vigilantism, can be problematic. That’s where the state comes in.
By the way, hanging was not considered cruel or unusual by the Founders.
Of course our moral conscience is outraged by such heinousness acts and we naturally want "justice" by which we usually mean vengeance of some kind of nasty punishment. I'm the same way.
But at least on a moral level, I have to stop and remember that every single heinous thing that was ever and will ever be done was completely condemned, judged and paid for on the cross 2000 years ago. All moral issues were resolved there.
What's left is the civil law and IMO, that should go more to protection than punishment.
It's interesting that even a state reputed to have draconian penalties like Texas has an execution to criminal homicide rate of 1% (i.e. 1 execution per 100 homicides).
Hang them in public and get it over with!
Just use battery acid
That’s fine with me as long as we start with the POTUS, his staff, and Congress,
Why a firing squad?
Russians did it, as did the Germans, with one guy and a handgun, and one bullet.
So did a South Vietnamese general, with that picture easy to find.
Maybe God will have mercy on them, but I sure as hell wouldn’t.
Truthfully, firing squads are the way to go.
Inexpensive, very difficult to legally challenge, and requiring no hard to obtain or hazardous chemicals.
Right now, only Utah recognizes firing squads as a primary means to execute; and Oklahoma will allow it only if lethal injection and the gas chamber are outlawed.
> Many moons ago and in a far away land a death penalty was administered to criminals in the same manner they administered death to their victims.
...where crime was almost non-existent and PC was unheard of. A place where men were men and women were women and your honor and your word meant something. A place where people were held accountable for their own actions and blamed no one else for their failures and learned from them. A place where your own hard work rewarded your efforts and gibmedats were unheard of...a place where gibmedats were shunned and frowned and could be called lazy because thats what they were..
I could go on forever...: )
True
I would have shot him in time in many minor locations to make him suffer.
Hanging is cheaper.
Please tell me how a murderer would pay me back for a murdered wife, child, mother, father, brother, sister or any other human being that I cared for; or for that matter some person I did not even know.
GOD gave each and every person their life to cherish, live and protect to the best of their ability; and a murderer comes along and arbitrarily steals that GOD given gift from them, for no good reason other than they can?
The person who murders steals more than just a life; they take all that a child, woman or man could have ever done or been, all their love, happiness and productivity forever.
You are starting to sound like one of those Born Again Christians sitting in a death row cell in a prison some where trying to avoid your debt to society.
But with convicted murders, after an appropriate appeals process (short but thorough) you execute them.
A radio show host here in Houston called it "permanent rehabilitation". And it is. They commit no more crimes, ever.
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