Posted on 01/28/2014 12:56:48 PM PST by Second Amendment First
As death penalty states struggle to obtain drugs suitable for lethal injections, more old-fashioned methods of executing prisoners are getting another look.
Lawmakers in Missouri and Wyoming have introduced measures this month that would give their states an option to use firing squads — instead of lethal drugs — to carry out executions. Another bill proposed by a Virginia lawmaker would authorize death by electrocution if lethal injection isn’t possible.
The measures have surfaced as a number of pharmaceutical firms have barred corrections departments from buying drugs that could be used in executions, forcing states to scramble for other suppliers and to experiment with alternative drugs.
The botched, 26-minute execution of an Ohio inmate earlier this month — using a cocktail of chemicals never before used in a U.S. execution — underscored the problem.
“This isn’t an attempt to time-warp back into the 1850s or the wild, wild West or anything like that,” Missouri state Rep. Rick Brattin, who sponsored the fire squad legislation, told the Associated Press, which reported on the bills. “It’s just that I foresee a problem, and I’m trying to come up with a solution that will be the most humane yet most economical for our state.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Has yours been repaid?
it is also unjust to make a man forever pay for his crime (like denying him all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of a citizen) even after serving his sentence...The only right way to do it is to make the death one of relative speed and some dignity
Now that's a new one I haven't seen before. Interesting and creative but I'm pretty sure there's nothing in criminal law that states that as a reason for capital punishment. No, but that's an argument similar to taking the life of a baby, elderly, or infirmed because someone in their manifest great wisdom has decreed it's better for them to die. God has given individuals the right to life, which is sacred.
What a great argument.
I kind of like how they do it in Japan. Warden walks past the condemned, every day, sometimes for years, and one day says “today”.
“..death row inmates are only notified of their execution a matter of hours before it is to take place. They live like this for years, terrified that each day could be their last and that today they will be hanged.”
No time for protests, either, the world finds out, when the family is told to collect the remains.
I'd pick a duck.
I did not even know that Japan still had capital punishment. I looked it up on Wikipedia. Yup, much like you said by hanging. It is very rare though.
You are correct, I suspect largely because the crime rate is rather low. People there have this notion of honor, and respect, unlike too many folks here :(
They could have a stand up comic there telling jokes...
They would die laughing.
It is perhaps the least painful way, but sort of like killing chickens, it is pretty bloody.
- You think the death penalty serves justice because it's an "eye for an eye." Fair enough except for one problem: Somebody has already paid "an eye for an eye" for those criminals and their heinous acts, so unjust double jeopardy is in play here.
- What about the victims and their family? Countless personal and professional examples testify to the fact that there is only one way victims of savagery can recover from the hurt and angst of victimization: forgiveness. Revenge feels good for awhile but does not relieve the pain.
- What about society? You lock up dangerous criminals to protect society.
- What about the cost? Oh, OK well I guess there is such thing as killing for convenience, but let's take another tack which hits directly at our medieval penal system: prisoners should be productive and at least pay their way in prison.
Your argument here precludes any punishment for any crime. It precludes arrest and trial for any crimes, and probably even precludes self-defense.
Maybe you're OK with that.
Sign me up. Happy to do it for free. No need for more than one guy firing, unless of course all of us will be using live ammo (just in case someone misses).
Thank you. I’m glad you can see down here from your soap box.
Intentions matter, but actions more. The state executes people to keep private citizens from exacting revenge. Due process allows the accused to defend himself, but the very process has become so corrupted that it is in too many cases, justice denied.
You're right. Your "crimes", my "crimes", and criminals crimes have already been punished and paid for, so forcing payment again is unjust - it is double jeopardy.
precludes arrest and trial for any crimes, and probably even precludes self-defense.
Au contraire mon FR-ami. It is the duty of government to protect the life, liberty and free pursuits of individuals and to keep society safe from without and within. So there should be due process in dealing with the accused, but the sentence for criminals found guilty of heinous crimes and deemed dangerous to others should be incarceration, not for punishment, but for the protection of society.
Never heard that one either. I don't think that's a known reason in criminal law for capital punishment, but I think it's imaginative and creative. But it fails because the same facilities that keep a dangerous criminal separated from society also keep revenge seekers on the outside from getting to the convict. How these matters are handled within the prison system is a whole other discussion.
That's the exact opposite of what should happen. Once the court has sentenced them, they should turn them over to the appropriate civilians for punishment.
I thought they just fed them to the dogs there.
Well, It worked for Michael Jackson.
No, although I disagree with you here.
Sadness.
Hippy?
the substantive point
When a literary device substitutes for an argument, that's not substantive.
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