Posted on 01/23/2015 3:06:45 PM PST by lbryce
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide a case on the constitutionality of the new lethal injection drug combinations that some states are using for executions.
The court agreed to hear a challenge to Oklahomas choice of drugs even though on Jan. 15 the court declined to stay an execution there, using the same contested drugs.
In April, Oklahoma botched the execution of Clayton D. Lockett, who appeared to gasp and struggle after the drugs were administered before he finally died in the execution chamber of a heart attack.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Not to find fault with your reasoning, you are entitled, personally, to look upon criminals and their just punishment in a more compassionate,lenient way simply as a matter of opinion and not practice. But as a Christian as your source for repercussions for acts of criminality is the Bible it would seem contradictory for the Bible to condone capital punishment yet consider the sinner as that of not being made in His image. In other words, until when you commit a crime deserved of capital punishment you would be entitled to the privilege of being made in God’s image and that not of an animal. But once you act like an animal, by killing, so, too, will you reap that of being an animal, to lose your privilege of that of being made in God’s image and be relegated to that of an animal, deserved of death for death.
in case you are interested...
“How the Death Penalty Saves Lives”
http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2014/9/how-the-death-penalty-saves-lives
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A murderer may achieve redemption. He might also murder again. He might murder a guard, another prisoner, or escape and murder someone on the outside. Once he's dead, he can no longer hurt anyone else.
I could go for reserving execution for murderers who had multiple prior convictions for violent crimes. If someone had been convicted twice before for robbery, and then is convicted for capital murder and executed, then if it later turns out he was innocent of the murder, then his execution won't bother me. People with no prior criminal record can get life.
I appreciate your honest response.
I myself am against the death penalty for a similar reason; I don’t trust the government not to make a mistake. Even one innocent man executed is far too many.
I appreciate your direction to a thought-provoking article; but one study does not truth make. I simply cannot reconcile the death penalty with my practical sense or with my faith.
(As I’ve said, it is often very difficult to maintain this stance: some people seem so full of absolute evil that it would seem a mercy to THEM, if we put them out of their suffering.)
-JT
Thank you for your response.
When someone is charged with a capital crime, you are not just “trusting the government” to get it right.
You are trusting a lot of human, fallible people who may not be connected to ‘government’ at all - witnesses, scientists, and a jury of “peers” - not to mention lawyers.
It’s just all too ‘iffy’ for me, to sentence someone to death - a sentence that can’t be taken back - even if some witness was mistaken, or some forensics person was just having a bad day, and made a mistake; or someone lied; or someone was just craven, or saw some personal advantage in the conviction.
It’s too big a price to pay - a human life, possibly a salvageable one, lost due to human fallibility.
I want nothing to do with it.
-JT
shoot ‘em? Hell no, you know what the lead does to the environment?! /s
IMHO, the best solution is the same they have at your local slaughterhouse....pneumatic piston to the brain (think ‘Alien’).
One ‘Pffft’, a small hole and the deed is done. Works on Bessie, it’ll work on Jose and the gang.
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