I am starting this thread mainly because it’s a topic that I feel strongly about. Putting aside the US Constitution banning cruel and unusual punishment and yet every execution method that the US has ever adopted has been anything but humane and painless. What are people’s opinions on the Death Penalty? America is the only Democratic Western Country still killing it’s own Citizens.
First let me say that I have no right or intention to try and tell another Country what they should and should not be doing because I abdolutely cringe when Piers Morgan goes on live American TV and startds demanding that assault weapons be banned. He has no right to say that. Anyway, when it come’s to the death penalty there is one fundamental point IMO that, once proven, flaws any pro death penalty argument without even hearing what it is. That point is:
Can we guarantee that we will never ever execute one innocent man? In other words, can the State tell us that the system and procedure are perfect and cannot be open to mistakes? If they can’t, which obviously, they can’t, they that there is enough to instantly abolish even the concept of Capital Punishment. The system itself is nothing but a word can do nothing in and of itself, it’s mman that designed the system, man uses it and operates within it, and therefor, as long as its subject to the control of human beings, it’s open to human error. And the methods being so humane, especially the latest one that is claimed to put prisoners to sleep and they just never wake up. Well seems rather odd in that case that many condemned inmates have drawn their final breath with tears running down their face. Why is that? The deliberate use of three drugs….
1st. Sodium Thiopental. This drug is, Quote ‘Ultra short acting barbiturate.’ It’s effect’s are ultra short lasting in the body also before they wear off. So many prisoners come back around just in time for the next present coming down the IV line.
2nd: Pancuronium bromide. This drug is a paralytic agent which means that it stops you from being able to move a muscle quite literally and stops you from thrashing and kicking in pain as you come back from the first drugs effects as they wear off. This 2nd drug paralyses the muscles in the diaphragm that you use to breath with so, your no longer able to move or breath while being fully conscious and aware of this but unable to communicate or move as you are slowing being asphyxiated. But just before you black out from the strangulation, what is behind door no. 3?
3rd: Potassium chloride. This drug, if administered to a conscious inmate would be excruciating. As the chemical hit the vein and travels up the arm it would feel as though someone were doing the same with a soldering iron inside your arm, and all the way up the arm, across the shoulder, and down into the chest and heart at which point the drug throws the hearts rhythm into erratic spasms and causes a massive heart attack. Again, lovely and painful for the man strapped to the gurney. It’s worse and more inhumane that The Chair was, but look’s so peaceful, who would ever know? One anti death penalty lawyer challenged the constitutional legality of the method and was granted permission by the US Supreme Court to exhume a number of executed prisoners bodies for toxicology testing. The results shows that of the deceased prisoners examined, 40% of them were found to have insufficient levels of Sodium thiopental administered in order for the prisoner to remain unconscious and would have come back around to find they were paralysed and suffocating. I mean I don’t want to think of the absolute terror, panic and pain you’d experience to wake up unable to breath or move and know that your being asphyxiated to death before they enduce a massive heart attack.
How can anyone argue in favour of this considering the death penalty is proven not to be a deterrent to homicidal murder?
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
Now I know Pro Capital people will counter with "What about the Terror, Panic and pain they caused their victims?"
Good point. Gacy was an animal, a disgrace to humanity, un-empathetic and down rite evil. So what should we do to him? I know, lets dip to his level of depravity, lets become as perverse as he was and do exactly the same to him. That’s how to be a total hypocrite, tell your society that murder is unacceptable under any circumstances and the Government was to emphasise how much they mean it by murdering anyone who murders someone.
You know what the official cause of death is listed as on a condemned mans death certificate? "Homicide." I suppose it doesn’t count if the State does it?
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
If there is undeniable proof, execute.
These child raping murderers…let ’em fry. I’ll pull the switch.
Certain people can just rot, but some just need to go and not be supported by my tax dollars.
“…they may be dealing with one or more ersatz Zodiacs–other psychotics eager to get into the act, or perhaps even other murderers eager to lay their crimes at the real Zodiac’s doorstep.“ L.A. Times, 1969
If there is undeniable proof, execute.
These child raping murderers…let ’em fry. I’ll pull the switch.
Certain people can just rot, but some just need to go and not be supported by my tax dollars.
Amen.
Also, the lethal injection method is long-winded and unnecessary. Take them out back, make them dig their own graves, put a bullet in a back of their skull, make their family pay for the cost of the execution.
Then we shall live by an eye for an eye until the Whole World is blind.
So, disregarding the fact that inncoents probably have, and will be again, wrongly executed, you’d say this is simply a bit of collateral damage?
I mean that is the natural and most comment of reactions in support of C.P is just to should "Child Rapist" because it’s an easy argument. I mean I don’t understand what you are suggesting is to gain? Are you saying that executing a child rapist today will solve and prevent the one of tomorrow offending? It doesn’t. I think it’s correct the assumption I heard in a death penalty debate not so long ago and I was this…..
"I think I see now just why it is that the powers that be in America lobby for Capital Punishment. It seems it’s because they feel it gives them the ultimate power and status which is all the more reason to remove it from their hands."
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
That quote above is Hitchens, not me, so don’t kill the messenger. 
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
And I love the fact the law makes and political big wigs pass the laws and legalise State Sanctioned Murder, and then ask that Warden over there to do the dirty work of carrying it out for them. Everyone says ‘I’d flip the switch’ and I don’t know if I really believe them. If those who say they would, really would, then I can only say that I feel bad for them that they would kill another human being without a second thought. What makes you any better than the guy strapped on the gurney in that case? He will kill without emotion or bother, and so will you. But no, you would tell yourself your murdering him is justified because he did something utterly unacceptable. Again, When did God retire and give anyone the rite to decide when someone lies and dies?
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
Are you saying that executing a child rapist today will solve and prevent the one of tomorrow offending? It doesn’t.
It doesn’t, but it gives the state the satisfaction of exterminating a worthless human being, of ensuring that such an individual will no longer be around to plague society with his sick urges.
Everyone says ‘I’d flip the switch’ and I don’t know if I really believe them. If those who say they would, really would, then I can only say that I feel bad for them that they would kill another human being without a second thought. What makes you any better than the guy strapped on the gurney in that case? He will kill without emotion or bother, and so will you. But no, you would tell yourself your murdering him is justified because he did something utterly unacceptable.
What makes me better than the guy on the gurney is that unlike him, I’m not killing an innocent.
Again, When did God retire and give anyone the rite to decide when someone lies and dies?
I think God abandoned His creation almost as soon as he finished creating it. My belief is that of a God who fashioned the world, then moved on to bigger and better things without looking back. But that’s another story.
I agree with Tahoe, these child rapists need to die. Nothing worse than hearing about a kid that was kidnapped, raped,and murdered by some sleezebag that was in and out of prison multiple times for raping kids before. It’s disgusting.
I also hate these repeat & lifer prisoners, I love 3 strike laws too. The method of execution doesn’t matter to me, just get it over with and keep it cheap. I don’t want to pay for these scum bags with my tax dollars. On the other hand, to keep 3 strikers in for life, I will gladly pay more $$ taxes to build more prisons and hire more guards. I think that gang members, and gang crimes should be treated as terrorism, since that’s what these guys do is terrorize cities & neighborhoods. If you want to be a gang member, join Aaron Hernandez in jail for life.
There is more than one way to lose your life to a killer
http://www.zodiackillersite.com/
http://zodiackillersite.blogspot.com/
https://twitter.com/Morf13ZKS
I agree that anyone that hurts a child in any way at all gets no second chance, no rights to anything, and should be put in solitary confinement for the rest of their lives. In my fairly local area last year a child was abducted and murdered and Mark Bridger was caught and a few months back received a full life tariff. ( UK’s way of saying Life without Parole) and I said the day he went down that he’s now facing 40, maybe 50 years of other prisoners trying their hardest to slash him up, scar him as badly as they can etc. And just the other day, front page headline: "Mark Bridger attacked with razor blade and badly wounded. " Now how can it be argued Death is better as a punishment than the next 50 years on a wing where you can never relax for a second where you will get slashed over and over, having kettles boiled and the contents poured over them. That’s far more punishment and is what they deserve every second of in my opinion. Sticking them on single sell death row locked down 23 hours a day for 10 years before killing them is the easier way out in this instance, no?
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
But if some other inmate eventually shanks them to death, what difference would it make if we kill them straight away?
Same with Ian Huntley, been slashed and burned badly several times that he said he was going to go on hunger strike and starve himself to death because the screws won’t give him the total protection he feels he is entitled to. The public over here reacted to his suicide plan with "Hurry up then and get on with it, the sooner the better."
I know the American tendency is to view the UK sometimes as a weak and non assertive Country that are too liberal compared to the Americans who will execute anyone for committing heinous crimes. But in reality, it’s not even used in the correct way by which I mean….
On Monday, Court will sentence Man kills wife for insurance pay out to death.
Then Wednesday will not seek the penalty against the likes of Gary Rigeway if he will agree to help them and tell them where the bodies of further victims are! How is this application of the Penalty even slightly fair? Serial Killer with 35 bodies to his name gets to live because he has 11 bodies to bargain with, while John Doe over there kills one and being asked does he have any last statement to make? I mean not only is the death penalty morally and ethically wrong IMO, but it’s also so inconsistent and most Murder suspects are at the mercy of who the prosecutor is and how much funds you have to defend yourself. I mean if your on the poverty line and have to be defended by a public attorney assigned to represent you in Texas in a Capital Case then forget it, hop up on the gurney sir and give us your arm.
You know what I read not long ago? One of the states went through with an execution of a prisoner who has a mental age of 5 – 7 years old and when they placed him on the gurney he tried to assist the insertion of the needle because he was to mentally retarded to understand that this was an execution. He though they were trying to help him by giving his some sort of vaccination. He kept on asking the Warden as the strap down team were working his restraints if he would make sure his belongings were safe until he gets back to them after they are through helping him. This is barbaric and absolutely disgusting IMO
For me, how can the murder rate or gun violence rate, school massacres etc how can you expect it to change when the people running the Country are leading by example and killing it’s own citizens for crimes it will decide warrant such a punishment, and do so with discrimination and inconsistently.
How many men have been exonerated now and released from D Row thanks to DNA advancements? 50 Years ago every ne of those innocent men would have been burnt to death in the chair.
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
Well Chris Scarver wasn’t in prison for missing choir practise. He is a convicted murderer and criminal, when he kills Jeffery Dahmer, well that is not a surprise and justifies why he’s away from society to begin with. But when your leaders, those who you trust to govern you are putting people on death row and then time after time you hear how before the latest innocent was set free from the row, the prosecution had withheld crucial evidence that proved beyond doubt the accused was not guilty but withheld it because the more cases you win and convict, the better you reputation and chance of staying in office, then it has moved on from simple discrimination and inhumane, to deliberate and wilful attempted murder of a man you know is not guilty of what your telling 12 men and women on a Jury that he is.
I mean I know the death penalty is used as by many politicians as a powerful political tool to show how tough they are on crime, but now the penalty is being sought when there have been instances where the very man seeking to convict and kill the defendant, knows fully well he isn’t guilty but keeps the evidence under wraps for personal and political reasons. These thing happen over and over and you can’t simply bypass them and if anyone suggests it is worth suffering the off innocent person executed to make sure we kill the 10 who are guilty, then would you say that if your brother, father or best friend was that innocent?
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
Then Wednesday will not seek the penalty against the likes of Gary Rigeway if he will agree to help them and tell them where the bodies of further victims are! How is this application of the Penalty even slightly fair? Serial Killer with 35 bodies to his name gets to live because he has 11 bodies to bargain with, while John Doe over there kills one and being asked does he have any last statement to make? I mean not only is the death penalty morally and ethically wrong IMO, but it’s also so inconsistent and most Murder suspects are at the mercy of who the prosecutor is and how much funds you have to defend yourself. I mean if your on the poverty line and have to be defended by a public attorney assigned to represent you in Texas in a Capital Case then forget it, hop up on the gurney sir and give us your arm.
It IS unfair – we can agree on that much. In my ideal world, we would make the deal, get the information out of the guy, then kill him anyway.
You know what I read not long ago? One of the states went through with an execution of a prisoner who has a mental age of 5 – 7 years old and when they placed him on the gurney he tried to assist the insertion of the needle because he was to mentally retarded to understand that this was an execution. He though they were trying to help him by giving his some sort of vaccination. He kept on asking the Warden as the strap down team were working his restraints if he would make sure his belongings were safe until he gets back to them after they are through helping him.
I won’t lie. I chuckled when I read that, thinking: "If only all the condemned were just as helpful."
Maybe I’m just a sick bastard.
Nach I resent that…. Mainly because it made me laugh the way youput the idea across of a Warden turning to his deputy and saying "if only they would all walk and jump on gurney and even offer to execute themselves it would be so much easier for us." Stop making me laugh at inappropriate humour when I am trying to make a serious point. Trying may be the operative word I fear lol.
"So it’s sorta social. Demented and sad, but social, right?" Judd Nelson.
