American Politics

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Arizona court stops execution.

 

The victim wants all the gory details of the drugs to be used, and the court agrees he should have them.  What happened to the good old double tap with a .22 pistol?

[Larks2242 251]

Forget that, give him the chair!

[Duke87 1,070]

Forget that, give him the chair!

 

?

 

 

 

On a more serious note...

 

The 55-year-old has been convicted for killing his former girlfriend and her father in 1989.

 

See, this is the problem with capital punishment. With the appeals process and all it takes for-freaking-ever to actually execute someone, if it can be managed at all before they die of natural causes. This dude is on death row for a crime he committed 25 years ago. If he had simply been sent to prison he would have been locked up all this time regardless, except we wouldn't have spent gobs of taxpayer money on further dragging him through the courts. He might even be up for parole soon at this point.

 

The whole death row process is just more government waste, if you ask me.

[AcmeSigns 97]

Yeah...that's what I want...a 55-year-old convicted double murderer paroled and let loose on society. I'm certain that he's no longer capable of being violent.

 

What really should have happened (to save the state some money) is that he should have been executed 25 years ago!

[LexusInfernus 908]

Yeah...that's what I want...a 55-year-old convicted double murderer paroled and let loose on society. I'm certain that he's no longer capable of being violent.

 

What really should have happened (to save the state some money) is that he should have been executed 25 years ago!

Right, better to execute a thousand innocent people than let one guilty man walk free! 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

This whole business is why capital punishment should be abolished.  How much expense and court time was taken by this one case?  A life with no parole sentence would have been more vindictive and certainly cheaper.  A death sentence is just an excuse to litigate.  Surely this is cruel and unusual punishment of the judicial system.

[AcmeSigns 97]

 

Yeah...that's what I want...a 55-year-old convicted double murderer paroled and let loose on society. I'm certain that he's no longer capable of being violent.

 

What really should have happened (to save the state some money) is that he should have been executed 25 years ago!

Right, better to execute a thousand innocent people than let one guilty man walk free! 

 

Could you please cite the source for your claim of 'a thousand innocent people' having been executed? And by executed I mean after being convicted in a court of law, not by some fanatical zealots.

 

The only article I could find said that 25 people who were executed were found to be innocent. And that was for all of the 20th century wherein there were over 7,000 executions since 1900.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/14/us/25-wrongfully-executed-in-us-study-finds.html

 

note: This article is from the New York Times...not necessarily known as being conservative. And given their past penchants for stretching the truth, I would expect that 25 number to be higher, if they thought they could get away with it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Can anyone justify keeping some poor jerk incarcerated on death row for 25 years while lawyers try to justify their existence?

 

Anyway, the eyes of Texas are on the Border.

 

Somehow, I always thought it was the duty of the federal government to secure the national border.

[hamsterTK 93]

The unfortunate thing is that the burden of all this is being placed on Texas border communities, rather than according to a principal of shared sacrifice from all of the country.

 

 

Also you get hundreds or thousands of illegal immigrants flooding into small cities like McAllen and Brownsville which then have to cope with the strain on social services. If some proportion of those border children are going to end up with the ability to stay in the US, they need to be dispersed across every corner of the country in a diluted fashion. Instead states are saying no and protestors are blocking buses, guaranteeing they'll all wind up in Houston and Tucson. Yay. It's like Katrina again where a bunch of places turned away evacuees leaving a handful of more compassionate locales to deal with all of them. If every place took in just a handful nobody would be burdened.

[Duke87 1,070]

Somehow, I always thought it was the duty of the federal government to secure the national border.

 

It is, but some communities near the border have clearly grown displeased with what they see as lack of action by the federal government and so states are taking matters into their own hands. Arizona had their controversial law from a few years ago which the supreme court subsequently struck down most of (because it involved a state handling what is constitutionally a federal matter). Now it looks like Texas is joining the club.

 

The trouble is that what to do about immigration is something that we as a country cannot agree on, there are some diametrically opposed opinions which break down in a highly partisan manner. Thus, immigration reform has been talked about for more than a decade but little has happened because not much can be done without throwing a lot of voters into a convulsive fit. Any serious federal action on immigration would cause at least as much of a stink as Obamacare has. It is simply not something we are capable of having a mature conversation about, because politics.

 

 

So, congress has chosen not to decide what to do about this mess. Which, in the wise words of Geddy Lee, means they still have made a choice. Sadly these days it seems to be their favorite choice to make about a lot of things.

 

"I can't be held accountable for decisions if I don't make them" is a disgusting philosophy to see among people who are supposed to be leaders, and yet, that's what we've got.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Failure to decide is in itself a decision.  It amounts to sticking the head in the sand.

 

While the head is in the sand, the voters need to give the visible part a good swift kick.  I don't know if the U.S. voter has that kind of guts.  I seriously doubt it because nobody has every really given that comfortable pew a real shake.  With 300 Million + people, the inertia must be utterly staggering, resembling the fabled immovable object.

 

Because of the bi-partisan divide where no others need apply, you can clearly see the system is broken, but nobody has either the will nor the lucre to fix it.  It will take some kind of political earthquake to move that rock of self-satisfaction off the dime.

[AcmeSigns 97]

Congress has refused to even consider 'comprehensive immiration reform' until the southern border is secured.

The administration wants immigration reform before securing the border.

A stalemate that will probably last until one side or the other blinks. Or the Republicans keep the House and gain control of the Senate. Then maybe.

The part I like the most is that Bush the younger wanted immigration reform but he was shot down by...the Democrats.

Hmmm.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The basic problem is that congress and most Americans have forgotten what the purpose of the federal government is.  It is their job to govern this unruly mess of states and not look after only local interests.  It must be exactly like herding cats.

 

Now, will they, nil they, it is their job to secure and defend the borders of the country instead of just bleating about it.  People who don't do their job should be replaced, eh?

 

"All we, like sheep, have gone astray ..."

-- Georg Fridrich Handel in The Messiah

[LexusInfernus 908]

Could you please cite the source for your claim of 'a thousand innocent people' having been executed? And by executed I mean after being convicted in a court of law, not by some fanatical zealots.

 

The only article I could find said that 25 people who were executed were found to be innocent. And that was for all of the 20th century wherein there were over 7,000 executions since 1900.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/14/us/25-wrongfully-executed-in-us-study-finds.html

 

note: This article is from the New York Times...not necessarily known as being conservative. And given their past penchants for stretching the truth, I would expect that 25 number to be higher, if they thought they could get away with it.

 

Its a figure of speech, not a claim that a thousand people have actually been executed while innocent. The point is, if you remove all the legal fail safes that are build in to prevent the execution of innocent people. If you claim they should be executed right after the guilty verdict and thereby removing all the failsafes you are going to end up executing more innocent people. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Disgusting.

 

Exotic drugs do not make for a very quick execution.  A good big shot of Euthanol is used to take out dogs and cats being euthanized, why not use the same drug?  Two hours of agony doesn't seem right after 25 years of anticipation.  The animals just fall asleep and quit breathing in about five minutes.  I've been present when this is done, and it seems much more merciful than this.

 

Who dreamed up this idea of execution by lethal injection?  It is cruel the way it is done now!

 

These drugs must cost a great deal if they have to be imported from Europe.  Why bother?  What's wrong with phenobarbital?  The law is not only an ass it is a stupid ass.

[hym 358]

Exotic drugs do not make for a very quick execution.

 

Exotic drug cocktails can lead to quick deaths.  Realistically, the length of time that it takes for the condemned to die is not really a concern so long as the person is unconscious.  The traditional 3 drug combination could take upwards of an hour to finally kill the person.  Some of the combinations that are being used currently can take as little as 20 minutes.

 

 

Who dreamed up this idea of execution by lethal injection?

 

Prison wardens.  Lethal injection was actually created as a replacement for gas chambers, firing squads, and electric chairs specifically because it was deemed as more humane than its predecessors.  They wanted a method of execution that took advantage of the advancements medical science had to offer the condemned a quick and painless death, and when it is done properly, lethal injection kills in minutes and causes no more discomfort than a needle prick.  They even sanitize the injection site for you.

 

 

 It is cruel the way it is done now!

 

Prison wardens would very much prefer to continue conducting executions with the traditional 3 drug cocktail, but one of the drug suppliers has stopped selling its drug to prisons, so wardens have had to switch to different drug cocktails to fulfill their legal obligation to carry out the execution.  Cruel or not, they are legally obligated to kill the prisoner, so they do their best to provide a quick and painless death with the drugs they have access to, many of which have never been tested for the way they are currently being used.  As with most things, any time you are trying to adapt something for a purpose that it has never been used for, odds are good you are going to screw it up  sometimes while you are learning what works and what doesn't.  Executing someone humanely isn't as simple as just pumping them full of drugs.  The wrong dosage or timing of the dosage can botch the execution.

 

 

 

These drugs must cost a great deal if they have to be imported from Europe.  Why bother?  What's wrong with phenobarbital?  The law is not only an ass it is a stupid ass.

 

They are not imported from Europe.  They are manufactured by specialty pharmaceutical companies in the US.  This is part of the reason that the states have been fighting to keep their suppliers secret.  The suppliers specialize in manufacturing drug orders like this, but they provide those same services to other organizations with the need for specialized drug manufacturing and they don't want their involvement to be public knowledge.  The supplier that Texas was using backed out of its agreement when its name was published.

 

As for what's wrong with phenobarbital, it has the exact same problem that the execution in this case has.  There is no question that you can kill a person with it, but it has never been tested for that purpose, so no one knows how it needs to be administered to ensure a humane death.  One of the immediate problems is that phenobarbital, which is an anti-seizure medication, is well known for its ability to induce seizures.  It's not much of a humane execution drug if it makes the condemned go into a seizure on the table and start spazzing everywhere, is it?

[AcmeSigns 97]

The convicted murderer in question probably should have been executed 25 years ago. It would have been doing the world a favor.

Why you ask? How about a little insight into the man from the linked article about his execution...

 

"He was convicted of fatally shooting Dietz and her father, 55-year-old Gene Dietz, at their auto repair shop in Tucson.

Wood and Debbie Dietz had a tumultuous relationship during which he repeatedly assaulted her. She tried to end their relationship and got an order of protection against Wood.

On the day of the shooting, Wood went to the auto shop and waited for Gene Dietz, who disapproved of his daughter's relationship with Wood, to get off the phone. Once the father hung up, Wood pulled out a revolver, shot him in the chest and then smiled.

Wood then turned his attention toward Debbie Dietz, who was trying to telephone for help. Wood grabbed her by the neck and put his gun to her chest. She pleaded with him to spare her life. An employee heard Wood say, "I told you I was going to do it. I have to kill you." He then called her an expletive and fired two shots in her chest."

 

http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20140724/us--arizona_execution-drugs-7e5b206411.html

 

Yeah...this guy was rehabilitable.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

OK, you don't like the use of drugs that are used to put down animals.  Well, how about a nice shot of sodium or potassium cyanide?  Sure, and reasonably quick.  If you want, you can sedate the victim first.  Or how about curare?  There is any number of out and out poisons that can be used that are very quick indeed in inducing unconsciousness.

 

Frankly though, a little writhe in agony would be good for the souls of the witnesses.

[hym 358]

OK, you don't like the use of drugs that are used to put down animals.  Well, how about a nice shot of sodium or potassium cyanide?  Sure, and reasonably quick.  If you want, you can sedate the victim first.  Or how about curare?  There is any number of out and out poisons that can be used that are very quick indeed in inducing unconsciousness.

 

Frankly though, a little writhe in agony would be good for the souls of the witnesses.

 

The problem again comes down to applicability for use as a means of humanely executing someone.  Both potassium cyanide and sodium cyanide kill by converting to hydrogen cyanide, which is the same gas used for executions in Holocaust.  Even if it did work, there would probably be objections to executing people in a similar fashion to the Nazis.

 

A quick Google search of curare suggests that no one really knows the toxicological effects of curare on humans, so no one really has a good idea what represents a lethal dose.

 

As for the use of phenobarbital, Arkansas announced that it was going to try the drug as a means of execution, and upon doing so, it's supplier has stopped selling the drug to the state.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

One can hardly blame the drug companies.  I think I've expressed my opinion on executions in any case.  If you are going to do it, no amount of pussy footing around will assuage the conscience of the corrections people.  A nice neat double tap with a .22 pistol would do the trick.  And seeing that there is this love affair with firearms in the U.S., why not?  Cheap, effective and pretty painless if you think about it.  The whole business is barbaric.  "If 'twere done when 'tis done, 'twere well 'twere done quickly".

[AcmeSigns 97]

Helium seems to be a choice among the terminaly ill. Painless (from what I've read) and you just nod off to bye-bye land. If it works for them, why not for convicted murderers?

[LexusInfernus 908]

One can hardly blame the drug companies.  I think I've expressed my opinion on executions in any case.  If you are going to do it, no amount of pussy footing around will assuage the conscience of the corrections people.  A nice neat double tap with a .22 pistol would do the trick.  And seeing that there is this love affair with firearms in the U.S., why not?  Cheap, effective and pretty painless if you think about it.  The whole business is barbaric.  "If 'twere done when 'tis done, 'twere well 'twere done quickly".

Shooting people is also a huge mental strain on whoever has to pull the trigger. Expect paying for therapists for the executioner. 

[krbe 193]

The problem again comes down to applicability for use as a means of humanely executing someone.  Both potassium cyanide and sodium cyanide kill by converting to hydrogen cyanide, which is the same gas used for executions in Holocaust.  Even if it did work, there would probably be objections to executing people in a similar fashion to the Nazis.

And why would that be a problem? The revenge aspect seems to be important for Americans in dealing with all sorts of. Public hanging by piano strings would seem to fit. Not any more cruel than the current execution methods.

[flatron 83]

 

The problem again comes down to applicability for use as a means of humanely executing someone.  Both potassium cyanide and sodium cyanide kill by converting to hydrogen cyanide, which is the same gas used for executions in Holocaust.  Even if it did work, there would probably be objections to executing people in a similar fashion to the Nazis.

And why would that be a problem? The revenge aspect seems to be important for Americans in dealing with all sorts of. Public hanging by piano strings would seem to fit. Not any more cruel than the current execution methods.

 

Because the public opinion about "brand america" would be even worse than it is already. The time of I-don't-care-icanism is definitely over by now.

One could of course use CO: It's cheap, readily available and the victim will hopefully not even notice it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Carbon monoxide is a very good idea.  Relatively quick and deadly.  A colourless, odourless, tasteless gas.  Victim just passes out (forever).  Just don't tell the producer why you want the tank of gas, and use a couple of layers of middle corporations to get it.

[Duke87 1,070]

Shooting people is also a huge mental strain on whoever has to pull the trigger. Expect paying for therapists for the executioner. 

 

Moreso than sticking a syringe full of poison in someone? Being tasked with killing people as part of your employment is mentally straining no matter how you do it. Managing it tends to require dehumanizing the recipient, "he's a dirty murderer" and such.

 

 

What I find interesting is how this spate of botched executions is occurring because of drug companies voluntarily refusing to sell a particular substance to prisons, thus forcing the prisons to find substitutes they aren't experienced with. It is a fair point that greater experience would prevent botching, and yet, I can't help but see an ideological positive feedback loop here where the wheels are in motion to eventually do away with capital punishment. Consider this progression:

1) private citizens who are opposed to the death penalty criticize drug companies that sell killing drugs to prisons

2) said companies make minimal profit by doing so, so they simply refuse to make the sale since controversy is bad for business

3) prisons are forced to find substitute products to use, which results in botched executions

4) media reports on the horrors of botched executions

5) private citizens call for greater scrutiny about the drugs being used, causing more suppliers to have their identities revealed

6) return to step one for newly identified suppliers

 

Notice the circular logic here. Capital punishment is bad because the deaths are horrible. The deaths are horrible because the supply of non-horrible means has been cut off. The supply of non-horrible means has been cut off because capital punishment is bad.

 

Now, there are other, less fallacious arguments that can legitimately be made against capital punishment, and I tend to agree with them. But seeing the number one argument be based on this manufactured problem is... I dunno, it bothers me because it seems dishonest.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The American motto is "In God we trust".  Well, read your scripture, you people: "Vengeance is mine", saith the Lord.  Men have no brief trying to exact revenge.

[hym 358]

And why would that be a problem? The revenge aspect seems to be important for Americans in dealing with all sorts of. Public hanging by piano strings would seem to fit. Not any more cruel than the current execution methods.

 

Approximately half of the US does not support the death penalty, so conducting executions in a manner similar to the methods of the Nazis would cause some serious political issues (and probably a lot of heart burn for the warden).

 

However, there is more to it than this.  Even among the most ardent supporters of the death penalty, Americans generally expect that the execution be conducted in a humane manner.  If you ask those people to define what constitutes a humane execution to them, odds are good the answer would roughly resemble the following thinking: "quick, painless, and leaves the body intact."  Add in that the US Constitution effectively adds another requirement: "it must be a form of execution that is considered normal and socially acceptable."  Hanging via piano wire would not pass the standard.

 

Moreso than sticking a syringe full of poison in someone? Being tasked with killing people as part of your employment is mentally straining no matter how you do it. Managing it tends to require dehumanizing the recipient, "he's a dirty murderer" and such.

 

From what I have read and seen, it is my understanding that this is generally not true.  Wardens and corrections officers who work with death row inmates tend to be very respectful of them before and after the execution.  There are obviously exceptions to this, but it seems to be the general trend that if the inmate is respectful, prison personnel  will return that respect.

 

 

What I find interesting is how this spate of botched executions is occurring because of drug companies voluntarily refusing to sell a particular substance to prisons, thus forcing the prisons to find substitutes they aren't experienced with. It is a fair point that greater experience would prevent botching, and yet, I can't help but see an ideological positive feedback loop here where the wheels are in motion to eventually do away with capital punishment. Consider this progression:

1) private citizens who are opposed to the death penalty criticize drug companies that sell killing drugs to prisons

2) said companies make minimal profit by doing so, so they simply refuse to make the sale since controversy is bad for business

3) prisons are forced to find substitute products to use, which results in botched executions

4) media reports on the horrors of botched executions

5) private citizens call for greater scrutiny about the drugs being used, causing more suppliers to have their identities revealed

6) return to step one for newly identified suppliers

 

Notice the circular logic here. Capital punishment is bad because the deaths are horrible. The deaths are horrible because the supply of non-horrible means has been cut off. The supply of non-horrible means has been cut off because capital punishment is bad.

 

Now, there are other, less fallacious arguments that can legitimately be made against capital punishment, and I tend to agree with them. But seeing the number one argument be based on this manufactured problem is... I dunno, it bothers me because it seems dishonest.

 

One of the interesting facets of the debate on the death penalty is that Americans generally seem to fall in one of three camps.  Roughly half the US supports the death penalty.  Of the half that doesn't, they often split into two different groups.  One group opposes the death penalty entirely.  The other opposes the death penalty, but not the idea of executing prisoners for heinous crimes.  In short, their opinion on the death penalty depends on how you ask the question.

 

The American motto is "In God we trust".  Well, read your scripture, you people: "Vengeance is mine", saith the Lord.  Men have no brief trying to exact revenge.

 

And if you read the Bible, you will also find where God gives human government the authority to execute murderers.  The idea that the human government has the authority to kill and exact revenge on behalf of the victim is a concept that is literally as old as the texts that comprise the Bible.  The idea that government shouldn't have the authority to execute someone is a relatively new concept.

[Duke87 1,070]

The other opposes the death penalty, but not the idea of executing prisoners for heinous crimes.  In short, their opinion on the death penalty depends on how you ask the question.

 

I'm not sure I follow. Are you trying to say that people oppose the method of lethal injection but not the idea of execution by other means? Or something else?

[hym 358]

 

The other opposes the death penalty, but not the idea of executing prisoners for heinous crimes.  In short, their opinion on the death penalty depends on how you ask the question.

 

I'm not sure I follow. Are you trying to say that people oppose the method of lethal injection but not the idea of execution by other means? Or something else?

 

 

Consider the following question:

 

"Do you support the death penalty?"

 

There are folks that will say that they do not support the death penalty, but when asked the following question...

 

"Do you think that the death penalty should be an option if a crime is heinous enough?"

 

...they will indicate that they think execution should be a possible punishment.

 

This obviously makes no logical sense, but these people exist, and researchers have found that how you ask the question changes the answer you get.  It has led to the belief that there are a lot of Americans who don't actually support abolition of the death penalty, but say that they do because it sounds like the appropriate answer or trendy thing to believe.