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Utah Attorney General Tweets Execution Order
Kilrah_il writes "In an all-time low for Internet use, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff used Twitter to announce to the public his approval of the execution of convicted murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner. 'I just gave the go ahead to Corrections Director to proceed with Gardner's execution. May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims,' the attorney general wrote. The AG's 7,000 followers retweeted the message further on and soon many replied concerning the awfulness of tweeting the execution of a human being. 'Mr. Shurtleff was doing nothing unusual; politicians and news organizations now routinely send out tweets to alert people to the latest developments. But as Twitter users digested endless breaking news flashes alerting them to the death of a man by firing squad in the United States, for some Mr. Shurtleff's remarks stood out from the rest.'"
The Utah AG was 'tweeting' while the murder was 'twitching'? This case received a lot of publicity (as most executions do) and he was just spreading the news as it happened. He's now qualified to work for one of the big networks.
Follow their AG on twitter in order to stay in touch with their government, but they don't want to hear the icky stuff? Is that right?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
This is a good thing, regardless of your stance on capital punishment.
The most important aspect of the internet, in my opinion, is that it shoves transparency down the throat of government.
For better or worse, this Governor's name and decision is now tied irrevocably to his decision to sign the execution order. He is accountable and his constituents and other voters around the country know what he did.
This is as it should be.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Tweeting a legal and properly appealed capital conviction is the "all-time low for internet use", but I suppose that using the internet to distribute Jihad snuff films like Daniel Pearl or using the internet to recruit racial and religious hate is just fine.
There are many lows on the internet and this doesn't come close. The prosecution in this case chose to pursue the death penalty in light of the crime committed, the jury found him guilty and found the death penalty appropriate. The AG is doing his job, and while this might seem sensationalistic, I'd rather the officials in my particular state be as open as possible using all available avenues of communication, although I personally do not use twitter.
The primary reason this case is so sensational is that he was killed by a firing squad. Remember that he chose that particular method, not the state.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Firing squad is deemed inhumane in 49 out of 50 states, the exception being Oklahoma, where it is used solely as a backup, should lethal injection or electrocution fail or become unconstitutional. Utah allows firing squads only in cases where the prisoner had chose it before it became unconstitutional. Therefore, Gardner, having been on death row for 20 some odd years, had chose death by firing squad before it was deemed inhumane.
I realize this is OT, but it really struck me as odd that Utah was still doing a death by firing squad. Interestingly enough, Washington State still allows prisoners the choice of their method of execution between death by hanging and death by lethal injection.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Me either. I don't understand why the general public seems to prefer lethal injection to hanging or firing squad as a method, given that the latter two are far, far more dignified. With lethal injection we have things like a condemned man being strapped to a gurney for hours as the personnel search for the correct vein, frequently with very painful results. With a properly-conducted hanging or firing squad, it's quick, relatively painless, dignified, and ends fast.
Hanging has more potential for error than the firing squad but I would still take it over lethal injection. If it breaks you neck then it's quite humane -- if it doesn't then it's a rather lousy way to exit the world. Of course the same could be said for the firing squad if the marksmen screw up but the odds of four men all missing the kill zone with rifles at 30 feet (or whatever laughably short distance is used) is pretty low.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"World peace has been declared. LOL jk We are invading Africa"
May God grant him mercy...because we certainly won't.
Beware of the Leopard.
Indeed, hanging is actually very tricky.
Set the drop to be too short, and they guy's neck doesn't break and you have to wait 15 minutes while he chokes to death - not pretty.
Set the drop too long and the head pops off. Better for the guy dieing, as he doesn't suffer nearly as long (a couple minutes until brain death, but as the spine is severed he likely feels nothing). However that's not exactly a dignified death.
If you don't mind popping heads off, why not go back to the guillotine? If well built it's flawless, and far, far cheaper than injection.
All capital punishment is hard on the executioner. You basically have to be some level of sociopath not to be affected by it, which, incidentally, is probably a good use for sociopaths.
If I were to die, I'd want it to be by firing squad - that's just awesome (though really hard on the executioners).
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
I'm not sure I understand the sentiment that somehow the Internet is different than print media when reporting events.
Putting it on Twitter is not like making a comic strip out of the event and joking about it. It's just another form of communication.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
What a fine bunch of people you are.
"I don't understand why the general public seems to prefer lethal injection to hanging or firing squad as a method, given that the latter two are far, far more dignified."
They are squeamish. They like the idea of killing the bad person but don't want to be reminded of the brutality of it. Lethal injection can be made to look like just another sterile clinical procedure. Hanging, firing squad, and the gas chamber reminds people that a person is being killed. I suspect there is a large segment of people that support the death penalty but could never actually impose the penalty themselves (or would have great difficulty). Hence the preference for "humane" lethal injection.
Where are the bleeding hearts for this asshole's victims and their families?
The bleeding hearts have realized that the sentence the man receives does not in any way undo or mitigate the deaths of the victims and doesn't do much for their families. It just adds 1 more to the body count.
Lethal injection as it's done is ridiculous. 3 drug cocktail, a sedative(barbituate), paralytic, and then the heart stopper. You really only need one. When i was humanely putting down rats for research purposes we just used a large overdose of barbituate. Inject 5x the lethal dose intraperitoneally. No fumbling about for a vein, they stop breathing in under a minute, and are gone in a couple more. There's no reason lethal injection has to be this complicated procedure.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
whether you agree with capital punishment or not, you have to agree that the state should not take its power to kill its own citizens very lightly. even if those citizens are scumbags.
Absolutely. But the message was not light, it was professional and serious in every way.
Just because YOU happen to think of Twitter as a channel of pure entertainment, does not mean it can only be used that way forever. It is a raw channel for information of ANY type.
That's the sign of a good tool, that in the end users are using it in ways the people that built the tool never dreamed of.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
or for that matter, "thou shalt not kill"?
The word "kill" is widely held to be a mistranslation, to my understanding. The more proper translation would be "murder", which means that certain forms of killing may or may not be allowed by such a statement.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
"There is no reliable, scientifically sound evidence that [shows that executions] can exert a deterrent effect.... These flaws and omissions in a body of scientific evidence render it unreliable as a basis for law or policy that generate life-and-death decisions. To accept it uncritically invites errors that have the most severe human costs." (Discussion of recent deterrence studies).
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
Singapore, Japan, Taiwan and India aren't "civilized countries"?
I was in Singapore for a week. It was like Chinatown without news stands -- if you can imagine such a thing. I couldn't find a copy of the Asian Wall Street Journal anywhere.
The Asian WSJ had written critically of the Lee Administration's policies of censoring the opposition by bringing frivolous libel suits against rival politicians and bankrupting them (people who are bankrupted aren't allowed to serve in the Singapore congress -- clever). So the Lee Administration sued the Asian WSJ for libel.
The WSJ abandoned its principles and published a groveling apology. As a result, they could send a fixed number of copies to Singapore, but it was like trying to find an uncensored American magazine in Soviet Russia.
Finally, the concierge at a 5-star hotel got me a copy of the Asian WSJ. It reported that an Indian playwright had gone to jail because she insisted on performing a feminist play that the Singapore government had censored.
(I also read in the WSJ that the "paddling" which outsiders treated as a joke is actually a brutal beating which Lee used against his political opponents.)
I was in Singapore for a scientific conference, and on the positive side I was charmed by the high school and college students reading science textbooks everywhere, and their love for science and education. Lee is rightly proud of bringing his people out of medieval poverty and illiteracy into modern education and civilization. So is Fidel Castro. They both did it at the expense of human rights.
Civilized? I'd give them a C. Work harder on human rights.
Many, including myself, consider the death penalty to be state-sponsored murder.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
That's fine, but my point is that what you say is a matter of interpretation, and depends on where you draw the "murder" line. Because of that, "Do not murder" does not necessarily apply to capital punishment.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Conversely, I think the death penalty is a delicious ice-cream flavour. It doesn't matter, because that's not really what's being discussed. If you want to get capital punishment abolished, don't waste your time here.
It's not about the guy that was executed, it was about an official, and extremely serious and somber statement, made via what many consider the lowest form of communication.
What if you had a wedding, and the bridal march was done by some guys farting, or your Masters Degree was on a post-it note?
Some forms of communication are just not considered to be appropriate for some types of information.
Well considering that god then goes on to tell the Israelites to murder other tribes and rape their women, I'd say the translation is pretty much irrelevant anyway. The Ten Commandments should have been called "The Ten Things You Should Not Do, Unless You Really Want To".
Twitter isn't the only form of electronic communication. It is, however, the most asinine and informal. I wouldn't want the news of my upcoming demise originating from the same site responsible for informing millions that Lance Armstrong woke up and is preparing a delicious sandwich.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
Widely held to be a mistranslation by whom?
By linguists. The Hebrew word "hariga" means killing, whereas "retzach" means murder. "Retzach" is the word used in the ten commandments. You're welcome to dislike the Bible, but this particular complaint is unfounded.
Oh, please. Get over this nonsensical idea that there is such a thing as "the Bible's take" on any subject. Romans, Deuteronomy and Leviticus were written by different people with different agendas at different times to different audiences in different contexts.
Even most mainstream Christian scholars will tell you that.
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Yeah, if you actually read the bible, there are tons of prohibited activities that get you the death penalty (death by stoning). Some of these:
...so if you want to trot out the bible to defend your position, you better get ready for lots of capital punishment!
If a married person has sex with someone else's husband or wife...
If a married couple has intercourse during the woman's period...
Being a fortune teller...
Working on Saturday...