US Executions Threaten Supply of Anaesthetic Used For Surgical Procedures

ananyo writes "Allen Nicklasson has had a temporary reprieve. Scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Missouri on 23 October, the convicted killer was given a stay of execution by the state's governor, Jay Nixon, on 11 October — but not because his guilt was in doubt. Nicklasson will live a while longer because one of the drugs that was supposed to be used in his execution — a widely used anesthetic called propofol — is at the center of an international controversy that threatens millions of U.S. patients, and affects the way that U.S. states execute inmates. Propofol, used up to 50 million times a year in U.S. surgical procedures, has never been used in an execution. If the execution had gone ahead, U.S. hospitals could have lost access to the drug because 90% of the U.S. supply is made and exported by a German company subject to European Union regulations that restrict the export of medicines and devices that could be used for capital punishment or torture. This is not the first time that the E.U.'s anti-death-penalty stance has affected the U.S. supply of anesthetics. Since 2011, a popular sedative called sodium thiopental has been unavailable in the United States. 'The European Union is serious,' says David Lubarsky, head of the anesthesiology department at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Florida. 'They've already shown that with thiopental. If we go down this road with propofol, a lot of good people who need anesthesia are going to be harmed.'"

Comments

Hangings

[JackieBrown]

We should just go back to hangings. It works for killing Nazis and war criminals.

Re:Hangings

[sycodon]

Firing squads are effective too.

For child killers, burning works for me.

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we could just stop having government thugs murder people.

Re:Hangings

[mrvan]

I think it would be best to have a firing squad composed of the jury that found someone guilty and imposed the death penalty. If you have the guts to condemn someone to die, I think you should also have the guts to execute that penalty.

(and yes, I also think that every non-vegetarian should be willing to butcher an animal)

Re:Hangings

[durin]

Why not just pull the warning labels off everything they use and let the problem sort itself out?

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely not! Executions are as much a part of America as slave ownership.

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

When the term "judge, jury, and executioner" is used, it's usually in a pejorative sense. Merging the latter two positions is a bad idea from a separation of power standpoint.

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

Butchering is gross. I wouldn't mind snapping its neck and hading it off to someone else to butcher, though.

Being grossed out by something doesn't constitute a moral imperative. I'm pretty grossed out by a woman's period but I still have sex with them.

Re:Hangings

[X0563511]

Nitrogen in a gas chamber is probably the most humane way to do it. You just... lose consciousness. There's no distress since carbon dioxide displacement still happens. This is why working with such gasses in an enclosed space always has those warnings etc.

Re:Hangings

[mjr167]

I think the problem with firing squads was occasionally they would miss and just horribly wound the guy...

But having the jury do it is an interesting proposal.

Re:Hangings

[JeffOwl]

Oh sure, then you'll have psychopaths turning up as the only people who can't/won't try to avoid jury duty.

Re:Hangings

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> Hangings

And with Europe cutting off rope supplies, this is another good reason to invigorate our domestic hemp production.

Re:Hangings

[GNious]

mount the weapons such that they cannot miss?

Re:Hangings

[TheSpoom]

Pure rationality cannot trample human rights. That leads to... unsavory consequences. History is full of dictators who believe they have "purely rational" reasons for genocide.

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pejorative because it implies greatly hastened judicial process, or a complete lack of it. There's nothing implicitly wrong with merging executioner with either of the other two, because the executioner has no judicial power anyway.

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh sure, then you'll have psychopaths turning up as the only people who can't/won't try to avoid jury duty.

No, they're too busy "creating jobs".

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

>and yes, I also think that every non-vegetarian should be willing to butcher an animal

I believe that every animal rights nut should be denied any medication or surgical procedure that has been tested on animals...

Re:Hangings

[Joey Vegetables]

Anyone can be trained to hit a target tens of meters away. And there are typically several shooters, not one. I would guess that having several rounds tear through the heart would result in fairly rapid unconsciousness and death. (Disclaimer: I do not believe states should have the power to execute people. That power should belong to victims and their families, and only after something much closer to a fair trial than most people on death row in the U.S. initially receive.)

Re:Hangings

[Firemouth]

I disagree with this because the role of a jury is to determine guilt. If what you propose were the case it may sway someone to vote not guilty even when it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt the person is guilty simply because they don't want to execute the sentence. I think that would be a miscarriage of justice. The jury's disposition to the punishment is irrelevant when determining guilt unless they're doing jury nullification, then they're just not following the law but for a different reason.

Besides, isn't it ultimately the Judge who determines the sentence, not the jury? Maybe it varies on the type of case and such but my point is the same.

I don't see any logical reasoning as to why someone who is determining guilt should have to be the one who executes the sentence. It's almost as if you're trying to punish the judge / jury for making a decision of guilty. It wouldn't have any positive impact that I can see and only negative ones.

Re:Hangings

[BSDstef]

Lifetime imprisonment is actually less expensive than the death penalty. California could save $1 billion over five years by replacing the death penalty with permanent imprisonment. California taxpayers pay $90,000 more per death row prisoner each year than on prisoners in regular confinement.

Source: http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42
Also see: http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001000

Re:Hangings

[Joey Vegetables]

I do not believe you understood the GP. The suffering in suffocation results from buildup of carbon dioxide, not the absence of oxygen. As far as we can tell or reasonably surmise, that would not happen in a room filled with pure nitrogen.

Re:Hangings

[sycodon]

So if you sentence the guy to thirty years, should the jury have to house, feed and guard him?

Re:Hangings

[realityimpaired]

It's essentially allowing said criminals to continue to victimize society by leeching taxpayer dollars that could be spent elsewhere on more deserving causes. Execution is an alternative that is less humane in most cases, but it also permanently ends any further exploitation of society by those who can't be reformed and can't live in said society.

In most countries where capital punishment has been banned, it was done so because there were too many cases where people were later exonerated after their execution. Let's skip the argument over the ethics of executions as they're done in the US, though, because that is a way to a very vitriolic exchange.

The US is a strange case, though. You have an enormous prison population as a proportion of your general population. Money becomes an issue when such a large percentage of the population is incarcerated, but when you have a more reasonable justice system (and a social security net which removes a large percentage of the impetus for crime... insert obligatory link: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/09/24/breaking-bad-canada-comic-health_n_3984793.html ), the increased cost of keeping somebody alive for the duration of their prison sentence is still reasonable.

Re:Hangings

[dmbasso]

[...] there is an important place for execution in the criminal justice system.

If the criminal justice system was actually fair, I (perhaps) wouldn't disagree. But when you have bankers that screwed the lives of millions of people going free, while a poor woman gets a life sentence because she was at the wrong place, at the wrong time (during a drug deal), with the wrong people, and said people decide to incriminate her... then I don't think I can trust the life of my fellow earthlings to the system.

Re:Hangings

[SJHillman]

Until you get people willing to convict someone just for the chance to pull the trigger.

Re:Hangings

[MBGMorden]

So you're going to give a bunch of people who may or may not know how to fire and/or aim a firearm the job of executing someone? When half of them miss and the other half have bad hits its going to be mighty bad when the prisoner is on the ground screaming and dying slowly.

PS I've never understood the vegetarian quip that more people would be vegetarians if they saw and/or participated in the process of butchering. Vegetarianism is a rather new fad, and until relatively recently most people WERE pretty involved in the butchering process and there was no mass avoidance of meat eating.

Personally having been hunting since I was 7 (and killed my first deer at 9) I've been pretty involved with the butchering process and if you grow up with it its no big thing. I still kill a few deer per year (usually between 2 and 4) and skin/gut all of them myself. Still love eating meat. Heck when I see a cow grazing the first thing I think of is steak and get hungry.

Re:Hangings

[coinreturn]

We should just go back to hangings. It works for killing Nazis and war criminals.

Then the EU would block the export of rope.

Re:Hangings

[JeffAtl]

This has nothing to do with "division of labor" - it's about juries having some "skin in the game".

Too many juries convict on very questionable reasons and non-compelling evidence.

Re:Hangings

[wagnerrp]

Your body does not measure a lack of oxygen. It measures an abundance of carbon dioxide. If you hyperventilate, you can hold your breath considerably longer, not because you actually have any more oxygen in your system, but because you flush out any carbon dioxide in your blood stream, and it takes longer for your body to register that it needs to breathe again.

Re:Hangings

[kruach aum]

There is a difference between rationality and thinking you're rational. Rationality is what has given us human rights in the first place.

Re:Hangings

[DrXym]

Blank ammo doesn't have the same kick as live ammo (no bullet). You would know if it was you or not unless it was very small calibre.

Anyway I don't see why it should even matter. If someone can be designated to push a button to electrocute someone, or gas them, or to release a trap door, or to administer a lethal injection then I don't see what difference it makes that the switch actually is rigged to a weapon that fires a bullet into someone's heart.

Re:Hangings

[luckymutt]

I would want to know. That's why I'd flaunt the regulation and go for a head shot.

Re:Hangings

[DrXym]

This really doesn't seem like an insurmountable problem. i.e. don't have a firing squad, mount the guns on tripods and do a test firing to ensure their aim.

Re:Hangings

[Anonymous Coward]

or just get rid of the anesthetic. those assholes deserve to die a painful death.

Including the ones who were later found to have not actually committed the crimes they were sentenced to death for committing?

I have no problem with the concept of executing someone in certain situations. The problem I have is being absolutely certain that the accused actually DID commit the crime- even one case of wrongful execution is too many.

As for how expensive it is to execute vs. imprison for life: The fact of the matter is that society always has to pay a cost in order to remove someone from society, if they aren't willing to pay the cost then the person shouldn't be removed in the first place. We shouldn't be looking at saving money at the risk of killing people who don't deserve it.

So all in all I DO think we need to get rid of the death penalty entirely, but not because of any moral objection to execution. Yes, it would really suck if you spent 50 years in jail before being exonerated, but at least you still have a chance to pick up some of your life. If you're dead- you're wormfood, and a posthumous apology doesn't do jack shit.

Re:Hangings

[erikkemperman]

Or, you know, join the rest of the civilised world and abolish capital punishment.

Re:Hangings

[thaylin]

Some times people deserve capital punishment. I am not saying in most of the cases that we do it they deserve it, but someone who is an un-remorseful mass murderer should be put to death. The tax payer should not be liable to keep them alive, or let them free to kill again.

Re:Hangings

[interkin3tic]

You can get interesting responses from people who are staunchly pro-death penalty hearing this the first time. The first is an immediate rejection "It couldn't possibly cost that much." Followed by a statement that it shouldn't cost that much to kill someone. "You could just use an empty syringe, that is like $5."

Upon finding out that it's because of the legal fees, you get people saying "Well then they shouldn't be allowed to have as many retrials."

Not saying those immediate responses say anything relevant to the conversation, everyone suffers from cognitive dissonance and few people are open minded. And most people who are pro death penalty aren't really so because they think it's cheaper. Just it's amusing to me that the first suggestions in favor of death penalty as part of the justice system are "Well, I could kill someone pretty cheap" and "How about we give people fewer chances to prove their innocence before we kill them."

Re:Hangings

[MysteriousPreacher]

Every society in the world has established that (at least some) rights can be removed from criminals, with due process. If their right to freedom can be removed, there's no reason their right to life can't be as well (in extreme circumstances at least).

The acceptance of removing rights isn't itself a justification for any particular action. Each proposed action should stand on its own merits. We know that custodial sentences can to some extent be corrected for when a convict is later cleared of the capital crime. One can't give someone back 10 years of life, but efforts can be made to make the remainder of their life as pleasant as it can be under the circumstances. The death penalty is kind of final. It's difficult to appeal the sentence when one would be too dead to show-up in court. Appeals can be made prior to the execution - we know that's pretty common, and certainly some people are reprieved, but once dead there's no going back. The best they can hope for is that a surviving friend or relative will clear their name postmortem. That is a pretty big difference.

It's a moral choice to make, and that's fine. But to argue that executions are some absurdity that have no place in a reasonable society is unfair.

We have to ask ourselves a question: What is capital punishment achieving that a custodial sentence wouldn't?

Is it about protecting the public? If so, how are they any more protected by this death than they would be if the person served their life behind bars? Maybe the protection comes from its deterrent factor? If so, is this worth the risk of executing people who are innocent of the crime for which they've been sentenced to death? Is this a utilitarian argument? Better to have 1 innocent person die if it prevents 100 murders? None of that seems reasonable to me. Are there better ways to reduce crime that won't involve executions?

Is it about vengeance for the wronged? If so, then this is a broken judicial system. The law should never have this in mind.

Re:Hangings

[Hatta]

I disagree with this because the role of a jury is to determine guilt.

No, the role of the jury is to judge both the facts and law. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court wrote, "It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision⦠you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy".

If what you propose were the case it may sway someone to vote not guilty even when it's been proven beyond a reasonable doubt the person is guilty simply because they don't want to execute the sentence

That is exactly the purpose a jury is supposed to serve. If the community, as represented by a jury of peers deems a punishment unconscionable, they not only have the right but the moral obligation to acquit. If the government wants the people to sign off on its punishments, the government must levy punishments that the community can accept. The jury is supposed to be a check on the legal system.

It's almost as if you're trying to punish the judge / jury for making a decision of guilty. It wouldn't have any positive impact that I can see and only negative ones.

The only way this would be punishment for the jury is if they didn't think the punishment actually fit the crime. If that's the case, they damn well should be discouraged. That's a very positive result.

The US injustice system is draconian enough. We are a "free country" that imprisons more people than than any other country in the world. We still use the death penalty despite the lack of any evidence that it makes our country safer. We are in dire need of reigning in the vindictive and authoritarian nature of our injustice system.

Re:Hangings

[Golddess]

I can't see any advantage on using chemicals to kill a person, instead of a bullet shot into the head

Less messy, plus chemicals appear more humane. From the perspective of all but the condemned, it looks like they are just going to sleep.

Personally, I'm wondering why they've never tried nitrogen asphyxiation. It gives the same appearance as lethal injection, with the added benefits of being safer to handle and dispose of, and it is actually humane, since the whole "need to breathe" feeling comes about from a build up of CO2, not a lack of O2. If I were a religious person, I'd even go so far as to suggest that nitrogen asphyxiation is God's preferred method of execution. Why else design us with what appears to be such a serious flaw?

Re:Hangings

[Politburo]

The right to freedom can be removed and restored. The right to life cannot. Seems like a pretty good reason to me.

Re:Hangings

[Ihlosi]

Wrong you need a room that is scrubbed of CO2 and remains scrubbed of CO2.

In any room sized to comfortably hold a at least one person, that person will become unconscious if the room is anoxic long before the CO2 level rises enough for the body to detect it.

By the way, in anoxic conditions, the oxygen saturation doesn't gradually decrease. Instead, it plummets, since oxygen exchange in the lungs is reversed - the blood actually gets deoxygenated. Once the deoxygenated blood arrives in the brain (takes 10-20 seconds) it's lights out almost immediately. The brain doesn't take too well to having no oxygen, even for the briefest amounts of time.

Re:Hangings

[thaylin]

So property > life? Sometimes people rob to put food on the table for their kids because they have little option.

Re:Hangings

[erikkemperman]

Well, I am not saying mass murderers should walk free, obviously. The two strongest arguments against the death penalty, in my opinion, are

-- There will be always be some percentage of cases where the verdict turns out to be wrong, and you have murdered an innocent human being (in many cases exactly the crime you set out to punish)

-- Life imprisonment, while costly for society, seems to me the harsher punishment. There's ways you can relieve the burden on society, too.

If you get it wrong there's someone left to apologise to and compensate. If not, they get what they deserve.

Re:Hangings

[interkin3tic]

TFA has a very good point at the very end. An anesthesiologist points out that these procedures need to be foolproof enough for guards with nothing more than a high school education to do. If someone is dosed with anesthetic, pretty much any way of killing them is going to probably be painless, and meets at least some people's definition of humane. And the poison is presumably well tested and super effective.

With nitrogen and no anesthetic, that's a bit more complex than I'd trust a meathead with. Making sure the oxygen is completely replaced in the room, and making sure a person is dead by a monitor rather than just in a coma or nearly dead before you open up the room and let oxygen back in.

Finally, you mean painless. Humane? I don't know. It's going to have to be a sizeable room too, since you don't want prisoners freaking out due to claustrophobia. In addition to that being a cruel way to kill someone, there are security concerns. A prisoner is already going to be on edge when they know they're literally about to die. If they have an irrational fear of suffocation or enclosed spaces, they might try to hurt someone or themselves. That last one might seem like an odd concern, but someone tearing at their throat in their final hysterical minutes shouldn't meet anyone's definition of humane, and if the room is filled with oxygen, no guards can go back in to secure the prisoner. Also, drifting off to sleep seems more humane than suffocating, even if you're not physically in pain.

(Disclaimer: I'm extremely anti-death-penalty.)

Re:Hangings

[fustakrakich]

War is real mass murder. When do we get to hang the people who start and sustain them?

Re:Hangings

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Given the alternatives, that's probably pretty sensible.

For what appear to be PR reasons, execution methods that are gory looking and freak out the viewers have been largely phased out (a firing squad, say, or a guillotine, will kill you pretty dead, pretty fast; but it'll leave a heck of a mess, and the more competently it's done, the bigger the mess.

The replacements, by contrast, seem to have been picked more for the appearance of cleanliness, rather than actual swiftness or painlessness (I suspect that the 'brain drain' of medical expertise and moderates in general toward the anti-death-penalty camp, combined with the fact that the "I wish we could make them suffer longer! Unfortunately that isn't constitutional..." camp isn't going anywhere, has lead to expertise being harder to come by, and stakeholder interest in pain-minimization simply being less). If the family dog gets sick, pretty much any vet in the country can euthanize them to a standard of humaneness that people demand for a beloved pet. Execution by lethal injection? Odds are surprisingly bad that the prison-flunky doing the job will even be able to find a vein, and the percentage of kills that actually go quickly and cleanly is unimpressive. Why the difference? Similarly, occupational safety/industrial hygiene types can tell you all about how people can suffocate without even noticing because of carbon monoxide exposure, or oxygen-displacing gas leaks (quirk of human physiology: you can detect high levels of CO2, or mechanical impediments to breathing, and you'll freak out; but you can't detect lack of oxygen, so if carbon monoxide binds all your hemoglobin, or you are working in an ill-ventilated basement and end up breathing pure nitrogen because of an LN2 leak nearby, your CO2 levels will remain in the green, and you'll just black out and die...); but we still can't gas people to death properly... Unless the pro-execution camp can get its technique together, I'd stick with old reliable myself, if I had to choose.

Re:Hangings

[hawkinspeter]

Are you aware that it costs more to the tax payers to kill prisoners than to keep them incarcerated for the rest of their life?

Re:Hangings

[thaylin]

Incorrect. Judges determine the law and undisputed facts, even in the case of juries. Juries only judge disputed "facts". Juries can go outside of the law and will typically not be held accountable because of the above, but the judge of a case is like the moderator. He will decide what issues go to the jury and what do not based on the law.

Also incorrect. Juries dont typically do sentencing, again the judge does that. In addition in the few cases they do if the feel capital punishment is unconscionable they also can do life in prison instead. They have options other than a moral obligation to acquit.

Re:Hangings

[jklovanc]

-- Life imprisonment, while costly for society, seems to me the harsher punishment. There's ways you can relieve the burden on society, too.

Life imprisonment is harsher on anyone who who has to come into contact with lifers. A lifer has no incentive to behave in a reasonable way. If someone says the wrong word a lifer may kill them. The lifer is already subject to the harshest penalty possible. What are they going to do? Throw the lifer in jail?

I lifer is a danger to every guard and inmate they come into contact with. The number of guards and other inmates killed by lifers far outweigh the few innocent suspects killed by the system.

Re:Hangings

[hawkinspeter]

Also, anyone who voted for the party that doesn't win shouldn't be allowed to use any government services.

Re:Hangings

[AlecC]

Simply pushing them into a room filled with N2 will lead to am immediate shortage of breath and panic breathing.

Not true. Jonathan Miller showed it on television: not with a room, but a facemask connected to an N2 cylinder. He simply passed out, and reported no unpleasant sensations at all. No choking will be felt until CO2 builds up, and in a reasonable size room that will take hours. I have also heard of demonstration where a pig had to put its head through a screen into a nitrogen filled area to get food. The pig passed out, fell back through the screen (which was at the top of a ramp), recovered, and went around again, obviously feeling no fear of the screen.

Re:Hangings

[thaylin]

The extra cost is in typical appeals, which even people without the death penalty can do but tend not to. They can find a away to lower that cost. The cost of the actual execution is a fraction of the cost to keep someone in prison for life.

Re:Hangings

[Luckyo]

That only applies to countries with bad justice systems based on vengeance, such as US.

In most civilized countries, life sentence means something between 10 and 30 years, long enough to count as severe punishment that completely changes person life without the downsides you mention.

Re:Hangings

[SuricouRaven]

Deserve? What does deserve have to do with this?

Capital punishment does have defensible justifications. There are some people who are simply too dangerous to release and have no chance of rehabilitation - in which case execution may be a far more efficient use of resources than many decades of expensive prison time at taxpayer expense, especially if they need to be kept in isolation.

But that isn't the reason so many people support the death penalty. The main reason seems to be a sadistic desire to see 'evildoers' suffer, covered up under the polite excuse of 'justice.' Wrong has been done, and only by inflicting equal or greater suffering upon the guilty can the demand for vengence be satisfied.

Re:Hangings

[thaylin]

No, war is mass killing. Killing and murder are not necessarily the same, however I have no problem for killing bush for the war in Iraq currently. The war in Afgan was originally justified, the Iraq was was not.

Re:Hangings

[Luckyo]

This is a US-centric site. Welcome to the reality.

Re:Hangings

[SuricouRaven]

Nitrogen aspixiation is an almost ideal way. It's cheap, very reliable (Survival rate: Zero), needs no people of medical skill, and uses only a commonly available mass-produced gas.

The only problem is that many death penalty proponents consider it insufficiently inhumane. It's actually a pleasant way to die: A period of euphoria, then unconsciousness, then death. So it doesn't do much to satisfy the desire for collective vengence.

Re:Hangings

[thaylin]

It seems you start out disagreeing, but come to the same conclusion I do, so I am not sure the purpose of this. The people who are simply too dangerous to release and have no chance of rehabilitation are the ones I say deserve to be put down.

Re:Hangings

[SuricouRaven]

There was a BBC program, 'How To Kill A Human Being,' that examined various methods of execution. The presenter concluded that nitrogen was the ideal way. The idea was presented to the director of a pro-death-penalty campaign group, but he rejected it on the grounds that it was 'inhumane to the victim,' because a pleasant death did not satisfy the demands of justice.

Re:Hangings

[jklovanc]

That is exactly the purpose a jury is supposed to serve. If the community, as represented by a jury of peers deems a punishment unconscionable, they not only have the right but the moral obligation to acquit. If the government wants the people to sign off on its punishments, the government must levy punishments that the community can accept. The jury is supposed to be a check on the legal system.

The issue with that is a jury decision must be unanimous. If one juror disagrees it is a hung jury. It then becomes rule by minority as 1/12 of the jury can vote for not executing the convicted criminal. What would you define as the community? To me 11/12th of the jury would be a very good representation of what the community can accept.

There are many people who agree with the need to kill but can not bring themselves to do it. Think of all the soldiers with PTSD due to seeing so many people die. How many bus and train drivers are permanently scarred because someone stepped in from of their vehicle even though they could do nothing to stop it. How many people take their animals to vets to be "put to sleep"? We are taught not to kill and it is almost impossible for many people to do it not matter how much they agree with the need.

Re:Hangings

[Runaway1956]

Heh - I agree. I'm a meat eater, and I have butchered my own meat. Pork, venison, and beef. Yes, it's eye opening. Everyone should have the experience.

Could I pull the trigger on a guy I had condemned? Yeah. Would I enjoy it? Nope - not one bit. But, yes, I could do it.

Funny thing is - fewer people than ever would be condemned to death, if the people condemning had to perform the execution. Few people are willing, even if they are able, to perform the task.

Re:Hangings

[pdabbadabba]

Though the practice is not uniform, many (most?) U.S. states require that, if a death sentence is to be imposed, that it be imposed by a jury. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/us-supreme-court-ring-v-arizona But I agree that this is mostly irrelevant to your point.

Re:Hangings

[erikkemperman]

Fair enough, different people will weigh these alternatives and come up with different answers. For what it's worth, I think the first argument is in itself strong enough to make the case against the death penalty.

Re:Hangings

[jedidiah]

> life sentence means something between 10 and 30 years,

There is nothing "civilized" about this kind of doublespeak.

Re:Hangings

[Gavagai80]

Ironically, probably the best argument for the death penalty is the extra appeals available when you're on death row. An innocent person has a much better chance of being exonerated from death row than from a life sentence. If I'm innocent, I'd rather be sentenced to death so that my case gets a lot more scrutiny instead of having my case file lost in a closet for the rest of my life.

Re:Hangings

[jedidiah]

There's a lot of history between us and Plato. Their fads don't necessarily have any relationship to our fads.

The idea of vegetarianism as some sort of moral crusade probably at the very least requires a society rich enough to support such a vanity. For everyone else, it's eat what you can get your hands on as you don't have the luxury of being picky.

Re:Hangings

[Penguinisto]

What are they going to do? Throw the lifer in jail?

Nope, but they can impose even harsher penalties. Two that come to mind?

* removal of privileges (bed linens, commissary privileges, rec yard, etc)
* restricted solitary confinement (23 hours a day alone in a cell, one hour to exercise, shower, whatever in an isolated small confinement area)
* loss of communication rights except to legal counsel (no more letters to/from home, etc).

In some states, it could also mean being sent to hard labor for up to 16 hours each day, every day until you behave (e.g. Arkansas, which has prison farms).

Even a 'lifer' has things that he fears.

Re:Hangings

[Xaedalus]

This. There is a significant number of people in our civilization who value vengeance so much that they're willing to expend significant political effort to keep the death penalty in place. The death penalty isn't to deter criminals, although that is the politically correct reason given. It's to assuage the lust for vengeance on the part of those who identify with the victims and believe in an "eye for an eye". If we didn't have the death penalty, we'd have vigilante squads soon enough, roaming around to deal out punishments they feel are appropriate. This group usually tends towards an apocalyptic, Calvinist mindset anyway.

Re:Hangings

[erikkemperman]

Life imprisonment, while costly for society, seems to me the harsher punishment.

Life imprisonment gives time for the prison chaplain to help the prisoner find Jesus and thus go to heaven. Capital punishment makes it more likely the person will die a sinner and thus go to hell.

Well done, I can't tell if you are arguing in favour or against capital punishment :-)

Re:Hangings

[Luckyo]

The point for length of punishment is to completely disconnect the person from their previous life and then rehabilitate them by rebuilding it. Not making their life not worth living.

It's the difference between justice systems and their goals. US justice system is about revenge, which is a common theme for countries that had their justice system built based on frontier, low resource justice.
Most of the EU justice system is built on rehabilitation, which is more common in countries with long histories and more resources to spend on individuals.

Re:Hangings

[jbolden]

May 2003 Gallop 79%

Here is a timeline which shows how high it was and how high it stayed: http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/uayr5i28vkcki2wjl04pxa.gif

Re:Hangings

[CitizenCain]

In the first place, do you actually think that people selected to be on a firing squad haven't used the gun and ammo type they'll be using? That seems pretty haphazard and ill-thought out, even for government work. (And for the record, the selectees are typically current or former military or law-enforcement.)

In the second place, that's really not true anyway. I'd assert that anyone with a decent amount of experience firing guns would be able to accurately assess whether he fired a blank or a live round, even on an unknown gun/caliber combination, especially with rifles - they generally have more recoil than handguns. I might have trouble telling if I fired a blank from a .22 handgun, but I don't have that problem with an M-16/AR-15 that uses .223 ammo. Like I said above, given that executioners typically come from law enforcement or the military, it seems exceedingly unlikely to me that they wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

Re:Hangings

[mdielmann]

So if you sentence the guy to thirty years, should the jury have to house, feed and guard him?

If they pay taxes, they do.

Re:Hangings

[FatLittleMonkey]

And another thirty to vent the nitrogen [*] before sending in the doctor to confirm the death. Otherwise you'll have another death on your hands. Probably several, before someone realises what's going on.

Seriously, happens when farmers repair leaking metal water tanks. The newly exposed metal insta-rusts, using up the oxygen in the air in the tank, the farmer dies. His son or hand sees him collapse, thinks he's having a heart attack, jumps in and dies too. Happens in ships' ballasts too, for the same reason.

[* Well, reduce it to 78% anyway.]

Re:Hangings

[Idarubicin]

> life sentence means something between 10 and 30 years

There is nothing "civilized" about this kind of doublespeak.

The OP kind of misstated the nature of the criminal sentence, which is why it looks like doublespeak.

In Canadian law, for instance, there is very much a life sentence. Attached to the sentence, however, is a minimum period of time before which a convict can apply for parole; this period of time tops out at 25 years for the most serious offences (things like first-degree murder).

There is no guarantee that parole will be granted. I a convict is paroled, the life sentence remains in effect--they can be monitored more closely than a regular private citizen, and can be returned to prison if they violate the terms of their parole.

What doesn't exist is a life sentence with no opportunity for parole--which is where you get the 'lifers' in the U.S. system who have no motivation not to shiv their fellow prisoners.

Re:Hangings

[sjames]

He got that approval by knowingly fabricating reasons for war. So he should also go on trial for fraud.

Re:Hangings

[Luckyo]

10 year sentence is about as long effective in terms of prevention as life according to most criminologists. From preventative point of view, as long as you can do an evaluation to keep those few that still pose a threat in prison, the rest should be released.

Vengeance based system views that such risks and assessments are irrelevant, as the goal is not to rehabilitate but to punish.

lethal injection is for sissies

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a country/state that is very proud of (1) their inalienable right to own and wear guns, and (2) insists on killing people found guilty in a very imperfect process, should have the guts to just shoot those people. Executions aren't supposed to be nice, so just get over the squeamishness and just shoot the buggers.

Re:lethal injection is for sissies

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a country/state that is very proud of (1) their inalienable right to own and wear guns, and (2) insists on killing people found guilty in a very imperfect process, should have the guts to just shoot those people. Executions aren't supposed to be nice, so just get over the squeamishness and just shoot the buggers.

The especially weird thing is that a lot of the same people who are big on capital punishment and packing heat also will be the first to bitch about "big government" interfering in their lives with their taxes, healthcare and other "nanny state" regulations. Seems that deliberately, intentionally killing citizens is the most serious form of government intrusion in one's life -- not something to trust to the incompetent, liberal, meddling "gubmint". You know, the terrifying phrase: "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."

Re:lethal injection is for sissies

[Anubis IV]

I think most people here can understand that there isn't a massive, logical incongruity in wanting a government to maintain the criminal justice system while also wanting it to stay out of our everyday lives. Generally, people should be free to go about their lives, so long as they aren't harming others. Once they cross that line, very few people actually object to the government (federal, state, or local, as appropriate) stepping in or being available to resolve the dispute (e.g. lawsuit), since at that point you are no longer just dealing with your own life, but also the lives of others.

The whole point of having a government is to help ensure that a group of people are able to work together, and that means that the government will have to tell someone they can't have their way some of the time. Put differently, intrusions are a necessary component of a functioning government. The people clamoring for the government to stay out of their lives are sometimes fanatics who will accept no compromise (i.e. they want their way 100% of the time, which simply isn't feasible, since their way isn't compatible with everyone else's all of the time), but most people are simply of the mindset that the government shouldn't intrude unnecessarily. The nature of government is that it will intrude at some point, but the intrusion should be kept to the minimum amount necessary for accomplishing the task.

As for what tasks make sense...well, that's a separate but related discussion that goes into how large the government should be and what should be handled by it vs. what should be handled by private industry, but we don't need to resolve that issue in order to understand that it makes sense for the government to be able to intrude in some cases but not in others.

Home grown.

[grub]

They do make bullets in the USA, right?

Re:Hint

[i kan reed]

I don't think you've noticed, but we are a barbaric nation, by-and-large. Less educated, more violent, and more plutocratic than comparable nations. Our barbarism in our justice system isn't a mysterious artifact of unknown origin, it's a reflection of a larger anti-intellectual culture.

We're All Guily

[macromorgan]

How does killing killers make us any better then the killers themselves?

Re:We're All Guily

[Immerman]

It doesn't. The justice system has nothing to do with us being "better" than anyone else, it exists to
(1) interrupt the cycle of reprisals that "code of honor" systems create("An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind"), by delegating judgement and punishment to a third party held blameless for actions committed in the line of duty.
(2) discourage future crime through a combination of making an example of criminals caught to dissuade others
(3) rehabilitate, imprison, or eliminating those who demonstrated a willingness to break the law to prevent repeat offenses

(1) requires that the punishments inflicted be sufficient to prevent the wronged individuals from taking justice into their own hands. Obviously if the crime is particularly heinous or the wronged often inclined to violence that may set the bar rather high.
(2) requires that punishments be sufficiently unpleasant that people who believe they probably won't get caught still don't think it's worth the risk.
(3) killing someone is the most permanent method to make sure they never commit another crime - the largest problem being that you can't release a falsely convicted person from death.

Re:We're All Guily

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they were given a fair trial before.

Are we still talking about the U.S.A.? Correct me if I'm wrong, but nobody is given a fair trial there. You have to buy a fair trial at considerable expense, or accept the "plea deal" which basically considers you guilty, or get off worse for the prosecutor throwing the book at you, and without a really expensive lawyer, more will stick than with the deal. If you are really rich or poor, you are not guilty or guilty, respectively. In the middle range, there is some correlation between guilt and verdict, but you'll have to pay heavily to end on the non-guilty side.

"Fair" is something different.

Re:We're All Guily

[Jiro]

Does locking someone up in jail make us better than kidnappers? Pr fining them any better than thieves?

Re:We're All Guily

[jergantic]

This is all true. However, the implication that the death penalty will discourage future crime doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Like suicides, almost all of the murders and rapes committed which lead to the death penalty are crimes of passion in which the perpetrator is not rationally weighing risk and reward. The marginal number of would-be criminals put off committing a crime due to capital punishment are more than counter-balanced by those encouraged to commit a crime they otherwise wouldn't by the dramatic appeal of a violent end.

Pentobarbital

[mfh]

They are switching drugs in Missouri, while adding a team of compounding pharmacists, so the drugs will be made on site and therefore not subject to Europe's politics. Also some of the European flexing here is a direct result of NSA wiretapping.

Re:Pentobarbital

[SomeKDEUser]

No. Europe's position is a longstanding one. And as the EU is a larger market than the US, an EU law forbidding a drug company to help with capital punishment carries weight.

The link with the spying thing is that US companies may be faced with the choice of picking either one or the other market, if privacy directives from the EU come into force. And this is terrifying for US companies, because, again, the EU market is larger.

Re:Pentobarbital

[Pinky's Brain]

They can just split up into two companies linked by stock ownership and privacy maintaining firewalls, one incorporated in the US and one in the EU. The US government can't (yet) force stock owners to force their foreign companies to implement spying mechanisms in their technology infrastructure AFAIK.

The companies still fear it because it will cost them money, but they will do it if necessary.

Re:Pentobarbital

[IamTheRealMike]

The amount of drugs used in lethal injections is trivial, not worth going through any efforts to make it possible, especially as - guess what - the executives and scientists at those companies are probably against having their drugs be used in executions as well! They got into pharma to save lives, not end them.

For instance, even the US firm Hospira apparently refuses to sell propofol to prisons and there's no ban against it in the US.

Re:Why can't we make it here?

[IamTheRealMike]

RTFA - it says "Federal regulations make propofol difficult to manufacture in the United States". It does not elaborate on what those regulations are.

Re:Why can't we make it here?

[durin]

I think this has to do with either patents or copyright. Something that the US has a "very serious stance" on...

As good a time as any

[Captain_Chaos]

Maybe it's time for the US to take the hint and stop this barbaric and medieval practice?

Seriously, why does it not bother more Americans that by having the death penalty they find themselves in the illustrious company of countries such as Libya, Sudan, China, Iran, Iraq and North Korea (the "Axis of Evil") and Syria?

Re:As good a time as any

[sI4shd0rk]

Vengeance seems to be a top priority for some reason. And as someone else pointed out, it's hypocritical how some who claim to want small government also say that the government should have the power to murder people who've already been imprisoned; I can't think of a much bigger sign of "big government" than that.

Re:As good a time as any

[sI4shd0rk]

that is barbaric.

Indeed it is. We probably shouldn't become like them. And, well... I really don't want to give incompetent government thugs the power to murder prisoners; something about that just seems wrong.

Re:As good a time as any

[Stormy Dragon]

I'm in favor of the death penalty in theory.

I just don't trust our government enough to administer it properly in practice. Or criminal justice system isn't about actually determining guilty or innocence, it's about railroading people so some DA can pad his resume on the way to becoming a judge or a governor. Hopefully the guy they railroaded actually did it, but if not, meh, they're not gonna lose sleep over the innocent lives they destroyed on their way to the top.

Re:As good a time as any

[Captain_Chaos]

you are confused on what is barbaric.

Not at all. Human beings have no moral authority to kill other human beings. To do it anyway, premeditated and intentionally, when there is no immediate danger to anyone else, is barbaric. It's what barbarians do. You are lowering yourself to the level of the very people you are punishing.

for example, child molesters and rapists and murderers get out of prison and commit their crimes again.

So lock them up for the rest of their lives. It's cheaper too.

putting down a monster is not barbaric,

They are not monsters, they are human beings. You may be able to lull yourself into acceptance by demonising human beings and pretending that you're in a fairy story, but I don't think that is fair or productive.

it is the merciful thing to do

You are confused on what is merciful.

In addition, you are ignoring the fact that many of these "monsters" of yours turn out to have been perfectly innocent. Fuck you for being perfectly OK with calling them monsters and taking away their lives after years of psychological torture, destroying the lives of their friends and family in the process. And fuck the US for doing it.

Re:As good a time as any

[dcollins]

America is fundamentally punitive and violent. Same reason gun massacres every couple weeks make no impact, the highest proportion of people in prison for any country in the world makes no impact, military expenditures equal to the rest of the world combined makes no impact. Perhaps all empires come to be like that.

Re:As good a time as any

[Captain_Chaos]

We don't kill people for the same reasons as those countries.

That's hardly relevant. The point is that you kill people, not what your rationalisations are for killing people.

The death penalty is up to the states.

No, the death penalty is up to the American people. Apparently most of them are fine with it. In addition, it doesn't have to be up to the states. The federal government could outlaw it (even if it takes changing the constitution). Apparently they are fine with it too.

The reason capital punishment is outlawed in Europe is because all of the countries together (through various European institutions such as the European Union) decided that it was against basic human rights and should not be allowed. If Europe could do it, then so can the US.

Re:As good a time as any

[Captain_Chaos]

Do those of you arguing so ardently against the death penalty apply the same logic to abortion?

Why don't you explain how you think they are the same, so I can demolish your argument.

Re:As good a time as any

[sI4shd0rk]

the victims of released murderers and child molesters would disagree

The victims of released murderers and child molesters can think whatever they want; it is crucial that we do not allow our government to become the criminal.

Well, it is Germany, after all...

[RedCharlie]

If I had to excuse any one country for being squeamish about how its chemical products are used, it would be Germany. (But maybe Gov Nixon could ask them if they had any leftover Zyklon B hanging around...I bet that stuff doesn't go bad...)

Re:Hint

[Anonymous Coward]

Capital punishment is barbaric. Leave it back in ye olde days. Or maybe it just appeals to your blood lust?

Agree completely. I must point out (again) that the automatic appeals process costs taxpayers at least $2 million dollars, therefore life in prison/no parole is economically cheaper for taxpayers. And if the convicted prisoner wants to have any perks of prison life (TV/Radio/ better food/extra time out of cell, etc), those perks need to be earned by paying off their debt to society and the victim's families. But killing for the sake of a sense of revenge puts us at the same level of the criminal's mindset when they killed their victims. It doesn't make us any better. (posting AC due to moderating comments here)

Re:Why can't we make it here?

[Too Much Noise]

Apparently a combination of regulations and manufacturing problems. See here:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/37403276/ns/health-health_care/

Now that is old news (2010) and apparently both Teva and Hospira are going to restart production ... slowly. However, unless and until they get a significant output going (not soon), Fresenius is the sole supplier, more or less. See here:

http://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Processing/Propofol-Lethal-Injections-Blocked-as-Teva-and-Hospira-Re-Enter-Market

Re:Why can't we make it here?

[IamTheRealMike]

I found an informative article. Summary: It says that essentially the US firm Hospira is unable to proceed due to the FDA not authorizing changes in the manufacturing process. Teva, an Israeli company, exited the business after what sounds like a combination of manufacturing issues and a large number of spurious lawsuits over a hepatitis C outbreak. The drug itself is extremely hard to manufacture, and profits are nearly non-existent so there's little incentive for competitors to enter the market.

Possibly the issue would be resolved if the FDA were to change the regulations, but again, no information on what exactly the problem is were reported.

Re:Why do they use fancy drugs?

[__aarzwb9394]

Reply to my own message, presumably (as per the summary, derp) imports of diamorphine would be more difficult if it was used in executions.

Re:Hint

[CanHasDIY]

no, barbaric is letting monsters live who committ their hideous crimes again and again. Murder, rape, child molesting, kidnapping there are hundreds of cases of repeat offenders. don't believe the urban legend lie, putting one of those kinds of crimminals to death saves lives.

Right, because as we all know, there's no such thing as a life sentence without parole.

Re:Hint

[IamTheRealMike]

They're already in prison anyway. Unless your country routinely experiences prison breaks, it shouldn't make any difference.

Re:Hint

[imatter]

I guess yo'u're right, paying for them to live in prison and not have to contribute is the best solution!

Re:Hint

[clickety6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exonerated_death_row_inmates#United_States

Best to make sure you actually have the criminal...

Only if you fund your system...

[CohibaVancouver]

I could *perhaps* be convinced of the death penalty if the USA was willing to truly fund its justice system to ensure that trials were fair - And I mean fund to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars. You're never going to convince me of state-sanctioned killing while rich white guys are getting away with murder and poor black guys are being executed.

Re:Only if you fund your system...

[CohibaVancouver]

You mean like O J Simpson?

Yep. The only thing not rich and white about OJ was the colour of his skin.

Re:Bring back the guillotine.

[mjr167]

Actually there were numerous incidents where it did miss or didn't cut all the way through and they had to crank it up again and redrop it or wait for the guy to bleed to death. It wasn't really all as merciful as it was supposed to be...

Interesting

[n2hightech]

If we could just figure out how to execute murderers humanely using imported water, beer and wine we could fix our balance of trade without any tariffs. http://pierstransportation.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/top-u-s-imports-exports-with-europe/ Car parts would work too but its hard to figure out how we could do that humanely.

Re:Interesting

[alexander_686]

At one point during the 80's airbags were considered. Put them behind a prisoner’s neck then activate it to snap the neck.

the entire process is ridiculous.

[nimbius]

the idea that somehow by murdering prisoners we make society a better place is as ridiculous as having a doctor whos taken the hippocratic oath commit the execution. To kill a prisoner is to at best wash the states hands of their responsibility to do anything more constructructive, like engage in corrective efforts that beget the name "correctional institution" in the first place. At worst, its incredibly condescending to assume intelligent americans would be comforted with this pittance of "biblical retribution" we call execution.
And it is. Capital punishment is derived from, and entirely indistinguishable in the 21st century from, biblical retribution. The idea that killing the killer will somehow make everything OK is nothing more than a laughably exotic attempt by the state to appease constituents clammouring for a reduction in violent crime.

and there has been a reduction in violent crime in america since the 1970's. its not lauded however. Peace and low crime rates dont win elections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

so we gin up the voters with "suburban warzone" rhetoric and the voters insist on ever more stringent "tough on crime" criminal charges. We shuffle ever closer to a police state because we're told to. in turn our elected officials in contestable elections are morally reprehensible when facing a pink slip, so they fuel these flames for their own professional gain. our religious leaders sit idly by, as the notion of murdering the guilty is business as usual to them.

killing prisoners detracts from the big problem. low employment for unskilled labour combined with a gutted public education system and a criminal code designed to ensure everyone can be convicted if necessary is packing prisons to bursting. the 'wars' on drugs and the 3 strikes laws are nothing more than throwing sawdust on vomit. that if somehow we can contrive a repository for anyone not willing to live the life of a subservient peasant working 3 minimum wage part time jobs and living in squalor, then american is OK, freedom is preserved, and that pepperidge farm dream of the olden times punctuated by dean martin and bing crosby can go on unabated in the suburbs. the real problem is as a society, we have not accepted the fact that we cannot just ignore poor people. to do so created a culture, and class of individual that inevitably becomes determined with absolutely nothing to lose, and that person when they emerge will be as remorseless and callous as the hand of the free market under which they toiled.

Re:Hint

[Cutriss]

No, "barbaric" is the way we treat people with mental illness and ailments that point to it. Rather than fix the problem, it's easier to take a puritanical view and pretend it's that individual's personal failings that caused the problem instead of society's failing to treat it. When this inevitably results in recidivism, it's just easier for society to hit the guy with a brick and make the problem go away.

We make the monsters and then claim that the monsters have to be killed because they can't be unmade.

Re:Hint

[Mysticalfruit]

While I'm all for squishing child molesters feet first using a steam roller in the lowest gear the issue is this...

It's confirmed that we've executed innocent people. Wrong place, wrong time, bad lawyers, biased juries. It's happened. People on death row have been exonerated by DNA evidence so often that a couple years ago the Governor of Illinois mass commuted everybody on death row to life without parole.

While it's bad if a guilty man goes free, it's far worse if an innocent man is killed.

Re:Hint

[OzPeter]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exonerated_death_row_inmates#United_States

Best to make sure you actually have the criminal...

Probably a better link is Wrongful Execution:United States where they sure as hell didn't have the criminal, but went ahead and executed them anyway.

Re:Hint

[Cardcaptor_RLH85]

You do know that only treason, murder, and (in a few states) child rape are punishable by the death penalty in the United States, right? Keeping these people locked up for life is also an excellent way to prevent re-offending. In fact, it's cheaper to keep them locked up than it is to execute them in most cases.

Re:Nitrogen narcosis?

[Joey Vegetables]

Very. It's a highly rare substance. It's not like air was made up of 78% of it or anything ridiculous like that.

Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement

[markian]

Even the very wise cannot see all ends

Misleading

[sacrilicious]

US Executions Threaten Supply of Anaesthetic Used For Surgical Procedures

HIGHLY misleading headline. I read the headline and thought, "wow, so many executions are occurring in the US that there's not enough of this drug for non-execution purposes"... which is a much more straightforward interpretation than what the article eventually gets into, which is that the use of the drug in a single execution would make an EU regulation kick in.

BOOOOOOO, slashdot editor. Boooo.

Re:Hint

[i kan reed]

Hmm, if we're not excusing historical behavior...
I seem to recall that the United States had a large indigenous population prior to the founding of the US government. What happened to them? Oh yeah, genocide.

And wasn't one of the most barbaric forms of slavery practiced in modern history done in the U.S? Why yes it was!

And didn't we have institutionalized racism, with official laws enforcing it until the 19-fucking-70s? Oh, we sure did!

And didn't the Nazis ride in on an anti-intellectualist platform? Why, yes they did.

Come on man, there's never been an intellectual justification for pretty violence, and you know it.

Wacky America

[Hoi Polloi]

Welcome to America where killing our citizens is more important than saving their lives.

Re:Wacky America

[lxs]

And somehow they manage to blame the EU.

firing squads have one blank.

[schneidafunk]

An interesting fact about firing squads is one person has a blank.

"One of the sharpshooters is secretly armed with a blank round, which means that each shooter can rest comfortably in the knowledge that there is a 20% chance that she never shot the prisoner."
Firing Squad History

Re:firing squads have one blank.

[Applekid]

An interesting fact about firing squads is one person has a blank.

"One of the sharpshooters is secretly armed with a blank round, which means that each shooter can rest comfortably in the knowledge that there is a 20% chance that she never shot the prisoner."
Firing Squad History

Strange how much effort we put into trying to relieve the guilt of those carrying out the murderous orders of the state.

Re:firing squads have one blank.

[thaylin]

Well most non-sociopaths dont want to kill people, therefore we either find sociopaths who have not illegally killed people to do it and hope it does not trigger it a murder binge or we get normal people to do it and try to minimize the trauma to them.

Re:firing squads have one blank.

[ultranova]

Well most non-sociopaths dont want to kill people, therefore we either find sociopaths who have not illegally killed people to do it and hope it does not trigger it a murder binge or we get normal people to do it and try to minimize the trauma to them.

Or you could just let murderers rot in jail, thus avoiding both trauma and the rather unfortunate idea that life is a privilege that is subject to revocation by the state at its will. It's not like death penalty serves any practical purpose anyway, besides keeping the idea that violence is justice alive and kicking.

Coming to think of it, I wonder if this is one of the reasons why the US has constant problems with mass shootings and serial killers: if it's okay for the state to do it...

Re:firing squads have one blank.

[thaylin]

Life is a right, however even rights can be taken away in specific situations. Your rights to life end when you take another life unjustifiably. No one says they can be revoked at will.

Re:firing squads have one blank.

[Bardez]

Killing someone is cheaper than letting them rot for life in prison, feeding them, housing them, guarding them and perhaps even risking parole at some later date.

I do not pretend to weigh in on the morality or acceptability of capital punishment in this post, just the above economic view.

Re:firing squads have one blank.

[krakrjak]

Except, at least in the US, it is not necessarily cheaper to execute someone that to imprison them for life. Life without parole (LWOP) cases can cost more depending on how long the individual is imprisoned. However, it's really hard to know the true cost of either as there are different knock on costs from each type.

In the LWOP cases if the person receiving the sentence is really young then it will likely cost roughly between $1-$3 million to imprison that person for the rest of their lives. However, in California's recent past it was determined that executions cost about $3 million per execution. Some might argue that California wasn't very efficient at execution, unlike Texas, but the price for executions in Texas is comparable.

It's actually quite difficult to figure out the actual cost, but we do know a few details to help reason through the costs. Due to the legal system in the US we allow those sentenced to death to exhaust all legal appeal options before the execution. This means many more days in court than the LWOP (roughly 5-6 times as many court appearances).

A quick googling shows some stats (some with deeper links to actual studies):
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty
http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42
http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001000

Re:Hint

[Anonymous Coward]

that argument no longer holds water, now that we have the DNA testing and other advanced forensics that set those people free.

Those techiques are only as reliable as the people who do them, which is to say that they can, and do, go wrong.

Re:Buy American!

[omnichad]

And that we then move that production to China where cheap costs will allow us to execute 100x the number of people.

We can't have lead in our lethal injection drugs.

Re:No Moral Standing Here

[Ihlosi]

o Germany will stop selling medicines to the the US because of our nation's democratic choice to continue capital punishment. Meanwhile, they happily sell medicines to Iran which has a oligarchically imposed practice of capital punishment for such crimes as being raped and being homosexual.

They're probably not selling rope to Iran.

The shooters aren't supposed to notice the recoil?

[Ellis D. Tripp]

presumably, the shooters have all fires rifles previously, and would surely notice the difference in recoil between a bullet and a blank round.

Yeah, losing Propofol would be a disaster

[sirwired]

Propofol is, by far, the most-used anesthetic induction agent; it has almost entirely replaced induction-by-mask, which is now largely confined to kids who don't take well to getting an IV while awake. For non-gas procedures, it's also the most common (only?) anesthetic used for continuous infusion.

A large hospital can easily go through literally gallons of the stuff a day.

Re:No Moral Standing Here

[kyrsjo]

But is Iran using these drugs for executions? Because that's what the threathened export ban to the US is about. I doubt we're selling high-speed centrifuges (for isotope separation / nuclear weapons programs) etc. to Iran either.

Re:Sounds counter-productive...

[Interfacer]

A short delay? You've obviously never worked in the pharma industry.
It takes about 7 to 9 years between building your installation and FDA market approval.
There is a huge amount of testing and red tape to prevent 'oopsies' like the softenon fuckup.

If a big pharma company decided -today- to retrofit one of their plants for making this product, you'd be a decade further before it would become available. Even with a known drug that would not require additional research. And that is assuming there are no legal hurdles like patents or other things that can slow things down even further. I work in a pharma plant. I started there during the engineering phase so I do have a good idea of what is involved in bringing a drug to market.

Re:Hint

[sumdumass]

It is worsr then that. A man in ohio recently found out that the state considered him to be dead for tje last ten years or so. He sued to have this corrected and his lawsuit was thrown out because the law only allows three years to fix records errors and that had already passed.

So, because proceedure seemd more important than reality, we have people incarcerated or executed for crimes others have commited and live people who are legally dead despite telling a judge personally he was alive.

Interesting choice of pronoun.

[GPS Pilot]

that there is a 20% chance that she never shot the prisoner

Interesting choice of pronoun. I'd guess that throughout history, there's a 99.8% chance that a given firing squad member is not female.

Re: No Moral Standing Here

[NeutronCowboy]

Iran doesn't use those drugs in capital punishment. As a result, selling those drugs to Iran doesn't help with their capital punishment regime. If anything, it diverts funds to the EU that could otherwise be used for capital punishment.

Re:Hint

[Grumbleduke]

Actually there isn't such a thing in most of Europe any more (in theory). In July the ECtHR ruled that life-long prison sentence must be reducible or it amounts to inhumane/degrading treatment (contrary to Article 3 of the ECHR). The case was Vinter v UK, you can find the full judgment here and a summary here. The best tl;dr is probably this quote from the latter:

There were a number of reasons why, for a life sentence to remain compatible with Article 3, there had to be both a prospect of release and a possibility of review. Firstly, it was axiomatic that a prisoner could not be detained unless there were legitimate penological grounds for that detention. The balance between the justifications for detention was not necessarily static and could shift in the course of the sentence. It was only by carrying out a review at an appropriate point in the sentence that these factors or shifts could be properly evaluated. Secondly, incarceration without any prospect of release or review carried the risk that the prisoner would never be able to atone for his offence, whatever he did in prison and however exceptional his progress towards rehabilitation. Thirdly, it would be incompatible with human dignity for the State forcefully to deprive a person of his freedom without at least providing him with the chance to someday regain that freedom. Moreover, there was now clear support in European and international law for the principle that all prisoners, including those serving life sentences, should be offered the possibility of rehabilitation and the prospect of release if rehabilitation was achieved.

But that has been seen by some as classic European, human-rights, wishy-washy liberalism at its finest. It doesn't that people can't be locked up for life, but if they are, there has to be some review process and some way (more than merely theoretical) that they can "earn" their release.