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How To Execute People In the 21st Century
HughPickens.com writes Matt Ford writes in The Atlantic that thanks to a European Union embargo on the export of key drugs, and the refusal of major pharmaceutical companies to sell them the nation's predominant method of execution is increasingly hard to perform. With lethal injection's future uncertain, some states are turning to previously discarded methods. The Utah legislature just approved a bill to reintroduce firing squads for executions, Alabama's House of Representatives voted to authorize the electric chair if new drugs couldn't be found, and after last years botched injection, Oklahoma legislators are mulling the gas chamber.
The driving force behind the creation and abandonment of execution methods is the constant search for a humane means of taking a human life. Arizona, for example, abandoned hangings after a noose accidentally decapitated a condemned woman in 1930. Execution is also prone to problems as witnesses routinely report that, when the switch is thrown, the condemned prisoner "cringes," "leaps," and "fights the straps with amazing strength." The hands turn red, then white, and the cords of the neck stand out like steel bands. The prisoner's limbs, fingers, toes, and face are severely contorted. The force of the electrical current is so powerful that the prisoner's eyeballs sometimes pop out and "rest on [his] cheeks." The physical effects of the deadly hydrogen cyanide in the gas chamber are coma, seizures and cardiac arrest but the time lag has previously proved a problem. According to Ford one reason lethal injection enjoyed such tremendous popularity was that it strongly resembled a medical procedure, thereby projecting our preconceived notions about modern medicine—its competence, its efficacy, and its reliability—onto the capital-punishment system. "As states revert to earlier methods of execution—techniques once abandoned as backward and flawed—they run the risk that the death penalty itself will be seen in the same terms."
The driving force behind the creation and abandonment of execution methods is the constant search for a humane means of taking a human life. Arizona, for example, abandoned hangings after a noose accidentally decapitated a condemned woman in 1930. Execution is also prone to problems as witnesses routinely report that, when the switch is thrown, the condemned prisoner "cringes," "leaps," and "fights the straps with amazing strength." The hands turn red, then white, and the cords of the neck stand out like steel bands. The prisoner's limbs, fingers, toes, and face are severely contorted. The force of the electrical current is so powerful that the prisoner's eyeballs sometimes pop out and "rest on [his] cheeks." The physical effects of the deadly hydrogen cyanide in the gas chamber are coma, seizures and cardiac arrest but the time lag has previously proved a problem. According to Ford one reason lethal injection enjoyed such tremendous popularity was that it strongly resembled a medical procedure, thereby projecting our preconceived notions about modern medicine—its competence, its efficacy, and its reliability—onto the capital-punishment system. "As states revert to earlier methods of execution—techniques once abandoned as backward and flawed—they run the risk that the death penalty itself will be seen in the same terms."
Don't.
I mean, you could just not execute people. You know, seeing as how so many innocent people have been sent to death by racist juries or prosecutors extracting confessions from them with unethical measures. And how it costs a lot more to execute someone than it does to keep them in prison for the rest of their life. But that's just crazy talk! We can't have a vengeance-based legal system with thinking like that!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Please stop killing people in the name of justice. Just stop.
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
It's a bit odd that there isn't more consideration given to the idea of death by nitrogen asphyxiation. It seems to be a fairly foolproof and painless method of execution, if we must have the death penalty.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The guillotine was originally adopted by the French as an evolved and humane method for taking a human life and, considering what we've seen with alternative methods this past century, I have to agree: It's fast, relatively painless (quite possibly completely painless when one considers the shock reaction of the body,) somewhat messy, but has great symbolic and even theatrical value. Granted, the upper classes world-wide hate this device with a fearful passion, but that is actually part of its value.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
It has been proven (as if it needed to be) that we've executed an innocent person.
http://www.theatlantic.com/nat...
Any idea that you can "humanely" murder someone is a damned lie.
Moreover, remember the Central Park jogger case? Where they rounded up five minority scapegoats and said they brutally raped a pretty white girl? Everyone, including Donald Trump himself, was rallying to execute these kids. Now, it turns out they were all innocent. They spent 15 years of their lives in jail and they were LUCKY because they weren't executed. They had all of their primes taken away from them but they still get to live what's left.
The death penalty is for revenge, not justice. And the ones who pay the price when we're wrong isn't the prosecutors. Life in jail means innocent people have a chance. Death penalty removes that chance and replaces it with a false sense of faith in the system.
Or how about we stop this barbaric practice? It's 2015. We're not living in the fucking middle ages anymore.
What the fuck is wrong with Americans, I swear.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
But justice in the USA is mainly about revenge. Legal types even have a fancy name for it: "retribution." Protecting society is a secondary purpose, but that doesn't require the death penalty. It only requires keeping people locked up until they are no longer a danger, but we can't even get that right.
If the main purpose of justice were rehabilitation, there would be no killing in the name of justice, and people wouldn't come out of prisons more dangerous to society than when they went in. And prisons would be much nicer places, more like hospitals or universities than like dungeons.
Unfortunately, we are not a very smart nation.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Face it: Yes, it is wrong to kill any human being. Some people, however, have committed crimes so heinous that they no longer qualify as human beings, just because they happen to have a particular DNA sequence.
.. and some people decide that's because they don't believe in the same god, don't accept the same society rules, are homosexuals, ..
http://www.innocenceproject.or...
I believe you need to read Rosseau. There is something called "The Social Contract", which is something of a "shrink wrap license" you agree to by being born
We have gone over this time and time again that EULAs are unenforceable. therefore Rosseaus "social contract" is bunk.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
There is something called "The Social Contract", which is something of a "shrink wrap license" you agree to by being born into a society, that by doing so, you agree to abide by that societies rules.
Ridiculous. You can't agree to anything just by being born; you aren't even sentient at that point. There is no meeting of the minds, no clear agreement. If this so-called "social contract" existed, it would be a contract of adhesion which no human being in history ever explicitly agreed to, and any competent court would throw it out with prejudice after a cursory hearing.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
If a someone released from prison murders again then it's the State that failed to rehabilitate. Civilized countries like Norway have a very low recidivism rate because their justice system isn't about revenge it's about helping people who are mentally disturbed. http://www.nytimes.com/roomfor...
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
False dichotomy. You are asserting that the option is to execute or parole after some maximum term. You are intentionally neglecting the option of life in prison without the chance of parole. Your argument is rendered almost entirely moot by such a sentencing option.
The following countries have abolished "Life without parole":
Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brasil, Cape Verde, Columbia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Kosovo, Macau China, Mexico, Montenegro, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Portugal, Republic of Congo, Serbia, Spain, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vatican City, Venezuela
The following countries have life sentences, but have mandatory consideration for parole after some set period:
Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Caech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Georgia, Greece, India, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Republic of Macedonia, Republic of Moldova, Monaco, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Switzerland, Republic of China, Turkey
So no, the argument is not "moot".
Ridiculous. You can't agree to anything just by being born; you aren't even sentient at that point. There is no meeting of the minds, no clear agreement. If this so-called "social contract" existed, it would be a contract of adhesion which no human being in history ever explicitly agreed to, and any competent court would throw it out with prejudice after a cursory hearing.
Try using that argument to opt out of the "income tax" portion of the social contract.
Execution is not a deterrent because they take place behind walls and virtually no one sees them. Out of sight, out of mind. If they are going to execute people, then do it in the public square in a way that shocks people (hanging, guillotine, etc). Couple that with executing prosecutors and cops who through malice or complete incompetence cause an innocent person to be executed. Like as not, the latter will reduce to an absolute minimum the former. And when an execution does happen, people will be shown the consequences if they murder in no uncertain terms.
If you don't do it in public, then don't execute people. Without being a real deterrent it serves no purpose and is more merciful than keeping them in a cage (but for fuck's sake, stop giving them TVs and other shit that makes the time go fast).
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
you agree to by being born into a society, that by doing so, you agree to abide by that societies rules.
That is categorically not what the "social contract" means. The "social contract" is an expression that one must suspend some "natural rights" (i.e. the freedom to "do whatever you want") in order to obtain the benefits of living in a society (i.e. to protect rights that need social defense). Like any contract, it's one that must be entered into consciously, not by birth or decree; the perversion of such a "contract" to mean one inherits it by birth is a road to domination and stagnation. Being born conveys only liberties, not responsibilities. Being a member of a community conveys both. It is up to a person to choose the latter, and it is up to a child's guardians to convey the benefits and consequences of such a contract. And it is up to every person to negotiate the social fluidity of all of these.
Society's rules are also not static, and they typically only change through rebellion. This process can be peaceful or bloody, just or unjust, depending on the rules and the rebellion. The most just and peaceful evolution comes from a confluence of evolving "social contract" that challenges outdated or unwarranted rules; the least comes from the collision of an unflinching status quo with an unflinching reality. Wars are often fought, in either case, and often the "social contract" is discarded wholly in the process.
The people you listed above, had they been freed, elderly and in a different world? They would have little purchase to do any further harm. That isn't to say there is no reason to guard against a resurgence of past monstrosity, and it isn't even to say that the world isn't better absent some of the worst monsters. But the world changes—nay, people change the world—and tossing monsters into a world that was once their own but isn't any longer... doesn't give them a lot of leeway.
The "social contract" is a fiction created by the elite to keep the rest of us in line. It's something to which we are all supposed to accede, yet it's only enforceable one way. Rich men don't go to jail unless they harm other rich men or have in some other way broken the elite's kleptocratic rules in some way.
The (very few) times in our history when there has been something like a working social contract were periods when there were grass roots movements to enforce those rules. Labor unions, the civil rights and women's movements of the 20th century were a few such institutions.
And make no mistake: the rapidly metastasizing surveillance state is nothing more than an effort to make sure such institutions can never again exist.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Showing zero remorse for doing it is despicable.
I completely agree...but isn't this what you are also doing too? Wanting to kill someone while showing zero remorse about doing so? If you are going to argue for the death penalty a far better argument is to say that it removes any possibility that the person can ever re-offend and thus protects society. The problem is that, as practiced in the US, this is very hard to argue. Those convicted are held in prison for a decade or longer and even then there are a shockingly high percentage whose convictions are quashed when carefully examined.
If you want to argue for the death penalty then you need to restrict it to cases where the evidence is overwhelming and you need to make it rapid. Even then mistakes will be made which is why I have so much trouble with the concept. About the only time I would think that it is justified is when you have someone whom you cannot safely imprison e.g. the IRA terrorists in the 1980/90s who used their contacts with the terror organization to threaten guards' families unless they got special treatment while in prison: something which almost lead to their escape. In these cases I would argue that the need to protect society from extremely dangerous criminals might make it justifiable but I'd still have concerns.
That is the failure of a criminal justice system based upon punishment and not rehabilitation. With a system based purely on rehabilitation, with specific crimes where risk of server consequence is high, no rehabilitation, no release. That becomes much more feasible where detention conditions are much more humane and the concern is protecting the public, whilst still endeavouring to achieve rehabilitation.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The "social contract" is a fiction created by the elite to keep the rest of us in line. It's something to which we are all supposed to accede, yet it's only enforceable one way. Rich men don't go to jail unless they harm other rich men or have in some other way broken the elite's kleptocratic rules in some way.
Very much this. A more elaborate form is "It is God's will", thereby neatly cutting of any avenue of discussion or escape, especially if the religion in question is executing people rejecting it.
And make no mistake: the rapidly metastasizing surveillance state is nothing more than an effort to make sure such institutions can never again exist.
I fully agree. The surveillance-states currently being busily established and justified with lies, lies and more lies are motivated by one thing: Those in power are terribly afraid of those they are supposed to serve.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The first time Hitler tried to seize power in Germany via a coup, he was arrested and used his trial to gain publicity, and rallied a lot of people towards his cause while he was in prison.
Which by the way, 20 people died in his coup attempt, something that would probably have made him eligible for the death penalty in the US (felony-murder doctrine) which had he been executed, it would have averted his eventual reign which itself lead to WWII.
I'm with you -- certain heinous crimes deserve the death penalty. However:
In many cases, we cannot be certain that the individual who has been judged guilty, actually is. We know from the various exoneration projects, where convicted death row inmates have been proven innocent with more advanced forensic techniques (DNA, etc.) that the system regularly makes horrific errors, sentencing the innocent to death. Even just a cursory understanding of how our justice system works will make any reasonable person aware that it is error-prone. And we must not put people who are not actually guilty to death. Ever.
Consequently, this is my position: Until or unless technology allows us to unequivocally, zero-possible-doubt, 100% certain determine actual guilt of the actual crime they are being tried for, we cannot afford to engage in killing as punishment without becoming the very worst kind of criminals ourselves.
So as things stand right now, I am solidly against any use of the death penalty.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.