OH Brother

[Idnew]

They are sentenced to death by lethal injection. Who the heck cares what happens to them after they are given the shot?

High court divides over execution method
Appeal of chemical cocktail used divides justices
The high court temporarily stopped a Missouri execution early Wednesday so justices could consider a last-minute appeal. A few hours later, Vernon Brown was put to death, after justices lifted the stay. (Full story)

The 5-4 vote was illustrative of the court's sharp division on the death penalty. Earlier this year, by the same vote, the justices issued a landmark ruling barring executions of juvenile killers on grounds they were cruel and unusual punishment.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion on that case; in the Brown case, he voted to allow the execution.

Brown was convicted of strangling a 9-year-old girl with a rope after luring her into his home as she walked home from school in 1986. His lawyers contended his execution would be cruel because the drug combination of sodium pentathal, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride can paralyze inmates before subjecting them to suffocation, a burning sensation and a heart attack.

More on this story (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/18/scotus.death.penalty.ap/index.html)

Missouri executes twice-convicted killer (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/18/missouri.execution.ap/index.html)Brown has been convicted of first-degree murder twice, both times receiving the death penalty, though Wednesday's execution was for the killing of the child. In the other case, Brown stabbed 19-year-old Synetta Ford and strangled her with a curling iron cord in 1985.

Lawyers for Brown had argued that the drugs used in lethal injection could cause him excessive pain. :hang

[sinecure]

Originally posted by Idnew
[i]...
Lawyers for Brown had argued that the drugs used in lethal injection could cause him excessive pain.

I can only fervently hope so... :mad

[dave404]

Seems like a minor quibble in this case, but where do you draw the line? How much pain is too much? Should a state be allowed to execute by hanging? Impalement? Crucifixion?

Or maybe the whole idea of killing people in the name of the law is so barbaric in the first place that quibbling about the methods used is just silly.

[RK.]

http://community.the-underdogs.org/smiley/armed/behead.gif

The simple machines are the best. Personally I would just lock them in a room with a stool, a rope, and an hook in the ceiling and tell them we will come get their body when they are dead. They can hang or starve, their choice.

[DustyBottoms]

Hey, we sterilize the needle so they don't get an infection...:lol :lol

I personally would prefer life in prison W/O parole. However, lets stop protecting them from each other.

A good way to cut expenses and thin out the prison system.

Jeffrey Dahlmer comes to mind. :hang

[sinecure]

My argument with the "Life WithOut Possibility of Parole" [called "L-WOPP" here in Calif.] crowd is that is actually ISN'T a guaranteed sentence of LWOPP....

Any sentence can be commuted or the crime pardoned [see, Clinton, Wm. Jefferson, for some recent and prime examples] at the stroke of an official's pen. For whatever reason.

Many incarcerated prisoners while-away their time filling up the court system with frivolous lawsuits. One of my favorites: Angelo Buono, one of the Hillside Stranglers, brought suit against the California Bureau of Prisons because he was being served Mayonnaise instead of Miracle Whip, as he requested. He also sued the LA County Sheriff for not providing him with his customary stationary exercise bicycle when he was in County custody, testifying as a witness against his cousin Ken Bianchi. Each of these suits were given the same deference in court as any other lawsuit... otherwise, they'd be appealed to the Calif. Supreme Court.


This can't happen with a carried-out execution.

:wink :hang

[Idnew]

LOL @ RK I like that smiley but that method they would say would cause them stress while waiting for their head to be whacked off.

[sinecure]

Originally posted by dave404
Seems like a minor quibble in this case, but where do you draw the line? How much pain is too much? Should a state be allowed to execute by hanging? Impalement? Crucifixion?

Or maybe the whole idea of killing people in the name of the law is so barbaric in the first place that quibbling about the methods used is just silly.

As you undoubtedly know, it's the people who hand-wring at the thought of a State-sponsored execution who are doing the quibbling here.

As far as your listing of methods... "Any or all of the above, if the voters in the State want one or all." would be my answer. Utah still provides for a firing squad. Several others still have a rope as an option. California has done away with hanging, the electric chair, and [IIRC] the gas chamber. Injection seems to be the most "humane" way, even though the prisoners seldom deserve any consideration that they didn't grant their victim[s].

And yeah... we Colonials are still barbarians that way... we don't even insist that our judges and lawyers play dress-up in curly white wigs and all...:wink http://www.kurts-smilies.de/grinser.gif

[dave404]

Your point about pardons is valid, but is probably more than balanced by the possibility that they might also be exonerated.

As for frivolous lawsuits, well yes. But killing people so that they can't bring frivolous lawsuits seems a bit extreme, doncha think?

[sinecure]

Originally posted by dave404
Your point about pardons is valid, but is probably more than balanced by the possibility that they might also be exonerated.

As for frivolous lawsuits, well yes. But killing people so that they can't bring frivolous lawsuits seems a bit extreme, doncha think?

Keeping people in concrete filing cabinets until they die isn't a method of "killing them" to you?

I feel that there ARE crimes that require the criminal to forefeit his/her life. You apparently don't.

Why not?

[dave404]

Well if you want to take *that* route, allowing people to wander the planet freely until they die is a method of killing them. Silly argument. Some people cannot be trusted to run loose, and have to (at least) be kept locked up. That we can agree on.

I see nothing intrinsic to any crime that demands the life of the perpetrator. Justice is a social construction, invented not discovered. It's up to what we do, and we can argue the best thing. But most civilized nations have concluded that capital punishment is an ineffective deterrent to crime, is just as expensive as keeping people in jail, and means that miscarriages of justice cannot be corrected. This view is based on research, rather than "gut feeling" or popular sentiment. Eventually the US will come round to this view, IMO, much as people eventually had to accept that however flat the Earth looked, it was in fact spherical.

[Idnew]

But most civilized nations have concluded that capital punishment is an ineffective deterrent to crime, is just as expensive as keeping people in jail, and means that miscarriages of justice cannot be corrected. How do you figure it's just as expensive? How can feeding them, providing medical and dental for 40-50 years or more is just as expensive as capital punishment although some of them do sit on death row for 20 years.

[sinecure]

Originally posted by dave404
Well if you want to take *that* route, allowing people to wander the planet freely until they die is a method of killing them. Silly argument. Some people cannot be trusted to run loose, and have to (at least) be kept locked up. That we can agree on.

You are beginning to shake my respect for your reasoning abilities here... either that, or you're merely attempting to become sly and mischievious. Concrete filing cabinets are not a natural state, but a state ov existence imposed by other people... wandering about the planet ...well, that IS pretty-much a natural state.

I see nothing intrinsic to any crime that demands the life of the perpetrator. Justice is a social construction, invented not discovered. It's up to what we do, and we can argue the best thing. But most civilized nations have concluded that capital punishment is an ineffective deterrent to crime, is just as expensive as keeping people in jail, and means that miscarriages of justice cannot be corrected. This view is based on research, rather than "gut feeling" or popular sentiment. Eventually the US will come round to this view, IMO, much as people eventually had to accept that however flat the Earth looked, it was in fact spherical.

Well.. deterrence is certainly a difficult thing to prove. About the only thing that there is no argument about is that capital punishment certainly deterrs the subject in question from any recidivist tendencies... doesn't it?

And yes, I suppose the hand-wringers will eventually win-out here. To you, it's the "civilization" of a country... to me it's the gradual weakening of our national will, and the turning of OUR mores into those of the Euro-effete.

Flat-earth be damned. :wave http://www.kurts-smilies.de/grinser.gif

[dave404]

Idnew, I don't have the exact breakdown for ya, I just know what the researchers have concluded. And yes, spending many years on Death Row is doubtless part of the equation.

[Idnew]

I just don't see how a one time expense(whatever that is) for lethal injection or some other form of excution is just as expensive and as equal as feeding them, clothing them, medical etc for X number of years.

Like Manson look how long he's been in prison now. What 20-30 years. I don't know but a long time.

[dave404]

Google is your friend. Try "economics capital punishment". Apparently capital trials are very expensive in the US.

[MJ_junkie86]

surely makin the person live for X amount of yrs is more effect than jus killin them?
maybe wat, a few seconds of pain and its all over. no more thinkin about wat u done, no more havin to live wit possibliy seein the victims family, no more remembering that life and ur family is passin u by while ur stuck in prision. coz ur dead, and all the pain has stopped.

so i think that keepin them in prision is more effective than jus killin them, for all the above reasons.

MJ

[sinecure]

Originally posted by dave404
Google is your friend. Try "economics capital punishment". Apparently capital trials are very expensive in the US.

Yup... they are expensive and they take a long time.... add-up all the automatic appeals and the usual cost the People must pay for the defense, it's expensive.

A 35-cent bullet [a-la China] will do as well in many cases [the result is the same: a dead criminal], but no, we allow the "machine" to grind slowly and exceedingly fine. It's the same for just about everybody... even if they confess, are found guilty with no doubt and they don't wish to appeal, they STILL must go through a long, involved process prior to execution.

Yup... "We give 'em a right fair trial...and THEN we hang 'em." --Louis L'amour. :wink

[dave404]

Well I hear that the Senegalese have formally abolished capital punishment this year. Surely where Senegal leads, the US will not be too far behind. As they say, when Dakar sneezes, Washington catches a cold. No, my bad. Never mind.

[sinecure]

Originally posted by dave404
Well I hear that the Senegalese have formally abolished capital punishment this year. Surely where Senegal leads, the US will not be too far behind. As they say, when Dakar sneezes, Washington catches a cold. No, my bad. Never mind.

And you Brits are in the process of abolishing the carrying and use of "pointed knives"....

I've been meaning to ask you, Dave... where do you stand on your country's obvious committment to take away all means and legal abilities of self-defense? :question

[dave404]

It does seem to be getting to the point where if you want to hit someone, you'll have to wear approved boxing gloves and abide by the Marquis of Queensbury's rules. I'm sure pointy sticks will be the next to go. You can do a lot of damage with a pointy stick.

Then again, if someone told me they were carrying a knife for self-defence reasons, I'd think they were a bit desperate or more likely, an idiot. A knife *might* suffice to hold off a couple of unarmed attackers, on a good day. Then again you can easily kill someone without really intending to, and odds are the attackers will have knives too, at which point you're stuffed. I'd rather have a 5ft stick with pointy ends. At least you can hold someone off with it.

[sinecure]

My Glock 17 has one round in the chamber and 18 more in the magazine... I even have a couple of magazines with extended floorplates that bring the magazine capacity up to 20.

Toss-in a few decades of really first-class and consistent training with handguns of all types, and I'll feel quite secure. ...even against a pointy-stick.

Is this for real?: http://news.yahoo.com/s/chitribts/20050619/ts_chicagotrib/happyslapyobsbreedfearanger

[MJ_junkie86]

sadly yes its for real.

MJ

[mtz23]

try doing that in my neighborhood. You'll end up catching a hot one from my P95 Ruger.

As far as economics go, I did a paper on Capital Punishment and its about 40% MORE expensive to execute someone than life w/out parole.

[dave404]

Sin,

Yes, it is. I have to admit, that's a problem you don't get in gun culture places. Then again, we don't get a lot of drive-by shootings and high school massacres, either. You pays your money...

[Idnew]

As far as economics go, I did a paper on Capital Punishment and its about 40% MORE expensive to execute someone than life w/out parole. Really.........that surprises me.

[mtz23]

Originally posted by Idnew
Really.........that surprises me. Sin pointed it out. The cost of appeals, defense, district attorney ON TOP of housing, feeding etc. really adds up.

[sinecure]

Never forget that law enforcement is NEVER cost-effective. Never.

Yes, we spend lots of money to kill some evil psycho-miscreant. Even when it's a lead-pipe-cinch that the defendant did it, we insist that the appeals process grind slowly on.

Dispite my "John Wayne" attitude, I wouldn't have it any other way. Before we snuff somebody, we must be as certain as we can of the reason we're doing so.

...besides, I think it has something to do with the passage of a Democrat-induced bill many years ago, co-sponsored by the American Trial Lawyers. I believe it was entitled "The Lawyer's Full-Employment Act of 1963." http://www.kurts-smilies.de/grinser.gif

[Idnew]

..besides, I think it has something to do with the passage of a Democrat-induced bill many years ago, co-sponsored by the American Trial Lawyers. I believe it was entitled "The Lawyer's Full-Employment Act of 1963. :lol

Really you can learn a lot from a message board when somebody knows what they are talking about. I really didn't know it costs more to put them away than to keep them but I stilll feel some of them do not need to be kept alive. Serously prison is a luxury to some anymore. They would rather be there then get out and work for a living and be an honest citizen actully contributing something to society.

[LocalAreaLeech]

I am reminded of that justice leauge episode were you find out all lawyers share the fate of thier defendent(s).

[i]" That is how we solved our lawyer problem[i]

[sinecure]

Shakespeare's Henry VI, part 2.--

DICK THE BUTCHER:
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

JACK CADE:
Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since....

Ah... that Shakespeare guy had a way with words, didn't he? I wouldn't be surprised if he's famous someday...
:think
:lol