Botched lethal injection

[QueenAdrock]

Gaaah. This sounds pretty terrible. They're still arguing whether or not he suffered though. However, if he was mouthing prayers I think it's pretty safe to assume he was...unhappy at the time.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/12/15/diaz.execution.ap/index.html

[QueenAdrock]

PS

the governor said he wants to ensure the process does constitute cruel and unusual punishment, as some death penalty foes argued bitterly after Wednesday's execution.

Um. Shouldn't there be a "not" in there?

[sam i am]

Should we stop all capital punishment as a result of this?

[QueenAdrock]

I'm still on the fence with capital punishment. I've heard it doesn't act as much of a deterrant and we ARE the only western nation that still practices it. It seems kinda barbaric when you think about it. But I don't see us outlawing anytime soon and I do wonder what would happen in our society if it wasn't in place.

Either way, I'd much rather see some fucker rot away in prison for the rest of his life. I mean, sitting and waiting to die and not being able to see the outside world is probably more cruel than being put out of your misery. So mark my words, if someone murders me, make sure that you insist he be put in prison for the rest of his life. Thaaanks.

[sam i am]

How does one go about measuring a "deterrent," BTW?

It's like trying to prove an unprovable....it's impossible.

[QueenAdrock]

I would think they'd measure crime statistics in countries when they did have the death penalty and then measure it after they abolished it and compare results.

Also, the NY Times apparently did a study comparing states' homicide rates, comparing those with the death penalty and those without. Results. (http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/deterrence.html)

It's funny to see that the ones in the gun-loving south are the ones with the highest murder rates, too.

[EN[i]GMA]

Should we stop all capital punishment as a result of this?

No, we should stop all capital punishment because it's wrong.

This is just evidence of that.

[sam i am]

GMA']No, we should stop all capital punishment because it's wrong.

This is just evidence of that.

Explain exactly how it's wrong.

[EN[i]GMA]

Explain exactly how it's wrong.

Revenge killing is not morality.

It should be obvious that perpetuating violence is not a valid answer to any problem.

There are cases when it's moral to take a life, say, in self-defense or during a war, but killing someone who is locked up and no threat to the public is pretty obviously not one of those cases.

The difference between moral and immoral violence is, can it be avoided? In the case of say a war, it can't. If you don't kill them, they'll kill you. But when a person is already locked up, already taken off the streets, they no longer are a threat.

Killing them, at this point, is just revenge, which is not moral. At best, it's amoral, completely disregarding the moral question, looking only at how it makes some people feel (as if that should be any concern), at worst, it's immoral.

Now add in the fact that it's possibly/probably cruel, that a non-trivial amount of people that are put to death turn out to be innocent, that it doesn't do anything to reduce violent crime, etc., and you've got a pretty clear case that it isn't the right thing to do.

[Dorothy Wood]

I would think they'd measure crime statistics in countries when they did have the death penalty and then measure it after they abolished it and compare results.

Also, the NY Times apparently did a study comparing states' homicide rates, comparing those with the death penalty and those without. Results. (http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/deterrence.html)

It's funny to see that the ones in the gun-loving south are the ones with the highest murder rates, too.


that graph is pretty manipulated. It'd make more sense to show all the states, but that wouldn't really be as dramatic I'm sure.

anyway, I think that the death penalty is pretty pointless. I mean, that Diaz guy killed a strip club manager 27 years ago. You think that a strip club manager was a fine upstanding member of society? If he wasn't murdered, would he have gone on to live a fruitful life? Diaz chose to end that guy's life, and the government chose to end his. If murder is wrong, then all murder is wrong.

After that long in jail, he probably wanted to die and get it over with anyway. Usually when people are in a desperate enough situation to kill someone, they're not really thinking normally in the first place and probably aren't considering their own fate much at all.

In general, I think that ruining someone's life is more of a punishment than taking it.

[Schmeltz]

Well, let's have a look at the countries that have the death penalty, and those that do not. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Death_Penalty_World_Map.png) In the former club we have such outstanding social exemplars as Afghanistan, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia. In the latter we have backwards, oppressive, crime-ridden nations like England, Australia, and Sweden. So I guess the choice is pretty clear-cut.