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Capital Punishment

Schwadevivre

Schwadevivre

Antitheist
Joined
Dec 13, 2014
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Location
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Some information from the Death Penalty Information Center in the USA

Warning! the contents of the page linked above may be disturbing

Why is the USA or any country continuing with the ridiculous imposture that is capital punishment? And if any country feels unable to abandon it why is there still the attachment to vile "high tech" methods like lethal injection or electrocution or the gas chamber?

Samples from the page edited for content
2. April 22, 1983. Alabama. John Evans. Electrocution. After the first jolt of electricity, sparks and flames ... Two physicians entered the chamber and found a heartbeat ... another jolt of electricity was applied ... Again the doctors found a heartbeat ... a third jolt of electricity was applied. The execution took 14 minutes
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3. Sept. 2, 1983. Mississippi. Jimmy Lee Gray. Asphyxiation. Officials had to clear the room eight minutes after the gas was released ... (said) defense attorney David Bruck, "Jimmy Lee Gray died banging his head against a steel pole in the gas chamber ..."
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9. December 13, 1988. Texas. Raymond Landry. Lethal Injection. Pronounced dead 40 minutes after being strapped to the execution gurney and 24 minutes after the drugs first started flowing into his arms ...
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12. May 4, 1990. Florida. Jesse Joseph Tafero. Electrocution. During the execution, six-inch flames ... and three jolts of power were required to stop his breathing.
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Mind you traditional methods can be pretty awful too; from The Independent
Laila Bint Abdul Muttalib Basim, a Burmese woman who resided in Saudi Arabia, was executed by sword on Monday after being dragged through the street and held down by four police officers ...

A video showed how it took three blows to complete the execution, while the woman screamed “I did not kill. I did not kill.” It has now been removed by YouTube as part of its policy on “shocking and disgusting content”.

There are two ways to behead people according to Mohammed al-Saeedi, a human rights activist: “One way is to inject the prisoner with painkillers to numb the pain and the other is without the painkiller,” he told the Middle East Eye.
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Any accounts where they murdered someone more humanely then we killed them? A backwoods kevorkian?
 
A properly conducted long-drop hanging is a fairly reliable and fast way of doing the job; it is not and can never be humane, however.

Reading accounts of executions, botched or otherwise, puts me in the mind of Nazi medical experiments - I have a fair tolerance for gore, but both things make me nauseous.

Executing killers only compounds the evil and suffering of the original crime and speaks far more to the barbarity of the culture carrying out the sentence than the severity of the crimes committed. Imagine if we raped rapists as punishment - nobody would condone state-sponsored rape, why is murder any different?

The United States (like the UK) has played an large role in promoting democracy and the rule of law around the world, but in allowing the death penalty to continue - and executing the innocent and mentally incompetent, although this is besides the point - the nation is guilty of collective atavistic barbarity: the 'City on the Hill' is wreathed in miasma.
 
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tastyintestines said:
Any accounts where they murdered someone more humanely then we killed them? A backwoods kevorkian?
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And the reported cruelty of the persons found guilty of crime excuses our cruelty how exactly?

Yithian said:
A properly conducted long-drop hanging is a fairly reliable and fast way of doing the job; it is not and can never be humane, however.
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Agreed, IIRC Pierrepoint's record was 7 seconds from the exit from the condemned cell to the drop. Mind you the continued fascination with the heartbeat as an indicator of life and the desire to keep things neat excludes the fastest and probably least painful method ...

edit - painful not pain free
 
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Not to mention the fact that innocent people have been executed.

There are few cases where you can be 100% certain that the person is guilty. People serving life without parole can be released if it turns out they were innocent of the crimes they were convicted of.
 
tastyintestines said:
I don't believe that I asked question or made a statement that our cruelty is excused.
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I may have misunderstood but I did not see any point to the post quoted
tastyintestines said:
Any accounts where they murdered someone more humanely then we killed them? A backwoods kevorkian?
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Other than to imply that our cruelty is excused by the cruelty of criminals.
 
I totally agree with Yith. It's a barbaric practice. And when you consider the waiting list on Death Row, isn't even offering the deterrent claimed by advocates.
 
The waiting list is so long, many serve what would be life imprisonment in other countries before being offed.
 
OneWingedBird said:
The waiting list is so long, many serve what would be life imprisonment in other countries before being offed.
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Fortunately it is so long: it has allowed some to be declared innocent when new evidence is uncovered. But it is difficult to introduce new evidence in many jurisdictions even if it proves that the convicted person is innocent of the crime. Prosecutors, police and judges are loath to admit their mistakes.
 
Schwadevivre said:
I may have misunderstood but I did not see any point to the post quoted

Other than to imply that our cruelty is excused by the cruelty of criminals.
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So pointless that you've posted twice. lol About as pointless as your opinion on laws that you cannot even vote to change. :p

If you are the expert on what I am thinking or implying then you might as well post any replies I may come up with. har
 
Well in that case clear up the confusion, why did you make a remark that was otherwise unrelated to the issue of capital punishment?

lol :rolleyes:
 
Anyone else see the BNP's bizarre ad to restore capital punishment? I couldn't help notice the rather poor photoshopping skill used around the noose. Just for the record I'm a nonpartisan with my thumbs 98.5% down.

10371492_10152899132970070_8610180125490668285_n.jpg
 
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Thank you for that video, I was telling someone about this documentary the other day, but they thought I was making it up!
 
I wasn't actually aware until now that the U.K. still had capital punishment in place for certain crimes right up until 1999. Quoting from the site, http://durhamprobono.blogspot.ie/2013/01/should-england-bring-back-death-penalty.html

''However, capital punishment was still the form of punishment for other crimes until the capital punishment for arson in the Royal Dockyards was abolished in 1971 and for crimes of treason and piracy with violence in 1998. It wasn’t until 1999 that the British Home Secretary signed the 6th protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights, formally ending capital punishment in the UK.''
 
No-one had actually been executed since the 1960's however, and I don't suppose that they would have been if anyone had in fact been convicted of those crimes, because the infrastructure for executions was long gone by 1999.

I don't think the UK public will tolerate capital punishment, I'm glad to say, whatever some loud-mouths in pubs might assert.
 
In an ideal world, where a 'humane' method existed, it would be hard to find reasons not to apply it to the more extreme cases (sadistic serial killers, for instance) especially when guilt had been admitted. I can't think of any such conviction in which total innocence has later been proven. Cases like that would be in a small minority compared to the total number of prisoners of course, but every spare cell helps...
 
RyoHazuki said:
In an ideal world, where a 'humane' method existed, it would be hard to find reasons not to apply it to the more extreme cases (sadistic serial killers, for instance) especially when guilt had been admitted. I can't think of any such conviction in which total innocence has later been proven. Cases like that would be in a small minority compared to the total number of prisoners of course, but every spare cell helps...
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But attention seekers have admitted to mass murder and been convicted of it only later to turn out to be innocent. Eg: Judith Ward who was mentally ill admitted to the M62 bombing in which 12 people were killed (and a string of other nombings). if capital punishment had been in place at the time then she would certainly have been executed. She spent 18 years in prison.

http://www.innocent.org.uk/cases/judithward/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M62_coach_bombing
 
The trouble is that the default execution technique in a civilised society takes about half-a-centuries-worth of careful watering/feeding/lighting before molecular oxidisation and cellular misreplication finally and thankfully allows the perpetrators to be recycled.

Although I'm as liberal-minded as the next fellow who hasn't just survived a murder attempt, I think in cases where there is incontrovertible evidence (or proven repetition...at all) , I'd prefer the time taken for completing the biological recycling process for premeditated killers be reduced to 50 days.

I don't think that's unreasonable: and clearly they'd recognise and appreciate the rapid timescale themselves - a contract of understanding to that effect was written by them the instant such an offence was committed.
 
Ermintrude said:
The trouble is that the default execution technique in a civilised society takes about half-a-centuries-worth of careful watering/feeding/lighting before molecular oxidisation and cellular misreplication finally and thankfully allows the perpetrators to be recycled.

Although I'm as liberal-minded as the next fellow who hasn't just survived a murder attempt, I think in cases where there is incontrovertible evidence (or proven repetition...at all) , I'd prefer the time taken for completing the biological recycling process for premeditated killers be reduced to 50 days.

I don't think that's unreasonable: and clearly they'd recognise and appreciate the rapid timescale themselves - a contract of understanding to that effect was written by them the instant such an offence was committed.
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Go to this thread and you will encounter many cases where the proof seemed incontrovertible; yet the convicted were later shown to be not guilty.

50 days? That would result in a lot of falsely convicted people being executed.
 
ramonmercado said:
Go to this thread and you will encounter many cases where the proof seemed incontrovertible; yet the convicted were later shown to be not guilty.
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Please re-thread that needle, dear ramonmercado, I am left linkless.

ramonmercado said:
50 days? That would result in a lot of falsely convicted people being executed.
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I mean on conclusion of the court proceedings, at an above-and-beyond-all-reasonable-doubt level. A full fifty days of time before they have to be recycled. Mechanism of dispatch would be irrelevant, it could even be by their own hand.
 
Stefan Kiszko,(murder of Lesley Molseed) Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker (Birmingham pub bombings) all would be dead by your criteria, they did not commit the crimes for which they were convicted. There are countless other miscarriages of justice out there.
 
Ermintrude said:
Please re-thread that needle, dear ramonmercado, I am left linkless.

I mean on conclusion of the court proceedings, at an above-and-beyond-all-reasonable-doubt level. A full fifty days of time before they have to be recycled. Mechanism of dispatch would be irrelevant, it could even be by their own hand.
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Whoops!

Anyway, in the thread below, many people were later found to be wrongfully convicted more than a decade after their original appeals were dismissed.

Yes, 50 days would result in the mass murder of innocent people.

http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/yet-another-miscarriage-of-justice.6533
 
I suppose it depends on the definition of 'incontrovertible' evidence. At the obvious end you have cases like Lee Rigby, which was actually filmed as well as witnessed and admitted to, but where do you draw the line above possible mistakes? DNA evidence in itself may well be conclusive, but could you guarantee an error-free process of collection and analysis? How many correlating witness accounts would you need in order to rule out any mistakes? Tis a veritable minefield.

As far as the minority of extreme cases go, I probably wouldn't include politically-motivated crimes, as deeply unpleasant as they are. While technically Judith Ward was (wrongly) convicted of mass murder, I don't think she'd have achieved real 'monster' status in the public opinion, partly because I think people still subconsciously register the detachment involved in planting and remotely detonating bombs.
I was thinking more of characters like Brady, Hindley, Nilsen, and the Wests. Guilt proven beyond doubt, and no chance whatsoever of rehabilitation or societal contribution, making years (or decades) of material care and health treatment rather hard to justify.
 
Schwadevivre said:
Well in that case clear up the confusion, why did you make a remark that was otherwise unrelated to the issue of capital punishment?

lol :rolleyes:
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See It works as a question because it asked for information or opinions. That's how questions work. You did not answer the question and instead made an assumption. We can leave it at that.
 
Courtesy of Live Leak:

''A gluttonous american female miscreant submits a whopping 4200 calorie final meal request''

Georgia's only female death row inmate has submitted a rather lengthy list for her last meal ahead of her execution later this month.
Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, will become the first woman to be executed in seven decades in the state when she receives a lethal injection on February 25.
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More here, http://www.inquisitr.com/1855269/ge...200-calorie-last-meal-heres-what-she-ordered/
 
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