Another Oklahoma Fail

[Blackshirts007]

Death penalty still shouldn't exist. Who are we to determine who lives and dies? You commit a crime, you do the time no matter what the extent. I'd rather have funding go to keeping these people locked up in a high surveillance cell until the day they die rather than give them the easy way out. The people who decide to put these people on death row and kill them could be seen as murderers themselves.

[Ulty]

First and foremost, no one should feel sympathy for this guy. A rapist/murderer of this sort has no function in society. Good riddance.

 

However, this is but one reason that the death penalty should be beneath us as a civilized society. There is a difference between justice and revenge. Those who celebrate the brutality of how this guy died are doing so because of vengeance, but this does not serve justice any more than if he had died more humanely or if he had simply been locked up forever.

 

We are the only civilized country that still uses the death penalty, and I'm not sure if there is really a valid reason for keeping capital punishment as an option except to satisfy our bloodthirst and need for revenge. The death penalty is not applied equitably, it does not serve as a deterrent, it is more expensive than keeping someone imprisoned for life. It risks putting innocent people to death. It is hypocricy.

 

The Bill of Rights that we cherish in this country forbids cruel and unusual punishment. If this guy's death was not cruel and unusual, what is? That doesn't mean he didn't deserve it, but carlfense is right, we are supposed to be above that.

 

Oklahoma was experimenting with a new kind of drug in this execution, if I read that article correctly. That reminds me of the state of Nebraska's recent attempts to acquire new drugs for the purposes of executions. Nebraska illegally purchased the drugs from a company in India, which the DEA seized. Then Nebraska made a purchase from a company in Switzerland through an illegal middleman, and the producer had no intent for the drugs to be used for executions. This supply was court ordered to be sent back also. Are we that desperate to kill our own prisoners that we have to resort to illegal and underhanded methods just to carry it out? Why?

 

Is there a purpose for capital punishment other than revenge? Bloodlust? Are we really civilized if we clamor for this sort of action? That we celebrate brutality?

 

This botched execution in Oklahoma was a failure of a certain procedure but was ultimately successful in the end, but the death penalty in general is a failure of human ethics and our American ideals, imo.

[JJ Husker]

I am not happy the "process" didn't work correctly. I am not celebrating that this guy suffered in the process of being executed. But I'm sure not going to use this one botched attempt as any kind of argument against the death penalty. The only valid argument against the DP that I will acknowledge is the possibility of an innocent person being executed. That would be a travesty but it does not negate the fact that there are people, who through their own actions, prove to society that they are no longer worthy of sharing our air. I'm sorry but some people need to be executed for lots of good reasons. All signs point to this guy being one of those so I say good riddance. If he's deserving of forgiveness or compassion, God will take care of it.

[EbylHusker]

That's it exactly. There are some people who could never become a trusted, worthwhile part of society again. Once you've done something like that, sorry, you blew your shot. Time to die and make room for others rather than taking up a cell.

 

I have no wish for anyone to suffer to any huge extent, though. And we really need to find an acceptable way of executing people more cheaply. I've always been for a bullet in the head or something simple, cheap, and quick like that.

[carlfense]

The only valid argument against the DP that I will acknowledge is the possibility of an innocent person being executed. That would be a travesty but . . .

It's disturbing that this is qualified.

[tschu]

Death Penalty supporters have the most mind-blowing viewpoint of anything in politics and morality.

 

Let's see..."Killing people is wrong. So if you kill someone, we will kill you!" Yeah, not a shred of irony there. This is what makes us better than the criminals - we as a society are above "eye for an eye" (inb4 someone goes all hammurabi code on me, as if the laws of a 5000 year old civilization matter to us morally or legally whatsoever.)

 

Let's go over why the death penalty is an archaic, barbaric form of punishment:

1. Already said it - enough "eye for an eye." Organized society should not stoop to the level of criminals.

2. Life in prison is arguably worse.

3. An average of 20 years and millions of dollars of appeals are a gigantic strain on the legal system.

4. It punishes the criminal's family unnecessarily.

5. The cost of just the execution alone is about 3 times higher than housing someone in prison for life. Let alone the cost to the courts in lost time having to deal with the appeals.

6. Two wrongs don't make a right - killing a criminal will not undo the crime. Neither will life in prison, but life in prison doesn't come with all of these other drawbacks and is in no way cruel or unusual.

7. You cannot guarantee a clean, painless execution. There's no form of execution that has ever been able to guarantee this.

8. It is estimated that 1 in 25 death row inmates are innocent, with many more being shown to be innocent with newer crime scene technologies, DNA forensics, etc.

 

So if you're championing "well he raped and killed someone, haha he deserved it!" ...just take a timeout and realize that you're stooping to the level of thinking of a common criminal. Lock 'em up, out of sight, out of mind, let them waste away and think about their crimes and choices for the entire rest of their life. And maybe re-evaluate your morals a bit as well.

[tschu]

That's it exactly. There are some people who could never become a trusted, worthwhile part of society again. Once you've done something like that, sorry, you blew your shot. Time to die and make room for others rather than taking up a cell.

 

I have no wish for anyone to suffer to any huge extent, though. And we really need to find an acceptable way of executing people more cheaply. I've always been for a bullet in the head or something simple, cheap, and quick like that.

Death row inmates are a much larger strain on the legal system than the perceived problem of "clogging up jail cells" which is just an invented excuse to support a terrible viewpoint

[QMany]

Just wondering, would you rather spend life in prison or be executed?

[carlfense]

Death Penalty supporters have the most mind-blowing viewpoint of anything in politics and morality.

 

Let's see..."Killing people is wrong. So if you kill someone, we will kill you!" Yeah, not a shred of irony there. This is what makes us better than the criminals - we as a society are above "eye for an eye" (inb4 someone goes all hammurabi code on me, as if the laws of a 5000 year old civilization matter to us morally or legally whatsoever.)

 

Let's go over why the death penalty is an archaic, barbaric form of punishment:

1. Already said it - enough "eye for an eye." Organized society should not stoop to the level of criminals.

2. Life in prison is arguably worse.

3. An average of 20 years and millions of dollars of appeals are a gigantic strain on the legal system.

4. It punishes the criminal's family unnecessarily.

5. The cost of just the execution alone is about 3 times higher than housing someone in prison for life. Let alone the cost to the courts in lost time having to deal with the appeals.

6. Two wrongs don't make a right - killing a criminal will not undo the crime. Neither will life in prison, but life in prison doesn't come with all of these other drawbacks and is in no way cruel or unusual.

7. You cannot guarantee a clean, painless execution. There's no form of execution that has ever been able to guarantee this.

8. It is estimated that 1 in 25 death row inmates are innocent, with many more being shown to be innocent with newer crime scene technologies, DNA forensics, etc.

 

So if you're championing "well he raped and killed someone, haha he deserved it!" ...just take a timeout and realize that you're stooping to the level of thinking of a common criminal. Lock 'em up, out of sight, out of mind, let them waste away and think about their crimes and choices for the entire rest of their life. And maybe re-evaluate your morals a bit as well.

That covers it. +1

[carlfense]

Just wondering, would you rather spend life in prison or be executed?

I'd choose execution . . . I'm too pretty for jail.

[tschu]

There's also the issue of foreign politics. Nearly every other first-world country (Jeez, this phrase keeps coming up with education, healthcare, gun control, it makes me sick. Anyways...) ...as I was saying, nearly every other first-world country not only doesn't have the death penalty, but they are so against the death penalty that they refuse to manufacture or sell the drugs and even the necessary components for manufacturing the drugs that are needed for lethal injection. This is why states across the US are having to resort to using an experimental cocktail - we literally cannot get the drugs that we used to use. So every execution that we carry out is now with either a largely new and unproven drug cocktail, or with some other ridiculous 18th century sh#t like a firing squad or electric chair. It's absurd.

 

So the world disrepects the US for our barbaric ways and is doing everything it can to get us to stop. And yet the American people don't seem to care. It's our typical big-headed American way of thinking getting in our way yet again.

[tschu]

Just wondering, would you rather spend life in prison or be executed?

Not only is this a combination of a strawman AND a red herring, but it also boils down the issue to a single question that cannot be answered by any of us because none of us are looking at the brutal reality of this choice. Nice try though.

[tschu]

Bring back the guillotine. Seriously. And make it a pay per view event. Now THAT would be a deterrent.

This is the only method that has ever been able to guarantee a clean execution. But is it painless? Impossible to know. And this is 2014, not 1714. We can't bring in a giant blade to violently chop people's heads off. Not that it's any less humane than injecting them with poison, but it just looks worse for an onlooker standpoint. Isn't that sad? The best thing that we've come up with to kill people for our stupid reasons is to violently chop their head off?

[knapplc]

The concept behind the death penalty is that it's supposed to be a deterrent. The bloodlust being thrust upon those who advocate the death penalty is fun, I guess, but the histrionics of "You're stooping to their level" doesn't do much to further a real discussion on the matter.

 

Everyone's goal is to stop such horrific acts of violence. What's the best way to do that?

[tschu]

You'd have to prove that somehow it's more of a deterrant than life in prison. You really think a criminal is like, "Well, I was going to rape and murder this chick, but here in Texas they have the death penalty. Ugh, don't want to deal with that! Maybe I'll go to Iowa instead."

 

Not only that, you'd have to prove that it's SO MUCH MORE of a deterrant that it's worth dealing with all of the associated moral and legal costs, and worth violating our constitution because we cannot guarantee a clean execution.

 

Which...it's not.