[Skybird]

It's worth to note that the 8th Amendment and several rulings made by the Supreme Court say that no punishment shall be "unusual", "excessive" or explicitly "cruel".

No matter how you stand regarding death "penalty", to execute somebody by implementing a lasting agony, is not only barbaric and unacceptable, but unneeded as well. That rules out methods like the 10 minutes long poisoning of the subject lately, or hanging by pulling the body up with the rope and effectively strangling the subject, instead of having it falling down a pit and braking the neck, or electric chairs which have the subject sometimes surviving for minutes in pain and consciousness. The straightest solution to get rid of somebody (that is what death "penalty" really is about, because it is no penalty - for a penalty the subject must live to endure it) is a shot to the neck. Short and painless, survival rate almost nill. Shots to the head occasionally get survived, though not in a state of consciousness.

I never understood the show and theatre they make of executions. Years of waiting on the death list. Big showroom event. Ritual procedures, magical machineries (injection machines) and all that. Bollocks. If you want to see somebody suffering, rent a splatter video, or whip your poor dog. There is the court verdict, there is an appeal court, the last appeal is rejected - no reason to still wait for years. Execute the subject on the same day the last juristic step was rejected - and I do not mean the governor denying the last minute pardon (which is something that should be abandoned - a governor should not have the right to bypass the law on behalf of a sentenced subject - what the heck does he think he is?).

By my logic, I would shoot the subject when it sleeps unsuspecting. Again: no need to implement unneeded suffering, pain or fear - execution is no penalty in the meaning of "penalty" anyway. It's a disposal.