[Skybird]

The deterring effect of death sentences is questionable and debated until today. Statistically, most crimes with killings happen to be killings "im Affekt" (= in the heat of the moment), as a result of situational variables that are not calculated in advance, and are not preplanned. The deterring effect of executions concerning other potential perpetrators also is highly quetionable, the quick look I had at Google, indicates that even US crime statistics do not indicate a correlation between falling capital crime rates, and death penalty. If anything, it indicates exactly the opposite: that states with death penalty even have a higher capital crime rate by tendency. Finally, death penalty can even motivate additonal killings - to get rid of witnesses, for example. The increasing brutalizing effect even is pointed out in concerned socio-psychological literature.

But all that is not the thread's focus, as I said in the opening. It is about the possible cruelty of a special way of killing a person that is to be executed, and that by ruling of the 8th amendement, "cruel punishment" is illegal in the US.