Just another botched execution...

"According to the Arizona Attorney General’s office, Joseph R. Wood III, who was sentenced to death for killing his ex-girlfriend and her father in 1991, was pronounced dead at 3:49pm, nearly two hours after his execution commenced at 1:52p.m."
Source

Well done US of A!
Good to see how valuable human rights are in that country.
Now they started to experiment on people to see if a fantasy-death-cocktail is actually working,
so greetings to "Dr." Mengele when you see him, whoever is ultimately responsible for this mess.

While I sure have no sympathies for a murderer, I hold even less for a system that lets things like this happen, over and over and over again.

I wonder,
How advanced is a country really when it still wants to rely on barbaric and dark-age-like laws and punishments, unable to learn from past mistakes - like so many other countries?

Anyways, inbeforetheclassics:
- "He murderer, he no rights!"
- "Death penalty ensures he won't do it again!"
- "Ask the victims how they feel about this!"
- "Dur durkin urr durth pernaltey!"

Gah!

[AngusJS]

It's been proven that the death penalty in the US doesn't prevent crime. It costs more to execute someone than to imprison them for life in the current system. And despite all the safeguards, we still are putting innocent people on death row.

[vanjast]

OP, So would you still say the same thing if it was your sister/father that were done in by this guy - maybe he felt the pain he's caused.

People are all very righteous, until the ..1t hits their fan.. then you see a different story.

[vanjast]

It costs more to execute someone than to imprison them for life in the current system. And despite all the safeguards, we still are putting innocent people on death row.

..and putting criminals back on the streets to repeat the same crimes - the cost would then be .. how much ?

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by vanjast

OP, So would you still say the same thing if it was your sister/father that were done in by this guy - maybe he felt the pain he's caused.

People are all very righteous, until the ..1t hits their fan.. then you see a different story.

That's a pretty stupid myth and paints people in a very negative, primitive light. Is there like, a magical substance that gets released from the tears of the dying criminal that can be made into medicine for grieving relatives? Is there an implication here that death can actually make people happy?

I lost a very close family member to murder a few years ago, over nothing more than about $400 worth of goods, and I can say that I've never felt any desire for the guy who did it to be executed. Although I've never had the opportunity, if I did have to face the perpetrator in court, I would probably be there arguing for leniency on him.

Punitive and retributionary justice is a stupid and medieval idea. Justice needs to be protecting and improving society. People are better than this.

[Skybird]

Often explained by me: the meaning of a punishment is that the subject lives to feel the punishment. In modern understanding, it is not that much eye-for-an-eye anymore, although this is is argued by libertarian thinking and to some degree I tend to agree with it, but modern understanding is the alteration of the subject's behaviour, and compensation of damage. "Death penalty" therefore is a contradiction in itself. I accept it only under most serious, rare, and special conditions, to prevent future acts of major crime that does by far not qualify for ordinary everyday murder, robbery and the like. I think of bosses of organised crime clans, major figures in drug and slave trafficking, weapon traders, Führer-figures of ideological extremism and according situation who in prison could become the excuse to commit terror in order to blackmail the state for their release, and criminals of high ranks and power who cannot be prevented to influence the business of their cartel form inside a prison.

Bank robbery, simple streets murder, rape - are NOT what I have on mind.

Why they do not simply use a pistol and a bullet and execute the death penalty on the day the judge announced it instead of letting the subject wait for years to get killed, will be forever beyond me.

The rate of errors in death penalty verdicts, is extremely high. That so many subject that were executed later were shown to be innocent or guilty of lesser deeds that by the law would not deserving execution, gives a loud and sound verdict against the general implementation of death penalties as a routine tool of jurisdiction and law enforcement. The state, this monopolised criminal, murders too many innocents as if this practice can be tolerated. And once murdered and dead, any mistake can no longer be corrected and compensated.

The scare factor from death penalties, preventing crime, is very low, if it even exists. that is because most deeds that get sentenced with death are committed in situation where the individual does not and is not able anymore to reasonably judge and weigh and make reasonable assessments, but is on adrenaline, or in social group situations where expectations by others take over control of the individual's decisions all too easily. When emotions have taken over, reason and sanity flee right out of the window. An individual that is in the state of mental irrationality, facing group dynamics and/or feels the adrenaline pumpi8ng through its veins, is extremely difficult to be effected anymore by telling it the consequences of its deeds.

[banryu79]

Originally Posted by AngusJS

It costs more to execute someone than to imprison them for life in the current system.

What!? It is really so? Could you, please share your source for this information?

[Dread Knot]

My biggest issue with the death penalty is that there is a really thin line between justice and vengeance. We want justice, but having a justice system based on vengeance and retribution seems like a big backward step in the civilization stakes.

Capital punishment seems awful on so many counts, unsafe convictions, the sometimes decades long interval between the crime and carrying out the sentence, the finality of the sentence, the lack of deterrent effect that this supposed 'punishment' has, the use of violence on the violent, the focus on vengeance rather than forgiveness. Now you can add botched executions to the list. Is it any wonder that the list of states that have either abolished it, or put moratoriums on it keeps growing?

On a lighter note, I've always favored an Escape from New York approach. Perhaps some desolate spot in the Aleutians. But sooner or later some intrepid reporter or social justice warrior will drop in for a look-see, and a tragedy will result....

[Jimbuna]

A hot topic for most people regardless of their beliefs whether they be for or against.

Originally Posted by Dread Knot

Now you can add botched executions to the list. Is it any wonder that the list of states that have either abolished it, or put moratoriums on it keeps growing?

Blame the Europeans, if they didn't ban the sale of the drugs for executions then the US wouldn't be using these experimental cocktails.

On a lighter note, I've always favored an Escape from New York approach. Perhaps some desolate spot in the Aleutians. But sooner or later some intrepid reporter or social justice warrior will drop in for a look-see, and a tragedy will result....

They tried that, today it is called Australia

[Schroeder]

What always boggles my mind is how the US is carrying out the sentences. What's wrong with a guillotine or a shot in the neck (make that two if the gunner screws up the first)? But no, it had to be fancy with gas (not a pleasant way to die when your lung is full of acid which makes you drown in your own blood), electricity (what idiot ever got that idea???) or injecting funny cocktails that take hours to "work".
You can think about capital punishment what you want but the way the US carries them out is just disgusting and barbaric. Hell, if a country like North Kore has more humane execution methods (shot in the neck/head) then something is really messed up.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Blame the Europeans, if they didn't ban the sale of the drugs for executions then the US wouldn't be using these experimental cocktails.

Some Southern states are thinking of dusting off the electric chair. I just don't see that flying well in any department. Not to mention what might result from an unexpected power surge. Executions seem to be plagued by bad karma lately.

They tried that, today it is called Australia

So if we set up a penal colony on Adak Island, maybe in 200 years we get the arctic version of Vegemite, Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman?

[Feuer Frei!]

Originally Posted by banryu79

this information?

Amongst others:

http://www.economist.com/node/13279051

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/...-execute_N.htm

http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29552692/n.../#.U2GuaMdOS9M

However:

http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads...tion_ac-dp.pdf


Prisons are big business.

[Feuer Frei!]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

injecting funny cocktails that take hours to "work"

Only in botched administration.

You can think about capital punishment what you want but the way the US carries them out is just disgusting and barbaric. Hell, if a country like North Kore has more humane execution methods (shot in the neck/head) then something is really messed up.

Let's not trivialize the reason why the majority of these so called people are there in the first place.
Botched administration doesn't make for pleasant viewing in the gallery.
But really, should this be entertainment in the first place?
Humane treatment is subjective.
Treatment via injection, gas chamber, shot to the neck, beheading, hanging, are any of these humane?
What makes a execution humane?
An execution that is clean, easy on the eye, death coming quickly with no pain?

Once again, we are trivializing just who these people are and how they got there for the treatment in the first place.
Let's not lose focus on that and argue about what's humane and what's not.
For the person that was (rightly convicted) of IN-humane acts towards others, deserves a HUMANE death?

Does the administration of lethal injection make us the same as the mass murderer or mass rapist?

If we have to ask this question, then we've lost focus already.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Feuer Frei!

Let's not trivialize the reason why the majority of these so called people are there in the first place.

So the execution of an innocent person is what? Collateral damage?