Text 28565, 132 rader
Skriven 2015-10-09 17:04:34 av Lee Lofaso (2:203/2)
Ärende: Frying Is Better
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Hello Everybody,

Europeans are right.
Americans are cruel.

It is not just sentencing criminals to death that is so cruel.
It is how Americans choose to kill their criminals.

Well, I guess it would not be so bad if all those criminals were
Americans.  But some of those criminals are from elsewhere.

But that is beside the point.

Those criminals were convicted by Americans, in America, and
as such it is American Justice that will take care of them.

Why is that so cruel?

I'll let Robert Connolly tell you, from his blog -

http://overyourdeadbody.blogspot.com/

Thursday, 24 July 2014

Arizona execution and capital punishment in the US

(Disclaimer: This post is topical comment, and not from my book)

A man sentenced to death in Arizona took two hours to die yesterday.
This is an eye-witness account from today's Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/24/witness-arizona
-execution-joseph-wood-died

This sounds like a description of Cheyne-Stokes respiration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyne_Stokes

Someone exhibiting Cheyne-Stokes respiration for any length of time
would score low on the Glasgow Coma Scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Glasgow_Coma_Scale, with a characteristic EEG pattern.

In which case, he wasn't conscious, he wouldn't have been suffering,
and resuscitation attempts would have been abandoned if he'd been in
hospital. So, not cruel, within the terms of the 8th Amendment to the
US Constitution, and sadly, not unusual either; in fact this type of
thing seems all too common in the ultimate commission of legal sanction
in the US.

So, arguments about the death penalty being archaic and uncivilized
aside (and the US must surely find the company it's in surprising if
it considers which other countries still administer the death penalty),
it's just puzzling that so many states administer it so inefficiently.

Another point to consider is that in the event of anyone waking up
from this condition (which does happen,) it's almost certain they would
have suffered more or less disabling brain damage.

When there are tried and tested methods that work reliably and almost
instantaneously - the guillotine, the firing squad, even judicial
hanging when it's done the British way and the neck is broken (but
not strangulation, as practised in the US) - it seems odd that so many
US states use this harrowing (for the spectators if not the subject in
this case) and unpredictable method.

I understand it's only unreliable because they can't get drugs that
are proven to work from pharmacy companies that have branches in the
EU, because the EU does regard the death penalty as cruel and unusual
punishment, and EU companies are forbidden to aid or abet. And of
course, giving legal advice on what would do the job quickly and
reliably is ethically impossible for any properly qualified medical
expert.

But given that this is the state of play, why do some states persist
in using unreliable combinations and doses of drugs that give
unsatisfactory results like this?

It must be that:

1. They're either indifferent to the quality of the experience for the
person dying, or actually prefer that the procedure should be lengthy
and harrowing, for the sake of a theoretical deterrent effect, or

2. They choose this method over methods that are proven to work
properly because they're worried about the PR associations of such
brutal-sounding methods.

In any case, it would seem political or PR considerations are taking
precedence over humanitarian ones.

As for the supposed deterrent effect of the death penalty, that someone
will think twice about doing something if they know they could die for
it: Dr Jonson was a keen supporter of the death penalty until he saw
pickpockets at work in the crowd watching a pickpocket being hanged.

                       -=end quote=-

Two individuals on life row in the state of Georgia were recently
put into terminal sleep mode, each of them having been put down with
a single dose of venom, just like a wild dog with rabies.

There are some differences that should be noted -

The veterinarians who administer a lethal drug to animals
do not hide anonymously, finding no shame in what they do.

The doctors who administer a lethal drug to humans do so
anonynously, as there is great shame in what they do ("First
do no harm ...").

The veterinarians who administer a lethal drug to animals do
not mind telling others the source as to where they got their
drugs from.

The doctors who administer a lethal drug to humans are not allowed
to tell anybody how they got hold of such illicit drugs ...

Gertrude is the name of Louisiana's electric chair.
She has been retired since the state chose to use lethal
injection as its means of putting inmates in terminal
sleep mode.  But she has been kept around, and is on
display, and is assumed to be fully functional, needing
only to be plugged in.

Yeah!  Let's bring back Gertrude!  She was one nasty woman!
Strap 'em in, pull the switch, watch their eyeballs pop out!
Sometimes with foam coming out their mouth!  Oh frying humans
was so much fun!  Omelettes for breakfast, anyone?

--Lee

--- MesNews/1.08.05.00-gb
 * Origin: news://felten.yi.org (2:203/2)