" While methods of execution have changed over the years, “[t]his Court has never invalidated a State’s chosen procedure for carrying out a sentence of death as the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment.” Id., at 48. In Wilkerson v. Utah , 99 U. S. 130 –135 (1879), the Court upheld a sentence of death by firing squad. In In re Kemmler , supra , at 447–449, the Court rejected a challenge to the use of the electric chair. And the Court did not retreat from that holding even when presented with a case in which a State’s initial attempt to execute a pris-oner by electrocution was unsuccessful. Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber , 329 U. S. 459 –464 (1947) (plurality opinion). Most recently, in Baze , supra , seven Justices agreed that the three-drug protocol just discussed does not violate the Eighth Amendment.
" Our decisions in this area have been animated in part by the recognition that because it is settled that capital punishment is constitutional, “[i]t necessarily follows that there must be a [constitutional] means of carrying it out.” Id., at 47. And because some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution, we have held that the Constitution does not require the avoidance of all risk of pain. Ibid. After all, while most humans wish to die a painless death, many do not have that good fortune. Holding that the Eighth Amendment demands the elimination of essentially all risk of pain would effectively outlaw the death penalty altogether."
It’s not a question of blinking. Pharmaceutical companies don’t want their drugs used to kill people. I don’t see how that changes because the government chooses to gas people. The drug companies might in fact see it as confirming that governments will kill in any way they can, and the drug companies should stay away from helping.
If anything, I would think that gassing people would encourage the resolve of drug companies, EU regulators and others who have restricted access to drugs.
I understand that but the fact that Nazis used lethal gas for executions was not the reason that they were evil. It was the people that they executed that made them evil. It wouldn’t have mattered if they used hanging, the electric chair, lethal injection, etc. They did use firing squads early on, but that doesn’t make Utah a bunch of Nazis.
It is possible to make a case against the use of asphyxiating gas like hydrogen cyanide to execute killers (something done by multiple states in the past such as California) without stupid and offensive references to Nazi Germany.
I was disgusted with headlines today (including on the ABC News and Boston Globe websites) expressing outrage over impending use of “Nazi gas” in executions.
All that accomplishes is to grievously insult the memory of Holocaust victims, minimizing the horror of what happened and equating Holocaust victims with murderers.
It’s grotesque insensitivity along the lines of what antivaxers do when they display yellow stars of David with the words “Not Vaccinated”.
Look, death is, fundamentally, by its very nature, unpleasant. Aside from the very few methods that some have suggested, such as nitrogen, there really is no pleasant way to put someone to death.
Is cyanide fun? No, and as I’ve said upthread, there are better chemicals than that. But on the barbaric/not-barbaric spectrum of the many dozens of execution methods that exist, it already ranks better than many.
Yeah, the Guardian is anti DP. While I accept that and applaud that stance, note that they think that NO possible method of the DP is humane. You can’t fairly just say that method is inhumane and this method is inhumane when you really mean all methods are inhumane.
Note that Cyanide has been used in the USA before, so the SS reference is unfair.
And comparing the mass murder of innocents to the death of a killer convicted by a jury of his peers and allowed many appeals is really over the top. The two are not comparable in any way shape or form.
The Nazis also killed Jewish innocents with gunfire. Should our armed formed be re-armed with squirt guns? Or shall we issue them with SS shoulder patches too? After all, one of our machine guns was copied from the German MG42, which was used to killed many during the holocaust. Is the Army nazi?
There is a point of view that comparing anything to the Holocaust is simply wrong. That the Holocaust is an incomparable evil.
I don’t agree with that point of view.
I personally think that comparing and contrasting is important and valuable. Even though equating is an unavoidable part of comparing and contrasting.
Separately, many people have believed that doing anything that is identified with the NAZIs is offensive, insensitive, disrespectful, and worse. The Swastika is not inherently evil, but it only exists in Indian references and Fascist posters. The idea that people shouldn’t associate gassing people with the NAZI’s ‘because it’s not the Holocaust’ is so alien to me that I struggle to give it credence.
Other large scale Genocides like that of Stalin or Pol Pot. Nothing else.
So we should not arm our army with guns as the nazis shot many during the Holocaust?
It is a stupid comparison.
Look, be honest and say “The Death Penalty, no matter how you do it- is wrong”. Coming with with this method is nazi, that method is inhumane, etc is disingenuous.