First let me say I’d appreciate it if this didn’t turn into a debate on the rights and wrongs of the death sentence itself. This is about methods of execution.
I am astounded by the length of this execution and the obvious distress caused to the executed. Is this the norm for death by lethal injection? How on earth is this not cruel and unusual punishment? Why is this method favored by most states? Other methods, eg hanging and shooting, are surely far quicker and less painful for the condemned. When the UK had the death penalty the executioner Pierrepoint would appear in a man’s cell, swiftly secure him, walk him the few steps to the gallows in the next room, put on the mask, slip the noose around his neck and open the trapdoor. The man would be hanged and dead in a minute or two before he was well aware of what was happening. How is this not preferable to the long drawn out execution process in the US?
If people are to be executed, and as I said above I set aside for now whether they should or should not be, is it not incumbent on states to choose the quickest and most pain-free method? Lethal injection is certainly not that.
Hanging is old-fashioned, therefore it is barbaric and cruel. The modern wonder-technology of [del]electricity[/del] [del]chemical gas[/del] drugs! is newer and shinier, therefore better. Also, hanging and shooting look like killing. If a lethal injection goes well, it just looks like going to sleep, and we go to sleep every day and it doesn’t hurt one bit!
There are plenty of drugs, e.g. morphine, which lead to a routine pleasant death. There are, supposedly, legal or ethical (Hippocratic oath) reasons against. :smack: With many less painful alternatives to the often-malfunctioning “cocktail” in use, I assume that the added suffering is seen by many as a feature, not as a bug.
Lethal injection could be swift and (theoretically) painless but in practice it often isn’t. This is due to a number of factors, like drugs companies not wanting to be involved in killing people and refusing to make available some of the better chemicals for this purpose, and the fact that most medical personnel feel it is unethical to be involved in killing people so the folks administering the injections are basically untrained for the job.
Hanging gone wrong is also pretty hideous, with long minutes of someone kicking and squirming as they slowly choke to death and the like, but the difference between that and what the OP describes is that the examples given in the OP were done by actual professionals, not amateurs.
As this website [WARNING]filled with descriptions and the occassioanl graphic image of an execution,[/WARNING] points out that even if the process goes off without a hitch (emphasis supplied)
It is not cruel and unusual because this method is the prescribed way of execution and execution can be the prescribed punishment for murder in the jurisdiction. The ban on cruel and unusual punishments just means that a judge or government official can not create their own brand of punishment but must follow the standard of punishment.
The reason that lethal injection is so messy is that doctor’s associations have forbidden doctors to involve themselves in executions. Thus executions are done by people who are not qualified to administer drugs and the drugs themselves are not optimal for a painless death. It is the doctors associations seeming belief that if enough executions go wrong the public or the government will ban executions and that the suffering of the condemned in the meantime is worth it.
I oppose the death penalty, but if we must have it, then bring back the guillotine. It seems about as painless as possible. If not that, then firing squad.
But the concern here seems to be about audience and appearance, not about the actual suffering of the condemned.
Hanging and shooting is cheap. The prison industrial complex cannot make money on a handful of cheap executions a year. Hence expensive wonder drugs, special electrocution chairs, chambers and the like. But of course, despite the modern, industrial appearance of these execution methods, they are far more error prone than bullets and rope. But at least someone is making good money!
Who exactly do you mean when you say “the prison industrial complex”?
If you mean private prisons, I don’t think they do executions, although I am open to correction on the point. If you mean public prisons, how do public prisons profit more from lethal injection than hanging? If you mean pharmaceutical companies, what is the profit margin on execution drugs?
I mean the companies who sell the execution tools to the prisons. Hard to make money selling a dozen bullets or a length of rope a year. Real easy to make money selling complicated cocktails of chemicals, gases and electrocution tools, supposed experts to train the executioners, and the facilities in which to use them, even for only a few dozen executions a year.
I think puddlegum was referring specifically to the “unusual” part. You can’t have a million different novel ways to punish people, even if they aren’t cruel. We kind of have to pick a few standards (like prison time, community service, and fines) and stick to them.