# Lawrence Russell Brewer Dead
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [September 22, 2011, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158 "2011-09-22T04:33:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Hbns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hbns)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/81 "2011-09-22T17:51:45Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#):
>
> The USA is a country of many wonderful people, with many aspects to admire. Unfortunately, your penal code is not one of them.
> I know that many observing from the outside find it difficult to square the people we know with the actions of the country as a whole. How, in the 21st century does a first world country still find itself without a proper health service, with 25% of the worlds prison population and a justice system eager to kill?
> Boggles my mind it does.
I’m not a proponent of capital punishment, in fact I live in a state that this year is celebrating one century since the abolishment of capital punishment. But the above is just stupid and ignorant. America is not a country of sweeping federal uniformity, and your generalizations are provably false for many states including my own.
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### Author:  [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/82 "2011-09-22T17:54:21Z")
> [@Hbns](#):
>
> I’m not a proponent of capital punishment, in fact I live in a state that this year is celebrating one century since the abolishment of capital punishment. But the above is just stupid and ignorant. America is not a country of sweeping federal uniformity, and your generalizations are provably false for many states including my own.
He’s asking about the country, not your state.
America, as a country, is far, far behind where it should be.
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### Author:  [@papergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/papergirl)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/83 "2011-09-22T18:08:35Z")
> [@SecondJudith](#):
>
> Do you think that’s worth the certain knowledge that more innocent people will be executed if the courts rush executions? Because I don’t see how that’s in doubt.
Yup. Pretty much.
It’s not in doubt now, and I don’t believe that more timely executions would result in a higher percentage of innocent people being executed.
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### Author:  [@Hbns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hbns)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/84 "2011-09-22T18:10:21Z")
> [@Lobohan](#):
>
> He’s asking about the country, not your state.
>
> America, as a country, is far, far behind where it should be.
He isn’t asking shit. He is being a sanctimonious prick. Minnesota abolished capital punishment 58 years before Great Britain saw the light. He is making a sweeping pronouncement about American penal code and health care access based upon the worst of the worst. While I agree that some states have miles to go in this regard, I am not comfortable with moving all regulation to the federal level.
America as a country is unfortunately right where “Americans” want it to be. Better to educate than legislate if you want lasting change that takes root and grows.
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### Author:  [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/85 "2011-09-22T18:11:07Z")
@ **Lob**
You got a bad case of europiphilia and I think I see it dripping into your shoe.
If we are really going to emulate the last 100 years of European history we first have to start with the wars, kill off half our population, then we proceed to tell everyone how much better and more moral we are. You are skipping a large step.
Historically speaking execution is the norm, not having execution is being different. A bunch of Christian revisionists on a message board can’t change that.
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### Author:  [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/86 "2011-09-22T18:12:18Z")
> [@papergirl](#):
>
> I don’t believe that more timely executions would result in a higher percentage of innocent people being executed.
If they did, would you still be in favour of them?
> [@sitchensis](#):
>
> If we are really going to emulate the last 100 years of European history we first have to start with the wars, kill off half our population, then we proceed to tell everyone how much better and more moral we are.
Completely unlike the Americans, who hang around watching Europe killing off half our population, turn ships full of refugees back to die, wait for the last possible moment and then swing into action and spend the next 50 years making war movies starring the US Army as brave noble liberators telling everyone how much better and more moral you are? 😉
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### Author:  [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/87 "2011-09-22T18:14:18Z")
> [@papergirl](#):
>
> Yup. Pretty much.
> It’s not in doubt now, and I don’t believe that more timely executions would result in a higher percentage of innocent people being executed.
So I just wanna be clear here… you think it’s okay for (possibly more) innocent people to be executed as a cost-cutting measure?
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### Author:  [@papergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/papergirl)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/88 "2011-09-22T18:19:30Z")
> [@SecondJudith](#):
>
> If they did, would you still be in favour of them?
Probably. I would need research to make a decision, because I’m not basing my opinion on religion or how I feeeeel about it. I’m thinking that economically and practically, it makes no sense to take a sick, vicious animal and lock it up in a nice clean cage in the corner of the living room where it will stay forever until it dies, just because I think it would be sad to put it down. I’d look at that animal and make a decision about what would be best for me, my family, anyone who might be injured by said sick vicious animal, etc…and I’d put it down with regret and a sense of sorrow that nothing more can be done. I wouldn’t dance on its grave\*, but I’d feel I did the right thing (or at least one of several “right” things.) I don’t think there’s a perfect answer, but I think there are logical answers to certain situations.
\*If I were the family of the man murdered by this guy, though, I might very well dance on his grave, and who could blame them?
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### Author:  [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/89 "2011-09-22T18:19:50Z")
> [@papergirl](#):
>
> I don’t believe that more timely executions would result in a higher percentage of innocent people being executed.
Huh.
That’s weird. [It took them\*\*\* ten years \*\*\*to figure out this guy, who was sentenced to death, was innocent.](http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Alejandro_Hernandez.php)
[Same with this guy, of course](http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Rolando_Cruz.php).
[Eight years after conviction for this guy](http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Charles_Irvin_Fain.php).
[Eleven](http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Verneal_Jimerson.php).
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### Author:  [@papergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/papergirl)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/90 "2011-09-22T18:32:04Z")
> [@DianaG](#):
>
> So I just wanna be clear here… you think it’s okay for (possibly more) innocent people to be executed as a cost-cutting measure?
I’m not okay with it NOW, and it still happens. It just doesn’t make sense to me that people like Brewer, who was unquestionably guilty, sit on death row for over a decade. Why? Was someone really going to prove that he didn’t do it? Of course not…someone may have been trying to find a loophole, or trying to enact legislation that would save his life, but no one was (as far as I know) trying to prove that he actually didn’t murder someone.
So what justice was served by the delay?
I know innocent people get convicted; I’m positive innocent people get executed. It’s a shame and an injustice. But if the argument about execution is (and I see it fairly often) that it’s more expensive to execute someone than to keep them incarcerated, then what other solution is there? Cheaper incarceration is an option too, of course…but frankly some people don’t deserve even that.
Like I said, I don’t think my view is perfect. But so far, no one else’s is either.
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### Author:  [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/91 "2011-09-22T18:32:05Z")
I felt the same way about Saddam Hussein’s hanging as I do Brewer’s execution. Yeah, the bastard deserved it, but irregardless an execution unsettles me to the core.
That being said, I’d have injected the needle in Brewer’s arm had I been asked.
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### Author:  [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/92 "2011-09-22T18:35:21Z")
> [@papergirl](#):
>
> Probably. I would need research to make a decision, because I’m not basing my opinion on religion or how I feeeeel about it. I’m thinking that economically and practically, it makes no sense to take a sick, vicious animal and lock it up in a nice clean cage in the corner of the living room where it will stay forever until it dies, just because I think it would be sad to put it down. I’d look at that animal and make a decision about what would be best for me, my family, anyone who might be injured by said sick vicious animal, etc…and I’d put it down with regret and a sense of sorrow that nothing more can be done. I wouldn’t dance on its grave\*, but I’d feel I did the right thing (or at least one of several “right” things.) I don’t think there’s a perfect answer, but I think there are logical answers to certain situations.
>
> \*If I were the family of the man murdered by this guy, though, I might very well dance on his grave, and who could blame them?
Leaving the animal metaphor aside, you’d prefer a system that killed more innocent people, but did so promptly, than one that killed no one at all?
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### Author:  [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/93 "2011-09-22T18:35:33Z")
> [@papergirl](#):
>
> I’m not okay with it NOW, and it still happens. It just doesn’t make sense to me that people like Brewer, who was unquestionably guilty, sit on death row for over a decade. Why? Was someone really going to prove that he didn’t do it? Of course not.
That’s not an ‘of course not.’ It happens.
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### Author:  [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/94 "2011-09-22T18:36:23Z")
> [@papergirl](#):
>
> Probably. I would need research to make a decision, because I’m not basing my opinion on religion or how I feeeeel about it.
Oh screw, you condescending ass. My opposition to capital punishment is entirely rational. Lawrence Russell Brewer was festering boil on the rectum of humanity whose natural death from something extraordinarily painful would have given me a happy.
And I _still_ don’t think the state has the right to kill its citizens. Capiche?
> [@](#):
>
> I’m thinking that economically and practically, it makes no sense to take a \*\*sick, vicious animal \*\*
Yeah, _that’s_ not an emotional response _at all_.
People don’t stop being people when they cross some arbitrary line in your imagination.
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### Author:  [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/95 "2011-09-22T18:39:32Z")
> [@papergirl](#):
>
> I’m not okay with it NOW
Sure you are.
If you genuinely think that executing innocent people is a better solution to the problem of the expense of capital punishment than eliminating capital punishment is, you’re at least as much a monster as most of the people whose state-sponsored murder you advocate.
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### Author:  [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/96 "2011-09-22T18:40:59Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#):
>
> [http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/21/us/AP-US-Texas-Execution-Dragging-Death.html?hp](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/09/21/us/AP-US-Texas-Execution-Dragging-Death.html?hp)
>
> There is fortunately no controversy surrounding Brewer and the other two’s guilt and thus justice has been dispensed cleanly, flatly, and finally on this disgusting wretch. Huzzah for justice!
I am glad you got such enjoyment from a persons death. Congratulations.
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### Author:  [@Hbns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hbns)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/97 "2011-09-22T18:49:51Z")
> [@DianaG](#):
>
> My opposition to capital punishment is entirely rational. Lawrence Russell Brewer was festering boil on the rectum of humanity whose natural death from something extraordinarily painful would have given me a happy
So it isn’t right or rational for the state to take a life in the most humane way it can, but it is perfectly rational for an individual to take glee in and celebrate a felon suffering an agonizing death?
Thanks, but you aren’t really helping the argument against capital punishment.
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/98 "2011-09-22T18:52:15Z")
> [@sitchensis](#):
>
> Historically speaking execution is the norm, not having execution is being different. A bunch of Christian revisionists on a message board can’t change that.
Historically speaking slavery is the norm, and no ownership of or commerce in human beings is the exception.
That doesn’t make it right.
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### Author:  [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/99 "2011-09-22T18:54:25Z")
> [@Hbns](#):
>
> So it isn’t right or rational for the state to take a life in the most humane way it can, but it is perfectly rational for an individual to take glee in and celebrate a felon suffering an agonizing death?
>
> Thanks, but you aren’t really helping the argument against capital punishment.
I’m not really hurting it either, not with smart people.
You think it’s better to kill someone than just to be happy he’s dead?
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lawrence-russell-brewer-dead/597158/100 "2011-09-22T18:56:51Z")
> [@DianaG](#):
>
> My opposition to capital punishment is entirely rational. Lawrence Russell Brewer was festering boil on the rectum of humanity whose natural death from something extraordinarily painful would have given me a happy.
> [@Hbns](#):
>
> So it isn’t right or rational for the state to take a life in the most humane way it can, but it is perfectly rational for an individual to take glee in and celebrate a felon suffering an agonizing death?
>
> Thanks, but you aren’t really helping the argument against capital punishment.
Subtle difference between indulging in some _Schadenfreude_ over someone getting his karmic comeuppance, and appointing oneself an agent of Karma.
Both strike me as perilous _to a degree_, but the second, ISTM, is the _higher_ degree.
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