You’ll get no argument here. I’m against the death penalty.
However, my husband works in corrections, so I understand the duties and procedures which must be followed. Though it may seem cold or malicious, it’s all just a matter of following the rules. We live in a world of technicalities. Until the moment he dies, an inmate is a ward of the state who must be protected from himself and others.
It brings to mind an old quandry I heard on Law and Order: If a man jumps from a building, and as he passes your window, you shoot him, you would still be a murderer under the law even though he would have died seconds later.
In a similar sense, even though the inmate is to die a few days later, the state must do everything in its power to preserve his health and life or they’re being negligent.
Look at it this way: what if an inmate tried to kill himself or had a heart attack days before a scheduled execution and the staff did nothing because he was going to die soon anyway-- then an hour later, they hear he’s been exhonerated or pardoned?
I think this is the nub of the problem - you’re assuming that everyone on death row will be executed. But as Lissa and Malodourous have pointed out, that’s a false assumption.
Why is someone on death row? Not because the judge has ordered that the convicted person be kept there for 10 years, then executed. A person is on death row because they’re appealing, trying to get their conviction overturned. While the prosecution branch of the state is opposing that request, the corrections branch of the state can’t take sides and assume that the convict’s appeal will be dismissed. The corrections folk have to assume that there’s at least a possibility that the convict’s appeal will be allowed and the death sentence overturned. They have a duty to protect the convict from suicide, because it’s not a certainty that the state will eventually kill the convict.
And even after all of the convict’s appeals have been unsuccessful, there’s still the faint hope of clemency from the state. Right up to the last minute before the executioner pushes the button, there’s the possiblity that the phone will ring from the governor/President - a very faint hope, but one that is always there in law. Since it’s always possible that the state will not kill the convict, the corrections officials have to do everything possible to keep the convict alive.
But you might say, if the convict wants to commit suicide before he gets the result from his appeal, why don’t we let him? Well, suicide is normally considered an aberration, often linked to abnormal depression. The state is the one keeping him there, pending appeals; the imprisonment itself may be a contributing factor to depression, generating a sense of despair that the appeal will never succeed. The state corrections branch has a duty to protect the convict, even from himself.
It’s all about the rule of law. We, as a society, have agreed that there must be rules for people to live by. And we’ve agreed on how those rules are made and carried out. And we’ve agreed on what will happen to those who break the rules.
So the law is what we are following. The law says that it’s wrong for one individual to kill another individual. The law also says that it’s sometimes right for the state to kill an individual. The law says that prioners cannot be allowed to kill themselves. The law says that condemned prisoners will be executed. In every case the consistent principle of obeying the law is being followed.
To the OP: Murder and Execution are separate things. Knowingly allowing someone to kill themselves, let alone specifically allowing for such to happen is murder. And more importantly, dropping that separation would be a slippery slope.
At this time, anything which could be a murder is investigated as such. Suicides are (and I am going based off of the Homicide TV show, so apologies if this is BS) pursued as murders until such a time as they are found to be a suicide. If a person on death row commits suicide, the police will have to come and investigate to make sure that, for instance, one of the prison guards didn’t really kill him because the prisoner spat on his uniform.
Guards working at a prison, even on death row, are still normal people with a wife and kids and all that. For their own peace of mind, these people would and should not have to view themselves as murderers. Allowing someone who should not yet have to die to die anyhow, while under your protection, do to your negligence would not be a good feeling.
Calm prisoners are good prisoners. Would you be calm if it was common knowledge that all prisoners coming into death row commited suicide within one month of first being put on death row–and you were just put there?
Modern law is based on the idea that no man is so much better than any other that he has a right to kill another. This includes execution. No single person rules you guilty, and no single person sees that the execution is carried out. Overall the executed person was prosecuted and killed by representatives of all of society, and all done so with utmost fairness and faith in the chance of your innocence. And from a moral standing, this is a very important distinction, and I personally would say, one that is very important to maintain. Just saying partway through, “Well we’re good enough at this point so screw you scumwad!” doesn’t seem viable.
One did have a sneaking suspicion.
#4 above addresses the “hypocritical” statement. Not saying you have to agree, just that such is the logic by which execution would generally be ruled as non-hypocritical.
The reason that the US has such high rates of crime–that is to say, why we are so fucked up, is because of:
We will not commit a person to jail until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And police officers are not allowed to abuse suspects to attain such proof.
A constantly changing social and economic atmosphere due perhaps largely to the great number of different races and former-nationalities of people in the nation.
Ratio of people per area. I.e. you can run about and get in trouble without getting spotted and such. I have seen arguments that the frontier is a large part of what lead to suffrage, as girls were able to drop societies shackles when there was no society for miles and miles.
Wealth. And specifically wealth enough that people aren’t generally worried 100% of their waking time about just securing their next meal.
A belief in individuality and not blind following. Including questioning authority and the government.
Cuba, for instance, has zero crime. (…That they would ever admit of.)
So simply the more forgiving
the more freedom
the more crime
the more murder and rape and torture by the populace at large
Personally, I would rather live in the US than even Japan–which misses all of the above except #4 and subsequently has zero crime (…that they would ever admit of.)
Now I could vote either way on whether or not to use execution as a method of deterrent. Similarly I can’t view it as a matter of punishment–seeing no reason why death should be viewed as a punishment (“He’s dead…what do you think he cares?”) But in general, when i come across the acts of serial killers, pedophiles, rapists and other such people who have lost their fundamental ability to even exist as a human. Personally I would say that the world is safest making sure that they are gone 100%. And I suspect that most people who do indeed make it all the way to death row do fit in this category.
This might sound like I’m splitting hairs but we don’t punish people for killing we punish them for murdering. For the most part people agree that there are certain conditions under which homicide is acceptable. What we don’t always see eye to eye on are the actual conditions that justify a homicide. I know I don’t morally condemn every homicide though I will generally agree that it’s “bad” as in a real bummer.
Marc
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It’s been mentioned a couple of times in this thread that suicide is illegal. I can believe it was at one time, but does anyone have a cite that suicide is currently illegal anywhere in the US? If so, has anyone been prosecuted for attempted suicide recently?
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On the other hand, assisting a suicide is illegal in most jurisdictions in the US, AFAIK. And certainly the argument can be (and has been) made that the state not making every reasonable effort to prevent a prisoner killing himself could be construed as negligence.
Except, as has been pointed out several times, he may not “die anyway.” Successful appeals and reprieves, do occur.
It seems to me you don’t actually want an answer. You want to get on your soapbox and rail against something you’ve already made up your mind about. That’s not intellectually honest.
I’m against the death penalty myself, simply because I believe that in order to take someone’s life you must be 100% sure and I don’t believe that the court system infallible in determining guilt and innocence. I don’t have any moral qualms about the death penalty on an abstract intellectual level.
So here is your answer. Why do we prevent inmates from killing themselves? Quite simple. What if an inmate kills himself because he thinks he’s going to be executed in two months and wants to go out on his own terms, then two weeks later, new evidence comes out that he’s innocent? What if an inmate starts choking on a chicken bone two hours before his execution, no move is made to save him because “he’s goint to die anyway,” and then an hour later the governor calls with a reprieve? The prisoner is a ward of the state, and he needs to be kept alive as long as there is any chance that execution may not occur. And that chance exists up until the second of his death.
I’m done continue on with your rant about a vengeful and bloodthirsty society.
Even after the button is pushed, there are measures in place to stop it until the very last second.
Three chemicals are injected into the victim. They are colored, and the tubes are clear. (You wanna think about something horrifying, imagine laying there and watching the deadly liquid flow ever closer.) Clamps are available, so that at any moment, the tubes can be pinched before the drug reaches the condemned.
The first chemical is a sedative. It’s the only one that the condemned sees, because after it reaches him, he’s (hopefully) unconcious. The second and third are chemicals which paralyze the victim and stop his heart and respiration.
The process is not a fast one. Nor is it a joyous duty for the Execution Team. (IIRC, there are, in some places, two buttons which must be pushed by two individuals simultaneously-- sort of the dummy bullet theory. Neither knows which delivered the drugs.) There is a concerted effort to make the process as painless as possible for all involved.
That’s why I oppose the death penalty. But so long as you actually have capital punishment, there’s no lgoical problem with doing everything you can to make sure the condemned stays alive as long as possible.
Seriously? I do, but it’s in a textbook that I don’t have access to at work. Are you asking for a cite about prison history with regards to intention of rehabilitation?
Thanks for the cite. Cecil says six states still considered suicide a crime as of 1963. This is a curious statement for a column written in 2004. I wonder if suicides status in these states changed in the intervening 41 years?
I can’t imagine that there would have been much of a change. There’s no compelling reason to take it off the books, since the cops are not throwing attempted suicides into jail left and right. (If they were, people would, of course, object vehemently because the last thing people on the brink need is more stress and pain.)
Anti-euthanasia groups might feel a revocation of laws forbidding suicide as a step towards allowing mercy-killings or physician-assisted suicide. Secondly, people might object if such a law were revoked because it would seem like the state is tacitly approving of suicide.
Thirdly, I imagine that these laws might have been used in the past to take people into custody who are trying to harm themselves for their own protection.
I can’t imagine any politician taking on these laws. It seems like it might be a real “hot button” issue if it got press coverage and there’s really no point.
Thus, I think it’s likely that the laws are still on the books.
Years ago, weren’t condemned men given a gun with a single bullet so they would have the option of the more honorable option of killing themself so others didn’t have to do it?
Does it mean anything in this discussion that obviously some soon-to-be-executed people kill themselves for the express purpose of “cheating the hangman”? Goering is the obvious example, as in the OP. Is the object of “control” more important in a situation like the Nuremburg trials? Does it matter why an inmate on death row kill him/herself?
For the purposes of the duties of corrections staff, no. Their duty is to preserve the safety/life of the inmate, not philosophise as to why he wanted to die-- that’s Mental Health’s job.
Realize, though, that attempted suicide on Death Row is somewhat of a rare occurance-- most people don’t want to die, and cling to the faint hope of last-minute clemency.
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In Classical societies such as Ancient Greece and Rome, those citizens convicted of a capital offence were allowed the option of ending their own life. Socrates was a famous example. An Athenian jury convicted him, and he went home, got his affairs in order, spoke with his family and then went and drank a vial of hemlock.
Judge for yourself whether the society of 400 BC or 2005 AD is more enlightened.
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