Arizona execution lasts nearly two hours

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

Again, I am not advocating the death penalty, I can see both arguments. I am saying lets not turn this monster into a victim. Also, what is more humane really, going to sleep and never waking up or being stuck in a cell with no freedom for the rest of your life. Both are pretty inhumane. You can argue all day what is reasonable to do with these individuals.

It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.

It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working--bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming--all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned--reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone--one mind less, one world less.

http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/A_Hanging

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by WesternCanadaKing

The EU is not even a little bit culpable. They can sell or not sell their goods to whomever for whatever reason they like. Its the US' decision to execute people, there is no imposition there.

EU is full of hypocrites that sell weapons to shady regimes worldwide, yet play the role of arbiter of what constitutes justice to one of their sovereign allies.

[Locke]

"Using drugs meant for individuals with medical needs to carry out executions is a misguided effort to mask the brutality of executions by making them look serene and peaceful — like something any one of us might experience in our final moments," Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote.

"But executions are, in fact, nothing like that. They are brutal, savage events, and nothing the state tries to do can mask that reality. Nor should it. If we as a society want to carry out executions, we should be willing to face the fact that the state is committing a horrendous brutality on our behalf."

Kozinski went on to suggest that states that want to continue executing prisoners "return to more primitive — and foolproof — methods of execution."

"The guillotine is probably best but seems inconsistent with our national ethos. And the electric chair, hanging and the gas chamber are each subject to occasional mishaps," he continued. "The firing squad strikes me as the most promising. Eight or ten large-caliber rifle bullets fired at close range can inflict massive damage, causing instant death every time."

http://www.nbcnews.com/#/storyline/l...utions-n161641

My last few posts have been jokes because I figure, I'm not the guy putting a man to the needle, but this judge speaks some sense.

Cut the BS.

End all of the pomp and pageantry, that crap is just lipstick on the pig. Quit dressing up something ugly as something pretty.

These people have committed what their society has deemed an atrocity and they're required to pay for it, why sugarcoat it?

[Ark2]

Originally Posted by pylon

I used to be Mr. Death penalty myself, but if so much as one innocent person is executed, the system is a total failure.

I'm against the death penalty, but how is the above any different from an innocent person being jailed for life and passing away while in prison?

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Ark2

I'm against the death penalty, but how is the above any different from an innocent person being jailed for life and passing away while in prison?

Death can't be over turned.....

[Arya Stark]

Originally Posted by Ark2

I'm against the death penalty, but how is the above any different from an innocent person being jailed for life and passing away while in prison?

Being alive still means you can appeal or be around if any new evidence exonerates you.

[metallicat]

I can sort of see the revenge angle if you're a family member of someone who was a victim, but as outsiders, what do you care if someone pays with their life or spends the rest of their life in jail? So if that's the case, I see no justification to kill people when it costs more, potentially kills innocent people, and can be botched so bad the condemned man suffers for two hours.

[pylon]

Originally Posted by Ark2

I'm against the death penalty, but how is the above any different from an innocent person being jailed for life and passing away while in prison?

So the answer is have no justice system, and no prisons then?

While an innocent man serving a life sentence or being executed are both wrong, I hope you can see the vast difference between someone dying of old age prison with at least a chance to appeal the charges, and being gassed in the prime years of their life.

[GirlySports]

Guillotines man...

even better if they're flying.

[Ark2]

Originally Posted by Arya Stark

Being alive still means you can appeal or be around if any new evidence exonerates you.

People on death row can appeal as well. As for being around for new exonerating evidence, if you die in prison while serving a life sentence, again, how would that be any different?

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Locke

http://www.nbcnews.com/#/storyline/l...utions-n161641

My last few posts have been jokes because I figure, I'm not the guy putting a man to the needle, but this judge speaks some sense.

Cut the BS.

End all of the pomp and pageantry, that crap is just lipstick on the pig. Quit dressing up something ugly as something pretty.

These people have committed what their society has deemed an atrocity and they're required to pay for it, why sugarcoat it?

I often wonder if the death penalty would just die out (no pun intended) if the average citizen has to "do the deed".

I suspect that not to many people could look at a person in the eye and pull the trigger.

[Arya Stark]

Originally Posted by Ark2

People on death row can appeal as well. As for being around for new exonerating evidence, if you die in prison while serving a life sentence, again, how would that be any different?

because we can't control who dies in prison? but we can control who the state kills.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Ark2

I'm against the death penalty, but how is the above any different from an innocent person being jailed for life and passing away while in prison?

Originally Posted by Ark2

People on death row can appeal as well. As for being around for new exonerating evidence, if you die in prison while serving a life sentence, again, how would that be any different?

No offence, but please present your vision of how prisons and the justice system should work.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/A_Hanging

I have no idea what the point of your post is in regards to what I wrote.

[To Be Quite Honest]

I think it would be better if the prisoner had the option of a surprise death. He gets to live a predetermined amount of time, but unknown to him, and then when that time comes some state sanctioned assassin jumps out and yells "Surprise!" and then ends his life.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by MattyC

Yeah that works too.

I really don't understand how something like this hasn't been implimented. Yeah sometimes there's road crews and what not, but not institute it on a wide scale and partner with some companies that obviously don't care about their human capital anyways? Chain them to a sewing machine. Maybe if they get on good behaviour they can be garbage men or something. Make them a benefit and not a detriment all the way through.

I don't trust the motives of the people who would financially gain from the slavery. How long until paroles are denied because the prisoner is too valuable to production, or even worse, I could see people getting convicted to fill labour needs.

[Kjesse]

Originally Posted by GGG

Society has to be held to a higher standard than the criminals it wants to punish.

There is also roughly a 1% chance that the guy executed (in general) is not guilty.

There is no place for the Death Penalty in a modern society.

It is more expensive than Life inprisonment
It is not a deterrent
It is can execute the innocent
It reduces the moral authority of a just society by putting us on the same level as the criminal
It can go wrong and result in what effectively is torture.

The only arguement for the death penalty that is valid is I want revenge and unfortuately given the negatives it doesn't hold up.

There is no logical reason to have the death penalty. There should be no debate.

This is a pretty good summary of the reasons against the death penalty, but presented in absolutes that don't really capture the reasons there is a debate about it in the first place. Let me add another reason against it: Blacks are disproportionately sentenced to death by white judges. I find that particularly troubling.

I think the death penalty is appropriate in some circumstances, this is one of them. In this particular case, there is no doubt the guy did it. It was planned and carried out in a callous fashion. In some cases the death penalty does represent justice, even though there is a factor of revenge there. Even life in prison is a type of revenge.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Ark2

People on death row can appeal as well. As for being around for new exonerating evidence, if you die in prison while serving a life sentence, again, how would that be any different?

Its a time frame thing.

Take David Milgard for example. He served 21 years in prison, DNA eventually exonerated him. He would likely have been excuted if we had the death penalty.

Now its very likely we have innocent people die in prison but it is the best our system can do. Having the death penalty makes it worse. It executes innocent people before they can be exonerated.

By keeping innocent people alive in prison it gives them the opportunity to prove their innocense if new evididence comes up. Killing them does not.

[Teh_Bandwagoner]

The article seems to differ from what the radio said. On the radio this morning, they said that the drug they injected the guy with was not used before in Arizona, but used in two other states (looks like Oklahoma and Ohio according to the article). In both those cases, the drug was botched (article says one was due to improper administration?). So if this drug screwed up twice, why did Arizona go ahead with it? Messed up stuff right there.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I don't trust the motives of the people who would financially gain from the slavery. How long until paroles are denied because the prisoner is too valuable to production, or even worse, I could see people getting convicted to fill labour needs.

Slavery would be a "scary" word to apply to it, but their criminals, whatever their punishment is, it shouldn't be fun.

But I agree those would be concerns. You'd have to have the parole board be a completely separate entity (not sure how that works right now) and any company participating would have to be of the understanding that any labor needs which arent met by the prisons will have to made up by company employees at market wages. They would still save huge dollars regardless.

But yeah, I wouldn't put a lot of trust in those people either. But at least this way they wouldn't be actually enslaving Malaysian people. And I know those people would otherwise not have work, but there may be alternatives to that too.

It's not an easy problem thats for sure.