Oklahoma Vows Review of Botched Execution

Pretty gruesome.

Implementing the death penalty is controversial enough, but it's a much bigger issue if they can't do it better than this.

 

If he's dead then the execution was successful.

 

My Facebook news feed, not surprisingly, lit up after this news yesterday with a lot of joy about his suffering and outrage that people were outraged. "What about his victim's suffering? Why aren't we talking about THAT!!!///ELEVENTY" many noted, a very original take.

That said, I am convinced that we can start to speculate about an end date to executions in the United States. Ten-15 years. Twenty years tops.

 

Make no mistake: People don't care about the person's suffering. They only care when it's overt enough to make them uncomfortable in witnessing it.

 

Cass Sunstein, policy wonk and husband of U.S. UN ambassador Samantha Powers, wrote a mind-blowing academic article a few years ago arguing that, assuming its deterrent power, one could argue that the existence of the death penalty in the panoply of potential punishments is morally REQUIRED.

Ultimately, however, I think that we have to take the resources we save by eliminating the DP and just pour it into other deterrent/preventative measures. I think the possibility of wrongful convictions alone is justification to halt it, immediately, let alone the problems with the actual administration, as here.

 

Nobody has suggested for even an instant he did not commit the crime.

http://www.oklahomalegalgroup.com/news/appeals-court-upholds-death-penalty-for-ponca-city-man

Tough shit.

 

So?

What do you want? A tiered conviction system?

1) Definitely guilty;
2) Probably guilty;
3) Pretty confident he's guilty;
4) Eh, he seems guilty.

 

It's interesting when you consider how quickly the debate regarding gay marriage moved.

I think most younger folks find it barbaric. Could be a lot quicker than your estimate.

 

Yep. Given his crime, I don't feel too sorry for him.

 

That's exactly what I think it's going to be like. Conservatives are already on board with the mass incarceration issue. They will join this one, too, very soon. From both a moral/religious standpoint and a fiscal waste standpoint, it's in their wheel house. Party's over. The drama is who can draw out their date now until the punishment is off the books. And I'll be helping them do it.

 

True.

But, this applies to multiple situations.

Abortion advocates vigorously fight any effort to expose the public to how gruesome an abortion procedure is (especially a partial birth abortion) and to the pain and suffering of the fetus.

And, people find the images of folks leaping to their death from a burning World Trade Center too uncomfortable to watch. And, decision makers have chosen not to show these images, for fear of the emotional response they will trigger.

 

We already have the BARD standard for conviction -- at all.

In a case like this, not only is there no reasonable doubt the defendant comitted the crime, there is not even any credible doubt of guilt.