Oklahoma Vows Review of Botched Execution

Actually (in the last 50 years or so) it's more like dozens, but carry on.

 

Twenty-six dozen, to be precise.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/DNA_Exonerations_Nationwide.php

 

The secrecy surrounding executions makes it possible for executions to continue. I am convinced that if executions were made public, the torture and violence would be unmasked, and we would be shamed into abolishing executions. We would be embarrassed at the brutalization of the crowds that would gather to watch a man or woman be killed. And we would be humiliated to know that visitors from other countries - Japan, Russia, Latina America, Europe - were watching us kill our own citizens - we, who take pride in being the flagship of democracy in the world. -- Sister Helen Prejean

 

As Bob Cook pointed out, what makes this execution such a major issue is that the state of Oklahoma couldn't get the appropriate drugs, and on top of that, the two convicted felons each had pending cases in which they wanted the state to disclose where it got the drugs.

The state got what it wanted (to get the sentences carried out for the felons) and then got exactly what they wanted to avoid: Arguments that the felons had a legitimate reason to know who supplied the drugs.

Murder is a heinous crime but that doesn't mean we should respond with something equally heinous. We don't let lynch mobs to burn convicted murderers at the stake or allow prison staff to gang-rape a convicted rapist, even as we have no sympathy for convicted murderers and rapists.

Punishment is not about getting even or making you feel better. It's supposed to be a deterrent.

And I tend to agree with Songbird that maybe we should return to the firing squad, two bullets in the right spots, and get it over with. Lethal injection drugs are becoming far more trouble than they are worth.

 

Cops in Southern California laugh at your debates - they execute people all the time. No trial needed! People here are familiar with the Kelly Thomas case in Fullerton, with the thug cop putting on his gloves and telling Thomas he was going to 'fuck him up', before killing him.

In Long Beach this week, cops shot a guy in the back, before making up some fakakta "reaching for waistband" bs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy7VZ6IiInI#t=109

FF to the 1:50 mark. It takes 10 seconds to watch a man die.


Who needs courts and lawyers and things, when you can just shoot in the back?

 

Is that what we do when we imprison kidnappers? When we fine embezzlers?

 

FBI hasn't had a wrongful shooting in over twenty years, covering 70 fatal shootings:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/us/in-150-shootings-the-fbi-deemed-agents-faultless.html

 

I used to be a Hang Em High proponent. No more. The thought that every state that has had the death penalty has likely executed innocent people, to me, is the only reason you need to abolish the practice.
One of the cliches of an old west movie or TV show is when the good guy has the chance to kill the bad guy, then stops and says something like, "you're not worth the bullet" and moves on. Lockett was as bad as it gets: burying a girl alive, rape, kidnapping, beating a 9-month old baby.
I think it would be worse than death to just throw him in some dark corner of a Super Max prison and let him out of his cell only long enough for a shower or two per week. Pass his meals through a slot, no visitation and no other reminder that anyone gives a rat's ass about his existence.
Let him die alone and by natural causes. It's not worth our dignity.
And I also repeat my trade offer to the libs: we'll give up the death penalty if you'll give up abortion.

 

Years ago in the state I lived in, two state troopers were murdered in separate incidents. One convicted killer was black; the other white.

The black individual's trial was moved on change of venue to a county with hardly any black residents. He was sentenced to death and eventually executed. The other individual, an avowed White Supremacist, was given a life sentence.

I've never reconciled in my mind the difference in sentences, thus the death penalty in general. To me, both should have received the same penalty.

 

What these fools fail to realize is that WE DID talk about the victim's suffering.

It likely was a major part of the trial that resulted in the criminal being sentenced to death.

 

Shit. If you're white and rich in Texas, you can kill people and not even get jail time.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/05/us/texas-affluenza-teen/

 

How many people are anti-death penalty and anti-abortion? I am, but the way the political tribalism plays out, I'm sometimes made to feel I'm the only one.