Oklahoma Vows Review of Botched Execution

The account gave greater detail about Mr. Lockett’s final minutes and the frantic scene that unfolded after the blinds were drawn on witnesses. With something clearly going terribly wrong, the doctor “checked the IV and reported that the blood vein had collapsed, and the drugs had either absorbed into the tissue, leaked out or both,” Mr. Patton wrote.

The warden called Mr. Patton, who asked, “Have enough drugs been administered to cause death?” The doctor answered no.

“Is another vein available, and if so, are there enough drugs remaining?” The doctor responded no again. Mr. Patton then asked about Mr. Lockett’s condition; the warden said that the doctor “found a faint heartbeat” and that Mr. Lockett was unconscious.

At 6:56, Mr. Patton called off the execution. Ten minutes later, at 7:06, “Doctor pronounced Offender Lockett dead,” the letter states.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/02/us/oklahoma-official-calls-for-outside-review-of-botched-execution.html?rref=us&_r=0

 

Very similar.

Laws are passed requiring women to see ultrasounds, not to mention protesters sticking signs in women's faces. There are laws requiring women to have a separate counseling session before having the abortion and laws requiring waiting periods. Not to mention, in a couple of states, there are those vaginal probe ultrasounds which are now required.

It stands to mention that if women need all this to make an informed decision and to know the consequences before having an abortion, people who want to buy a gun would need the same, right?

 

If they're unconstitutional, then why are they made law to begin with?

 

My state legislature just passed a law where we could go back to the electric chair if the drugs aren't available.
If you have been deemed too bad to ever be released back into society, we have no reason to warehouse you for the rest of your natural life. If people don't want the death penalty, fine, but return prisons to what they should be: dark, cold, damp, miserable places where you are chained to the wall and get just enough food to keep you alive. If you violently harm someone, you shouldn't get to spend the rest of your days watching giant flat screens, earning free college degrees, and getting top quality healthcare.

 

Congrats, you've just won prison cliche bingo! Collect your banana from the table.

Despite your attempts to characterize them otherwise, such people are still human beings, and such conditions would still have a significant dehumanizing impact on them, the upshot of which is that they become impossible to manage and contain. Your method only works if you're willing to pay people about $75 an hour to risk life and limb ensuring that your desire for medieval justice is upheld.

And I'm fairly certain that those serving life without parole and other long-term sentences are ineligible for most education programs in prisons, and I'm fairly certain that a lot of them are ineligible for work programs. TVs, unpalatable as they seem, are a remarkably effective way of keeping people occupied, and as the warden of a Norwegian prison commented in an article I read a while ago, good luck finding bulk quantities of TVs in this day and age that aren't flat-screen.

At the end of the day, the conditions of the prison really shouldn't and don't matter. What makes it a punishment is that the door locks from the outside. That life for some can be more comfortable on the inside than on the outside isn't an indictment of the prison system.

 

Attica! Attica! Attica!

 

Good Lord, a double dose of Viagra/Cialis/Levitra couldn't generate as hefty a boner as you.

When a woman "purchases" an abortion, the demise of the zygote/fetus/whatever is a given. The probability that that entity will be harmed is 1. When someone purchases a firearm, the probability that that purchase will lead to bodily harm (for anyone) is very close to 0.*

So, yeah, those are totally comparable.

Maybe we need to come up with some sort of invasive procedure for you so you won't stumble into so many analogies that are so god-awful. Perhaps some intra-cranial ultrasound? A video of the internets guffawing at your latest? I don't know, but clearly something's gotta be done.

*My cocktail-napkin-ciphering suggests that the probability that an individual firearm sale will lead to either a fatality or serious injury is a little more than 0.017. The probability it'll lead to a fatality (homicide/suicide/accident) is approximately 0.005.

 

David Dow, a death penalty appellate lawyer in Texas, said that prisoners sometimes resist leaving their cells, but that “it’s not something that happens regularly.” He expressed surprise that the medical staff administering the drugs did not have a second vein ready in case of problems with the first. “For a state that executes people,” he said, “they are awfully bad at it.”

 

As fucked up a situation as this is, I couldn't help but appreciate this line. Very true.

 

As fucked up a situation as this is, I don't get the feeling that abolitionists are getting much traction on it as far as converting the unconverted. My totally unscientific observation is that people don't particularly care if a convicted killer has to suffer through an execution. This instance, in particular, doesn't come close to clearing the bar for them: "Guy might have suffered when doctors had trouble administering injection, but we can't even be sure."

I do think, however, that the legal difficulties in continuing to keep the death penalty as an option, including legal barriers that are making it more and more difficult to administer and creating more and more red tape, will mean the death knell (no pun intended) for capital punishment within a decade or so. It's just not a fight that will continue to be worth the time, effort, and resources.

 

If your position is that you don't give a fuck how much pain a killer feels when he's put to death, the news that he suffered pain while being put to death is unlikely to change your mind on the death penalty.

 

Right, exactly. I wonder if there is polling out there about what percentage of DP advocates do care about this. I bet it's like 90-10 that don't care.