The government should never be allowed to put its own citizens to death. The government is not infallible. The government has put innocent people to death.
The same government can't even be trusted to reliably fix a pothole.
Regardless of the method of execution, imagine knowing the exact date and time of your death and knowing nothing you could do would stop it. That is torture, plain and simple. It should be in violation of the eighth amendment.
Consider Japan, who does it differently. Death row inmates in Japan are not told their execution dates, as they had issues with people committing suicide before they could be executed. So now they only find out with just a few hours of notice when they're going to be executed. You could be sitting in your cell, ten years into your sentence, enjoying an otherwise ordinary, quiet day in prison, only to be told that it's time to die, whether you're ready for it or not, the equipment and staff are already prepared and there's no time left to argue your case.
Honestly, I don't know which one is "better". They're both cruel in their own ways.
The better one is no death penalty at all.
"Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning."
Or is it cruel to make someone wake up and ask "is this the day that I will die?"
It's been ruled that a punishment needs to be BOTH cruel AND unusual, to qualify as a violation. One or the other is fine, as long as it's not both. Scalping someone for petty theft would be okay as long as most-everyone convicted got scalped.
I feel like if they fuck it up your sentence it should be commuted. They shouldn't get a do-over.
It's not the case here, but fuckups tend to happen when the person is morbidly obese and therefore a vein can't be found.
Not making a point one way or another, just sharing a bit of information. This is a problem in the medical field as well.
I used to think people stay years on death row. Are you saying you can stay morbidly obese on prison food?
I believe that photograph is from 1999 when he got arrested. He was sentenced to death in 2000, so that's over 20 years waiting. And yes, obesity is becoming a problem inside prisons too (prisonlegalnews.org).
Not sure about death row, but many prisons have a commissary where you can buy junk food with personal funds either brought in with you from the outside or transferred from friends and family outside. Some people don't get fat -until- they go to prison.
If you survive one execution I don't think they should be allowed a do over, let him live in his cell, he earned it.
I've heard (don't know if it's true) that in the old days if you survived a hanging then you were allowed to live
I'd always heard the sentence 'hung by the neck until dead' was taken literally: If you survived the drop, you're just gonna be hanging there longer. The result is the same.
I’m gonna be pedantic for a second, hanged* not “hung”
"... and they was right!"
The law/sentence was actually changed after a Scottish woman survived being hanged resulting in this specific wording. There was a time when people did survive and were freed.
I think that rule applied to the guillotine. If the blade stopped on the way down it was considered an act of god or some such.
I think there was a case somewhere that the prisoner was sentenced to death, and was executed ina fashion that didn't quite work.
But technically he did die for a minute or two before his heart restarted, and he sued to be released from prison because he technically served his sentence.
Did it work? Did he win?
Unfortunately it doesn't look like it. I misremembered a few details, he "died" from natural causes in prison, not execution. The court ruled "Schreiber is either alive, in which case he must remain in prison, or he is dead, in which case this appeal is moot."
His name was Benjamin Schreiber.
I agree. You get one try to execute, you fail? To bad.
Abolish capital punishment. Freaking primitive apes.
Death penalty needs to go.
Cruel and unusual. Unconstitutional.
Barbaric
I can’t think of a time in human history where we weren’t barbaric.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t change but I sure a fuck don’t see it happening anytime soon.
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