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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Mobius on May 24, 2014, 05:34:04 am
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http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/22/us/tennessee-executions/
Editor's note: CNN's original series "Death Row Stories" explores America's capital punishment system at 9 p.m. ET/PT Sundays, beginning July 13. Join the conversation about the death penalty at facebook.com/cnn or Twitter @CNNorigSeries using #DeathRowStories.
(CNN) -- As controversies over lethal injection drugs surge, Tennessee has found a way around the issue: It is bringing back the electric chair.
Eight states authorize electrocution as a method of execution but only at the inmate's discretion.
Now Tennessee is the first state to make use of the electric chair mandatory when lethal injection drugs are unavailable.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam signed the measure into law Thursday.
"This is unusual and might be both cruel and unusual punishment," said Richard Dieter, president of the Death Penalty Information Center.
The death penalty in America Lethal Injection: The process
Related story: No more complex lethal cocktails, say experts
"No state says what Tennessee says. This is forcing the inmate to use electrocution," according to Dieter, who believes "the inmate would have an automatic Eighth Amendment challenge."
The amendment protects against cruel and unusual punishment.
"The electric chair is clearly a brutal alternative," Dieter said.
Related story: Botched injection stirs debate
Controversy over lethal injections has been brewing in recent years after European manufacturers, including the Denmark-based manufacturer of pentobarbital, banned U.S. prisons from using their drugs in executions.
In April, a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma catapulted the issue back into the international spotlight. It was the state's first time using a new, three-drug cocktail for an execution. Execution witnesses said convicted murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett convulsed and writhed on the execution gurney and struggled to speak, before officials blocked the witnesses' view. Lockett died 43 minutes after being administered the first drug, CNN affiliate KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City reported.
Earlier this year, a convicted murderer and rapist in Ohio, Dennis McGuire, appeared to gasp and convulse for at least 10 minutes before dying from the drug cocktail used in his execution.
In 2009, the U.S.-based manufacturer of sodium thiopental, a drug also commonly used in executions, stopped making the painkiller.
Many states have scrambled to find products from overseas or have used American-based compounding pharmacies to create substitutes.
This month, a group of criminal justice experts recommended that federal and state governments move to a single lethal drug for executions instead of complex cocktails that can be botched.
The controversy over legal injection drugs raises the question of when a case will arise to test the new law.
The last death penalty by electrocution in Tennessee was that of Daryl Holton in 2007.
Holton -- a convicted murderer who killed his three young sons and his ex-wife's daughter -- elected to be killed by the electric chair.
Before Holton's execution, Tennessee had not used the electric chair in 47 years.
Seriously TN, what's wrong with you? I have been there last year, it's not a bad place afterall. :sigh:
Also note how the speakers tend to put an emphasis on the fact that Tennessee is a southern state.
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me personally id strap em to the table and torture them to death with a cnc torture machine. you can program it to miss all the arteries and internal organs and stuff, to prolong the pain of the person being executed.
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cnc torture machine.
I dare not Google... :nervous:
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These things make the euthanasia coaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_Coaster) look like the height of mankind's morality.
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Consider what lethal injection has shown to do with people, this does seem like a good decision, though. People are finally realizing it's one of the least humane ways of execution. I don't think they'll break out guillotines anytime soon (by far the most humane and fail-proof, if a bit gross, execution method invented...), but this does look like a step in the right direction, considering everything. I recall hanging being an option somewhere in the US (wasn't Hussein executed like that, 10 or so years ago?), that would be good, too, though it's easier to botch than the guillotine.
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http://onion.com/1nkGatt
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Consider what lethal injection has shown to do with people, this does seem like a good decision, though. People are finally realizing it's one of the least humane ways of execution. I don't think they'll break out guillotines anytime soon (by far the most humane and fail-proof, if a bit gross, execution method invented...), but this does look like a step in the right direction, considering everything. I recall hanging being an option somewhere in the US (wasn't Hussein executed like that, 10 or so years ago?), that would be good, too, though it's easier to botch than the guillotine.
I wonder if it would be best to use anaesthetic to put the victim to sleep then just suffocate them?
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thread deja vu detected
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I wonder if it would be best to use anaesthetic to put the victim to sleep then just suffocate them?
Lethal injection is supposed to feature something like this, but it seems that it's not that simple for some reason. It's odd that despite this being a surgical routine, it's for some reason not used for executions. Maybe it cannot. Really, if you want a "humane" way of executing criminals, go with decapitation. That's 100% sure to work the first time, causes no (or very little) pain and it's been perfected a long time ago. With chemicals and even with electricity, you can never be sure if the criminal really doesn't suffer.
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Consider what lethal injection has shown to do with people, this does seem like a good decision, though. People are finally realizing it's one of the least humane ways of execution. I don't think they'll break out guillotines anytime soon (by far the most humane and fail-proof, if a bit gross, execution method invented...), but this does look like a step in the right direction, considering everything. I recall hanging being an option somewhere in the US (wasn't Hussein executed like that, 10 or so years ago?), that would be good, too, though it's easier to botch than the guillotine.
The problem being that the Guillotine looks brutal, and as a result people are reluctant to prescribe it (plus bad associations with the Reign of Terror). It's easier to please voters with a method that doesn't spill a lot of blood, even if it actually is more painful to the convict.
But still, I agree that the electric chair is at least an improvement.
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Consider what lethal injection has shown to do with people, this does seem like a good decision, though. People are finally realizing it's one of the least humane ways of execution. I don't think they'll break out guillotines anytime soon (by far the most humane and fail-proof, if a bit gross, execution method invented...), but this does look like a step in the right direction, considering everything. I recall hanging being an option somewhere in the US (wasn't Hussein executed like that, 10 or so years ago?), that would be good, too, though it's easier to botch than the guillotine.
I wonder if it would be best to use anaesthetic to put the victim to sleep then just suffocate them?
Sounds good on paper, but might be too easy to botch.
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inert gas asphyxia is pretty much impossible to botch and completely humane. death penalty advocates oppose this because they secretly do just want to get off on their lust for brutal murder
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inert gas asphyxia is pretty much impossible to botch and completely humane. death penalty advocates oppose this because they secretly do just want to get off on their lust for brutal murder
I... think there are more reasons than that for the death penalty. But if it is, in fact, painless and reliable (my knowledge on the topic isn't advanced enough for me to know either way) I'd say it's reasonable. On the face of it it sounds risky to me, especially when there are simpler options out there.
But lethal injection... Every time anyone brings up lethal injection I think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S9ptM2LHSw
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I'll just leave this here. (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/some-examples-post-furman-botched-executions)
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Yeah, that's what I was talking about. Mostly lethal injections, a good number of electrocutions, a few asphyxiations. In short, terrible way to die. As I said, hanging or decapitation would be best, unless we actually want criminals to suffer (in which case we should stop saying we don't). A modern hanging is a clean, quick death by breaking the neck with little chance of failure. Though if the rope is too short, you do risk a "hemp fandango", but that's easily avoided by always erring on the side of longer rope (the worst you get in that case is an equally painless, if gross decapitation). And as I said in the other thread, I know of exactly one case of a guillotine failing to kill on the first try, and this guy (Luis IVX) was a). incredibly fat b). so hated that they didn't exactly mind him suffering. A modern, perhaps powered guillotine would be the least painful, more reliable execution method in existence.
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hydraulic piston through the head, or that bolt thing they use on cows.
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I'll just leave this here. (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/some-examples-post-furman-botched-executions)
While a good deal of those are really horrifying and mostly the executioners' fault for botching, at least one of them wasn't:
5. March 13, 1985. Texas. Stephen Peter Morin. Lethal Injection. Because of Morin's history of drug abuse, the execution technicians were forced to probe both of Morin's arms and one of his legs with needles for nearly 45 minutes before they found a suitable vein.[7]
Note: that's not an excuse, or an advocacy one way or the other, just that the executioners' aren't exactly at fault for this guy having ****ty veins. :P
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That's not about the executioners (in most cases, it's not their fault that something doesn't work), but about the method that has painful failure modes. The point is to chose one that couldn't screw up (for whatever reason), or that is very hard to screw up. Criminals have all sort of problems with bodies, starting from obesity (excessive body mass can really mess with lethal injection), drug abuse, various medical conditions and so on. You need to really know a lot about the guy in order to properly conduct the execution with one of the more elaborate methods. By contrast, hanging requires only to know a person's weight (by far the easiest parameter to measure) and decapitation or firing squad don't require even that. The less variables, the less failure modes and, consequently, less chance for failure (in most cases, that is). That's why I advocate simple, proven methods and not fooling around with needlessly elaborate (and painful) schemes.
Also, I just thought that a sort of mechanized, high-caliber "firing squad" could also be a good method, though it'd probably run into same issues as decapitation. If you put the guns on a stand (as human executioner can miss), make them of high enough caliber (say, 10mm Barret) and aim them at the head or heart with computer, the guy executed shouldn't feel a thing, either. Firing squad is a legal (pretty good in itself, if seldom used) option in US, though I don't think they'd approve that kind of modification. I recall hearing about a guy who actually explicitly chose it over lethal injection, so there might be some merit in this reasoning (it might've been to prove a political point, though, I don't remember).
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That's not about the executioners (in most cases, it's not their fault that something doesn't work), but about the method that has painful failure modes. The point is to chose one that couldn't screw up (for whatever reason), or that is very hard to screw up. Criminals have all sort of problems with bodies, starting from obesity (excessive body mass can really mess with lethal injection), drug abuse, various medical conditions and so on. You need to really know a lot about the guy in order to properly conduct the execution with one of the more elaborate methods. By contrast, hanging requires only to know a person's weight (by far the easiest parameter to measure) and decapitation or firing squad don't require even that. The less variables, the less failure modes and, consequently, less chance for failure (in most cases, that is). That's why I advocate simple, proven methods and not fooling around with needlessly elaborate (and painful) schemes.
Also, I just thought that a sort of mechanized, high-caliber "firing squad" could also be a good method, though it'd probably run into same issues as decapitation. If you put the guns on a stand (as human executioner can miss), make them of high enough caliber (say, 10mm Barret) and aim them at the head or heart with computer, the guy executed shouldn't feel a thing, either. Firing squad is a legal (pretty good in itself, if seldom used) option in US, though I don't think they'd approve that kind of modification. I recall hearing about a guy who actually explicitly chose it over lethal injection, so there might be some merit in this reasoning (it might've been to prove a political point, though, I don't remember).
Political point or no, I think anyone in their right mind would choose the firing squad.
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Actually a more reliable method would be to bombard the area with Hellfire missiles from a loitering remote platform. This would allow us to carry out executions without a lot of on-the-ground infrastructure. We could use statistical models to predict who needed to be executed and cut out the lengthy and expensive judicial process.
(the American death penalty is a ****ty system that does not work in any respect, even the most basic, and coming up with laughably elaborate mechanical systems to execute people in flashy cool ways will not solve any of its real problems)
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(like: it is expensive, doesn't deter crime, suffers from absurd racial bias, and has an unacceptable false positive rate)
(much like predator drones lol)
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(and barack obama WOW ZING)
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(the American death penalty is a ****ty system that does not work in any respect, even the most basic, and coming up with laughably elaborate mechanical systems to execute people in flashy cool ways will not solve any of its real problems)
Indeed. That's why they shouldn't bother with lethal injection, either. Basic firing squad works better, so does hanging. The former is even still an option somewhere (don't remember where) when lethal injection is unavailable. And even if they somehow do miss, there's always an option of firing again. That mean suffering of 3-7 seconds (I can cycle a good rifle that quickly, at least. Aiming from a stand is also pretty quick), as opposed to minutes from a lethal injection gone wrong, or from a failed electrocution. I'm not sure about the status of hanging as a death penalty, but it's an even better, more reliable option than firing squad.
As for the other problems, they run far deeper than just a matter of death penalty (though financial argument is a valid one, it's not like anyone ever listened to those unless they get the cut of the savings...).
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things that work far better than any of the above: not having a death penalty at all
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hydraulic piston through the head, or that bolt thing they use on cows.
Ever since I have seen "no country for old men"...
In all honesty though, that is probably quite a good way.
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Death penalty is a fundamentally flawed system even if it worked optimally.
Apart from abolishing it entirely (which is what any sane justice system would do), there's this:
(http://www.hbo.com/assets/images/series/game-of-thrones/downloads/wallpaper-ned-quote-1600.jpg)
(sorry about the spoilers)
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hydraulic piston through the head, or that bolt thing they use on cows.
Ever since I have seen "no country for old men"...
In all honesty though, that is probably quite a good way.
It's no better than a gun, obviously. Worse, even, those things are made specifically to stun; killing humans is a side-effect.
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So the 'civilized' consensus seems to be that mandatory death is bad. What about mandatory life?
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I'll just leave this here. (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/some-examples-post-furman-botched-executions)
no photos? much depressing.
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So the 'civilized' consensus seems to be that mandatory death is bad. What about mandatory life?
The problem is determining whether a person's mental health is sufficient to allow them to make such a decision. This is problematic because the desire to end one's life is a common symptom of many mental illnesses and, in some cases, defined as a mental illness itself (suicidal behaviour).
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I think the point of death by firing squad is, you're not likely to have five to ten marksmen miss. Make them semi-auto (so the rifle cycles the next round in for you, not to be confused with full-auto, which will kick the weapon up as it repeats the cycle of fire) and if they all miss you won't suffer for long. Have five aim for the T-box and five aim for the heart.
E: five, not give. Darn mobile keyboard
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Right, that. Firing squad is a terrible idea, people can survive some pretty gruesome gunshot wounds in horrible agony.
In fact I think if someone really wanted to figure out a completely certain way to kill someone nearly instantaneously (t<perception lag) is to make them wear an implosion helmet filled with enough explosives to vapourize their head, but then you can probably get pretty much identical results simply by decapitating a person (most reliably with a guillotine).
Thing is, the problem of figuring out a reliable "humane" method of killing a person (which is a contradiction in itself) can be avoided by simply not having a death penalty in the first place, AND as a bonus it also deals with the inherent issues in death penalty rather than just addressing the method of execution, so to speak.
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Hmm, maybe this will be helpful to explain, T-box means hitting anywhere on the T you can draw between the eyes and down the nose. Instant death. Also, taking out the heart is pretty much instant. As well, if you hit a target twice in under a second within an inch of the first shot, the shock alone is very likely to kill them. At least that's what I was taught. So, five aiming for T-box and five for heart should equal instant death.
Regarding elimination of death penalty, well, there ate plenty of things that become a whole lot less worthwhile when death is a possible outcome. Elimination of witnesses or people trying to prevent the crime you are committing might make it less likely you get caught, but if it also means you will die if you do get caught, maybe you will think twice.
http://www.theusmarines.com/recruits-prepare-for-combat/
A shot inside the T-box on the head is an instant kill because that’s where the brain-housing group is located,” said Solando. “A chest shot critically damages the heart and lungs
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Regarding elimination of death penalty, well, there ate plenty of things that become a whole lot less worthwhile when death is a possible outcome. Elimination of witnesses or people trying to prevent the crime you are committing might make it less likely you get caught, but if it also means you will die if you do get caught, maybe you will think twice.
Except this is pretty much proven to be a fallacy, basically because people who commit crimes think they won't get caught.
I'm sure the whole explanation is longer and involves lots of statistics but there is no proof whatsoever that death penalty acts as a deterrent to committing crimes, and in fact there is a correlation between high homicide rates and death penalty (although this doesn't necessarily mean that death penalty promotes murder, it just means that death penalty is not an effective deterrent).
By the way, if no one can hear them scream, do they still suffer? :nervous:
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To reiterate from the last time this came up, I'll support the death penalty when:
1. We are absolutely certain of the actual guilt of the sentenced person and no innocent people are ever sentenced to death;
2. Death sentences are ultimately cheaper to carry out than life in prison; and,
3. It is used only in the most extreme circumstances and rarely.
Death penalties the world over never meet all three of those criteria simultaneously. Which is why I agree with battuta - it's laughable to discuss the most efficient way to carry out the death penalty when there is so much wrong with the systems that lead to it in the first place.
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To reiterate from the last time this came up, I'll support the death penalty when:
1. We are absolutely certain of the actual guilt of the sentenced person and no innocent people are ever sentenced to death;
2. Death sentences are ultimately cheaper to carry out than life in prison; and,
3. It is used only in the most extreme circumstances and rarely.
Death penalties the world over never meet all three of those criteria simultaneously. Which is why I agree with battuta - it's laughable to discuss the most efficient way to carry out the death penalty when there is so much wrong with the systems that lead to it in the first place.
I'd agree that this is a pretty good criteria, which is part of the reason I'd like to see America's death penalty ended (there are a lot of things in America that I'd like to see ended). However, until we reach the point where it can be abolished (and that point is certainly reachable), moving from more painful to less painful methods is at least a step in the right direction. In fact, movements like these are arguably progress towards the abolition of the death penalty, in that they are a recognition of the rights of the criminal.
(and barack obama WOW ZING)
:lol:
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However, until we reach the point where it can be abolished (and that point is certainly reachable), moving from more painful to less painful methods is at least a step in the right direction.
It really isn't, IMHO. Making the death penalty more acceptable doesn't make it more efficient, or more effective. Why change it, when the only effective change is to abolish it completely? Why not skip the intermediate steps and move directly to the abolishing? Or is the desire for dead criminals too strong, the need to sacrifice people on the altar of some imagined justice too pressing to do so?
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To reiterate from the last time this came up, I'll support the death penalty when:
1. We are absolutely certain of the actual guilt of the sentenced person and no innocent people are ever sentenced to death;
2. Death sentences are ultimately cheaper to carry out than life in prison; and,
3. It is used only in the most extreme circumstances and rarely.
Death penalties the world over never meet all three of those criteria simultaneously. Which is why I agree with battuta - it's laughable to discuss the most efficient way to carry out the death penalty when there is so much wrong with the systems that lead to it in the first place.
I'm with MP on this, but with a slight difference. I think the death penalty should exist everywhere in the legal system as an option, but that in practical terms, the criteria to reach it was so hard to get that effectively no one would actually be condemned to it!
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I'm with MP on this, but with a slight difference. I think the death penalty should exist everywhere in the legal system as an option, but that in practical terms, the criteria to reach it was so hard to get that effectively no one would actually be condemned to it!
I'm curious as to what the point of this would be. If the bar is set so high as to be unattainable, why even have it on the books? Why leave that option open?
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I like the idea of the death penalty. In theory. I just hate it when in real life. In praxis. So I think this system would be perfect for me. Theoretically possible, always present in the minds of people, but never actually doing it. Much like overall freedom. I enjoy having the freedom to say stupid ****, do stupid ****, etc., but I like even more the idea of not actually doing it, ever. I like that tension, what can I say!
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However, until we reach the point where it can be abolished (and that point is certainly reachable), moving from more painful to less painful methods is at least a step in the right direction.
It really isn't, IMHO. Making the death penalty more acceptable doesn't make it more efficient, or more effective. Why change it, when the only effective change is to abolish it completely? Why not skip the intermediate steps and move directly to the abolishing? Or is the desire for dead criminals too strong, the need to sacrifice people on the altar of some imagined justice too pressing to do so?
Because it's less of a change. A move to abolish death penalty won't pass, simple as that. That's democracy for you, death penalty is expensive, but people want it, so it's gonna stay. However, the exact method used is easier to change, and there are multiple ones to chose from already, depending on the state. Not to mention having been tried already (and used quite recently), both electric chair and firing squad are not in "unknown" category, unlike a world without death penalty. Large changes are, in general, hard to cause in democracy, as it naturally tends towards status quo, whatever that is. People in general (and especially politicians) are hard to convince to change something that "always was like that". You either need gradual changes that individually would not be considered a big deal, or a crisis that would destroy status quo anyway, and make people more open to drastic changes (well, that, or an armed insurrection. But that's very unlikely to work in a developed country).
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The change between "We will execute people" and "We will not execute people" is never going to be not drastic, even if the method of execution has been changed to "hugged to death by kittens".
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Exactly. Which is why it's unlikely we'll ever see it. Or at least, unless there appears a politician with both great charisma, balls and economic knowledge that would enable him to go and make that change. So yeah. Unlikely. There is no demand to get rid of death penalty, so unless the democracy is suddenly restricted to smart and educated (one does not ensure the other, mind you...) people, it's plain simply not happening anytime soon. The least we can do is make criminals not suffer during the execution, which can and should be done.
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I'll put it this way: I'm not opposed to executing a criminal IF the crime is severe, AND the guilt is definite, AND the method is humane. The problem is, the US system doesn't live up to said criteria, and abolishing the system is more feasible than completely solving all its problems. However, in the meantime, making the punishments less painful is at least an improvement.
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Well, you can slowly work your way up to fixing this. Abolishing death penalty would be impossible under current political climate (read "common people don't want it to be abolished, and this being democracy, if won't"). However, if you effectively restricted it's use to situations where the murderer/rapist was caught red-handed (in a "grabbed by the police with the knife still in victim's back" way) so that there's no doubt he did what he's accused of, this would be much easier to implement. It could be done gradually, by increasingly restricting situation in which death penalty might be used, or by piling up requirements, not to mention changes would be high-level legalese, which an average person won't understand and complain about. Also, in the end, death penalty would be effectively abolished, since it's very rare to actually grab a criminal by the hand like that.
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I swear every time they parade some type of criminal around on CNN in the break-room at my Target, someone different says the old "why do they need a trial, we should just kill him" line. In my experience, the death penalty is disturbingly popular. And the data supports this http://www.gallup.com/poll/1606/death-penalty.aspx
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The change between "We will execute people" and "We will not execute people" is never going to be not drastic, even if the method of execution has been changed to "hugged to death by kittens".
Not really, the death penalty is usually formally abolished long after it's abolished for practical purposes: there are normally a few weird crimes left on the books which can sanction it.
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Not so much weird as so grave that it kind of makes sense to leave it on the books. From what I've gathered, those are usually "crimes against the state" such as assassinating the president, high treason, stealing state secrets, spying, stuff like that. Generally, stuff you don't see outside of wartime scenarios. In case of spies and traitors, especially, it actually makes a lot of sense to at least be able to execute them - whoever they work for probably can and sometimes will attempt a rescue operation if they're captured. But those are incredibly rare cases that are generally irrelevant in peacetime. IIRC, this was the case with death penalty in Norway. It was introduced pretty much to kill off Vidkun Quisling and a bunch of his associates. Seeing as the guy gave us a synonym for "traitor" in form of his last name, it's one of the cases that definitely warranted a death penalty.
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There is no treason in peacetime. There are no secrets the state is entitled to keep or protect with lethal force.
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Which is exactly what I said. Those are wartime crimes, or near-wartime ones (since you don't need to be officially at war for those to happen, c.f. Cold War) which need to be on the books nonetheless. The recent events in Ukraine should be a reminder of the fact war can happen anywhere, in spite of what we think. And military secrets can, should and are protected with lethal force, though in most situations it's applied on-site by the military in question. Remember, in case of an armed conflict, soldiers' lives depend on those secrets being secret. In some cases, more than soldiers, as is the case with anything pertaining launching and arming of nuclear weapons (you don't take any chances with these. Period).
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Remember, in case of an armed conflict, soldiers' lives depend on those secrets being secret.
Right... some soldiers' lives depend on those secrets being secret, and some soldiers' lives depend on those secrets not being secret. :doubt:
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There is no treason in peacetime.
This is just flat-out wrong.
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Depends on how you define peacetime (and if you assume he meant "high treason", because "regular" treason always exists). If you use the narrowest definition (as in, no hostilities, potential or otherwise, anywhere, at all), then you could argue that. However, it's hard to achieve this kind of peace. From western EU's POV, for example you could probably argue that they are at this kind of peace. Their neighbors are friendly and they're not at odds with any country to the point it could threaten national security. From Poland's POV, you could not, relations with Russia are too strained and it is potentially endangered. US also has quite a few enemies, and it can hardly be said "there's no treason" now. An information stolen and traded off to one of many anti-US countries could have devastating effects. There's no treason in peacetime, but it's no peacetime right now, either.
Note that I was speaking in general terms in my previous post. The situation now actually falls in "near-wartime" category, just like Cold War did. The situation in Ukraine is ugly, Middle East is still stirred up, and North Korea isn't sleeping, either. It's easy to preach about morality, state affair transparency and value of human life from a cozy seat in peaceful Germany, but sometimes, extreme situations can happen, and there better be proper legislation for it, so that the government doesn't end up running like headless chickens when it hits the fan... Or at least, so that there can be someone that doesn't.
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Ratholing down on edge cases where the death penalty might be some kind of tactical imperative (it still probably isn't, though it might be expedient) is as pointless as ratholing on elaborate execution techniques. Most capital punishments are a result of civil lawbreaking and that's where the heart of the matter lies.
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Yeah, but once you define cases where death penalty is needed, you can then move towards narrowing it's scope to those cases only. This can be done gradually and in such a way that the general populace doesn't make a racket about it. "Abolish death penalty" bill would be a big change and would not pass. A series of small "Make death penalty not applicable/too much of a chore in x case" bills over a few years has a chance of cutting down the number of executions significantly enough to drive the upkeep down. Switching to firing squad by the way also makes sense because a). it's relatively painless and already a legal method. b). it requires no upkeep like other methods. Since the military has rifles and sandbags in abundance, and gunmen are easy to come by, you don't need to keep any hardware specifically meant for executions, which could ease the transition, somewhat too. As opposed to lethal injection, since drugs go out of production and have to be replaced, and even the electric chair needs to be maintained and kept around for as long as the punishment is on the books.
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You just made a bunch of falsifiable statements about your model of political reality, and I'm pretty sure the real world has already falsified a number of them. Eighteen American states have abolished the death penalty through 'the general populace' 'making a racket' (because that is how democracy functions). If you think that cutting DOWN the number of executions would reduce costs you don't understand death row or, for that matter, the economics of systems: more executions would be the way to cut costs.
I hypothesize that you are fond of firing squads because you think they're cool. People interested in elective euthanasia have, through the brilliance of self-interest, discovered a lot of painless, cheap, efficient ways to die that don't require a bunch of poor bastards to look a man in the eye and shoot him to death, a process so traumatic that firing squads are specially configured to allow members to pretend that someone else fired the killing bullet.
The military itself, which certainly has riflemen in abundance, does not permit firing squads for executions.
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Ratholing down on edge cases where the death penalty might be some kind of tactical imperative (it still probably isn't, though it might be expedient) is as pointless as ratholing on elaborate execution techniques. Most capital punishments are a result of civil lawbreaking and that's where the heart of the matter lies.
Yeah, this was what I was trying to say. The death penalty is 'abolished' in the public consciousness basically when murder stops being a capital crime; it's not some absolute matter of whether or not the state is ever allowed to execute people.
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well if the problem is you don't want to put an innocent man through the torment of having to kill someone, we do have an abundance of people who have already gone through that, other death row inmates, we could use them to administer the death penalty. and to motivate them not to just sit there and do nothing so when their time comes the same might happens we could institute a policy of one of the two being executed is sufficient, so like two men enter, one man leaves type of a situation. and to help offset costs we could sell tickets and pay-per-view. yeah, I'm really finding this line of thinking to just keep getting better and better.
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humane version: two men are sent into an inert atmosphere with one oxygen mask
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I hypothesize that you are fond of firing squads because you think they're cool. People interested in elective euthanasia have, through the brilliance of self-interest, discovered a lot of painless, cheap, efficient ways to die that don't require a bunch of poor bastards to look a man in the eye and shoot him to death, a process so traumatic that firing squads are specially configured to allow members to pretend that someone else fired the killing bullet.
Just who do you take me for? Could you be more subtle about your insults next time? Because your hypothesis is horribly wrong and insulting. Firing squad is by no means "cool". No. To clarify, anyone who thinks that is either childish or a sick bastard. It's simply the most practical, least painful way that doesn't involve an elaborate, fail-prone setup. I'd take hanging or guillotine over firing squad any day, but there seems to be a problem with that, whereas firing squad is, IIRC, still permitted in some states, albeit as an emergency measure. Certainly more likely than dusting off the ol' gallows, or introducing a whole new, modern method. As for trauma involved in serving on a firing squad, you answered your own question. There are methods for that. In case you didn't see it, I mentioned that drastic changes are hard to make. My reasoning was aimed to realize the required change (limiting/improving death penalty) by making the least amount of changes possible, and also avoid flak from the populace who might disagree with the general idea.
You just made a bunch of falsifiable statements about your model of political reality, and I'm pretty sure the real world has already falsified a number of them. Eighteen American states have abolished the death penalty through 'the general populace' 'making a racket' (because that is how democracy functions).
Yes. That's also exactly why other states didn't abolish it. Democracy is only good if you're with the majority. There are major differences between Tennessee and, say, New York. Now, in New York, people might be against death penalty, so it's relatively simple to abolish there. No such luck in Tennessee, where if you want to get rid of this (very uneconomic) punishment, you'd have to either change the populace's mind (good luck with that), or somehow go against the general sentiment, which is very hard to do.
The economy of such solution might indeed by a problem, but it could also be turned to work towards the goal of abolishing death penalty. If, as you said, execution costs will grow when the execution number decreases, if you steadily decrease it, you will, one day, get to a point where you can start wielding the cost as a much more effective debating point than it is now. With that, you might have an easier time convincing people that abolishing death penalty is a good idea, in fact.
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If you're insulted you need to explain why I'm wrong, but then your explanation why you support firing squads is factually incorrect. Reread my last post, acknowledge what I said there, and update your explanation. Your stumbling point is the belief that there are no more effective and humane methods of execution. This is odd, since your belief has been corrected by multiple people multiple times in this thread alone.
Your antidemocratic argument was predicated on the belief that people will never mobilize to achieve this end. That's demonstrably wrong. You're moving the goalposts to 'some people will not mobilize to achieve this end', which is a different argument: you're now claiming it's hard, rather than impossible, which torpedoes your entire original claim, that no democratic process could effectively ban the death penalty and that your proposal for a raft of gradual confinement legislation was less drastic. 'Good luck with that', you say, and yet apparently good luck isn't necessary: just political action and process.
Your love of the firing squad and your hatred of democracy are motivated by the same fundamental illusion: a dream that you can replace complexity with simplicity, a simplicity that exists in your own mind but would tarnish and fail when subjected to the ultimate litmus—implementation.
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I really wonder how Dragon thinks the death penalty was abolished in every developed democracy but America and Japan.
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I can see we're all pretty passionate about this subject, but let's all take it down a notch right now.
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Debating the intellectual problems of the topic is a good notch and it's one I'd like the conversation to stay at. Claims that democratic states cannot effectively abolish the death penalty must confront the fact that abolitionism is globally endemic in developed democracies, so I think some pretty strong criticism is to be expected.
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Yes, remember to work on the issue, not the people presenting or participating in it.
The topic received a reported post. At the moment, I'm content to observe, but there are some fairly fine lines here between discussion of the issue vs. against the people involved, so try to keep directly personalized assumptions of the other to a minimum please.
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I trust you folks to adjudicate reports and determine what needs action. I'm sure you'll bear in mind that discussing someone's publicly espoused personal beliefs is not the same as discussing their merits as a person. Being an overt monarchist or totalitarian in a venue like this is going to draw a lot of critique, and that critique is fair.
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There is no treason in peacetime.
This is just flat-out wrong.
Correct (on Phantom Hoover's part). There's plenty of possibility for treason in peacetime. The military has legitimate reasons to keep its technology and tactical abilities classified with the goal of keeping the country safe. Even in peacetime a country still has enemies. And the US hasn't really been "at peace" since 9/11 (longer than that depending how you count it).
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Definitions, people. It's called sedition in peacetime.
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what ever you call it, I can accept some legitimacy to calling things like this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing) "not peace".
{TIL: Timothy McVeigh died three months to the day before 9/11, by lethal injection...}
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Definitions, people. It's called sedition in peacetime.
This is also wrong! I don't know where you people are getting your definitions from, but I'm looking at Wikipedia for 5 minutes and getting way more nuanced answers than these hard-and-fast ones you're giving.
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Definitions, people. It's called sedition in peacetime.
This is also wrong! I don't know where you people are getting your definitions from, but I'm looking at Wikipedia for 5 minutes and getting way more nuanced answers than these hard-and-fast ones you're giving.
1. One can still commit treason in peacetime.
2. Sedition can still be a very serious crime.
3. Again, the US isn't really at peace.
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No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country. Not indeed that after every victory it is to be apprehended that the victorious generals will possess themselves by force of the supreme power, after the manner of Sulla and Caesar; the danger is of another kind. War does not always give over democratic communities to military government, but it must invariably and immeasurably increase the powers of civil government; it must almost compulsorily concentrate the direction of all men and the management of all things in the hands of the administration. If it does not lead to despotism by sudden violence, it prepares men for it more gently by their habits. All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and the shortest means to accomplish it. This is the first axiom of the science.
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hey dontchaknow its ****ing rude not to credit the author of that and just copypaste it like there's no tomorrow? Just wait til mr Alexis knows about this, your writing career is over man just gone poooof.
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It's me. I'm Alexis de Tocqueville