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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
In reply to:
this most horrible, barbaric closing of the door
Are you referring to the death penalty in general or to lethal injection in particular? The first two drugs given (sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide) are used or have been used for routine anesthesia for surgery, so they have a pretty good idea that these drugs cause a painless loss of consciousness and cessation of breathing. It's the only form of execution I know of wherein the condemned is premedicated to feel good before dying. I understand that some people are opposed to the death penalty in any form, period, but I honestly don't see what is so barbaric about this particular method. Firing squad, hanging, gas chamber, not to mention ye olde chopping blocke, all seem pretty barbaric in comparison.
The real discomfort is the emotional stress, waiting on death row. The Japanese have a particularly suspense-filled approach to capital punishment: the condemned prisoner does not know his date of execution, so every morning he wonders if this is the day that the jailers will walk to his cell and summon him. When their time is up, prisoners are given 15 mintues to clean their cell (now there's some nerve! I'd refuse...what are they going to do, kill me?) and then off they go to their death.
Speaking of which, why do we use the term "capital punishment"? Is it a reference to the head, as in beheading? Corporal punishment on the other hand is nonlethal physical punishment to the body or corpus.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Dear Alex,
I am adamantaly opposed to the death penalty. I believe the death penalty is absolutely barbaric and represents part of our worst behavior as a species.
Your questions on capital punishment I hope someone will answer.
Best regards,
WW
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear Wordwind: I think capital punishment makes more sense than spending millions
to keep someone in a relatively luxurious prison, when the money could be much
better spent helping the unfortunate. If you think I am exaggerating, check out the
cost of imprisonment. Almost fifty years ago it was quoted at forty thousand per annum.
With inflation, it would not surprise me if current figure were close to a hundread thousand
per annum. Do guys who rape and then murder little girls just to prevent their testifying
against them deserve to have that much money spent to keep them alive?
I went and looked it up. New argument for life imprisonment is that it is cheaper that execution.
I confess I did not know the lawyers made so much money out of it.
In Texas, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million,
about 3 times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the
highest security level for 40 years. This figure does not include the
cost of the federal appeals process where 50 % to 70% of the death
sentences are overturned.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
Do guys who rape and murder little girls deserve to have that much money
spent to keep them alive?
No.
But the proper question is this:
Is it worth society spending $x to keep its own hands free of the pervasive taint of judicial murder?
The answer must be yes.
America is one of the few western countries claiming civilised status that does not yet recognise this fundamental principle of human dignity.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear maverick: It seems below your level to use phrase "judicial murder".
People make the laws, the judges merely interpret and order implementation thereof.
I'm sure few if any judges enjoy pronouncing sentence of death. But they have to
obey the law.
A considerable majority of Americans favor the retention of death penalty for
the most horrible of crimes. Direct your efforts at persuasion to them, and omit
gratutitous insults to the judiciary.
"Judicial murder" is a fitting coinage of the intellectual descendants of the
P.M.Neville Chamberlain who created the self-adulatory phrase "Peace in our time".
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