Absolutely appalled by Kenneth Eugene Smith's execution

[Haunting10]

Appalled is too soft a word. I feel physically sick and angry.

What a sick world we live in.

I am against the death penalty. One person wrongly convicted and sentenced to death is too many. This particular case sounds like torture, and to use what the Nazis used on millions, its just disturbing on so many levels.

I keep thinking about it. But what can we do? I'm in UK, and expect any activism will be happening in US.

What will happen to the state of Alabama? Surely something must be done. This was not human.

A little thought experiment:

If a child of yours had been found guilty of some heinous crime and condemned to death, would you be happy to see them suffer? Would you be happy to be the executioner? How would you feel,?

I think it's normal in alot of people to want perpetrators of violent crimes to suffer. Can you read about someone like Peter Sculley and say you wouldn't want this or worse for him? It's definitely not psychopathic, I doubt a psychopath would even be that bothered hearing about this type of crime, aren't they quite flat emotionally?

It's obviously hard to say if it was my own child, I probably wouldn't want it for them and I definitely wouldn't want to see them suffer, but I think if my child did something like this I'm the type of person that would block it out and try to pretend they didn't exist. But I'm not his mother, and his mother is one person and is bound to see the good in him even if it largely isn't there. Mothers will defend the most heinous of crimes and cover things up for them, their perception is skewed. If I was his victim's mother, I would definitely want to see him suffer.

I think I'd be okay being the executioner, I wouldn't choose it as my job though. Something like the death penalty is not conducive to the normal way humans get revenge on a dangerous person for the loss of an innocent, it's very calm and controlled and takes all of the wind out of the "justice".

it's very calm and controlled and takes all of the wind out of the "justice

@somekittenmittens you are very badly misinformed.

I've seen a far too much physical suffering in time. You've got to be all measure of fucked if you think suffering is a good thing.

The punishment is the removal of liberty. Going to prison is the punishment, they don’t go there to be punished in addition. Imagine having no autonomy or privacy. That’s the punishment.

@Daftasabroom I think rather you misinterpreted my post, by calm and controlled I meant in the person doing the execution. Mob justice would probably be much less damaging for the person doing the killing.

You could say I'm quite "fucked", there's someone in my life I would very much like to suffer horribly due to childhood issues, so I empathise with the victims who were minding their own business much more than I empathise with someone who decided to ruin the peace because he couldn't be a normal human being and decided to ruin multiple lives for money. Regardless of if he had a bad upbringing, or made a bad choice, or whatever else sympathisers will use to defend him, so do hundreds of other people. So do the children of the woman he executed. Once you cross that line I believe all hopes of human decency should be turned off for you. Civilised society is the reason we don't bash people over the head for money, or mob justice. If you break the rules of civilised society by killing someone for money, I don't think you deserve the benefits of it.

It’s.
Not.
A.
Deterrent.
People have given evidence about this repeatedly.

And literally nobody is saying it wasn’t inhuman. Or that they think it was ok. Or that they don’t have sympathy for the victim or her family.
That doesn’t make the death penalty ok.
Or make people who don’t like it silly. Or liberal for that matter.

Can you show me someone defending him, please?
I must have missed it.

So essentially you're happy with state-arranged torture. How do you think that should work normally? I mean, in this case it was purely accidental. Should the judge prescribe in detail exactly what torture should be imposed according to how serious s/he deemed the accused's crime to be? Who should be required to carry out that torture, and do you think it would be in any way harmful to them?

Or should we perhaps take note that we've moved away from 17th century standards and that we are supposed to be a civilised society?

AM is not relevant here - his wasn't a water tight conviction ie; there was doubt as shown by the 10-2 jury split and one rape would not warrant the death penalty anyway

Something like the death penalty is not conducive to the normal way humans get revenge on a dangerous person for the loss of an innocent, it's very calm and controlled and takes all of the wind out of the "justice".

The normal way humans in the UK get revenge is through life imprisonment. As this case demonstrates, there is nothing calm and controlled about the operation of the death penalty, whether for the person receiving it or the person carrying it out.

It's highly relevant as demonstrating the continued inability of the legal system to ensure that innocent people are not convicted. It took far too long to establish his innocence.

There are 2-4 people on death row in the US whose charges are dismissed or exonerated every year.

That's 2-4 people who could be killed incorrectly each year.

So it's all very well saying that it doesn't matter if this particular man was tortured, that it serves him right, that he did the crime so he should be punished, that it's fine if he suffers.

The issue is, that if 2-4 people are released from death row each year, if they hadn't been released they too could have suffered horrific deaths they didn't deserve.

And if 2-4 people are released from death row each year, how many more people are killed who shouldn't be?

By using this method it's opened the door for many more people to be killed in a way that was incredibly distressing for those who witnessed it who have described it as torture. A method condemned by the UN. And some of the people who will be killed using this method may very well be innocent.

I have zero sympathy for this particular man. But I have every concern for the outcomes of those who may be innocent on death row. And if not wanting innocent people to be tortured to death makes me a liberal do-gooder then so be it.

How can you know it's not a deterrent to some people?

Some people may have gone out to murder cheating partners or similar but didn't due to the death penalty if caught. They are hardy going to say so.

If that was the case Liquorice wouldn’t the numbers be lower ?

people don’t not commit crimes for fear of being caught people don’t commit crimes because that don’t want to

those that do the desire to do whatever crime the commit overrides concerns of being caught and the majority simply don’t think they will

I disagree, I think a lot of people don't do crime because the risk of getting caught and punished is a deterrent.

That doesn't explain the crime stats in the USA for example where states with the death penalty have higher murder rates than those without.

If execution was a big deterrent then would it not make sense that in the USA those states with no death sentence would have higher murder rates than those with a so called ultimate deterrent?

Does the UAE or Saudi Arabia have lower murder rates and crime in general?

If so why?

I maybe have better faith in people

I think why most of us don’t commit crimes is down to our beliefs in what is right and what is wrong and how we view ur place in society that is why good rehabilitation often works very well

for many this gets very muddled for various reasons often unstable childhoods and then some people just like to con others, harm others and so on

Malcolm Alexander was guilty of aggravated rape and spent 38 years locked up for a crime he did not commit. It's a long article but worth a read.

STATE OF LOUISIANA v. MALCOLM ALEXANDER (2023) | FindLaw

Because the figures say it isn’t.

A quick Google seems to show the murder rate in Saudi Arabia is roughly the same as the UK...about 10 per million

But anyway correlation is not necessarily causation.

UAE has a very low murder rate but i imagine that will be down to many factors... culture, religion, wealth etc. Punishment may play a role but I highly doubt it is the entire reason.

Nah I agree with Peter Sutcliffe and Ian Huntley. And Wayne Couzens. Some people are just evil (although most people in prison are not, contrary to what a pp said).

But as I said above, that's exactly why we don't have the death penalty, because punishment should not be about revenge and people like me wanting the worst for them, but getting these murderers off the streets, which doesn't have to be done by killing them.