Can they stoop any lower? Surely this is inhuman?

[Touchwood2654]

From The Washington Post

I guess America are in good company for this one - only two other countries have public executions, Afghanistan and Iran. However neither of them have stooped the levels at live streaming it on the internet.

America has the highest gun ownership in the world, the second highest has half of the amount of guns and that's Yemen.

These aren't good clubs to be part of. It's sad to see what an uncivilized brutal country America has become, or perhaps has always been. What makes it more frustrating is this misconception they have that there somehow world leaders, when actually their leadership in is gun ownership high crime levels and executions.

Certainly for human rights they lack very far behind.

I fundamentally disagree with the death penalty, but if it were just that I could maybe see (while not agreeing with) your point. But live streaming it? You’re really ok with that?

I fundamentally disagree with the death penalty, but if it were just that I could maybe see (while not agreeing with) your point. But live streaming it? You’re really ok with that?

We have very little in common with USA, and I hate how all our news starts with what they are up to.

Nothing surprises me about that country

In some cases I’m not fully against the death penalty. Some people are so far outside of societal norms that jailing them for years upon years doesn’t seem to benefit anyone (except the companies that make money from jails I suppose).

But, I think a death penalty being carried out is still taking the life of a person. It’s not part of a film, it’s not entertainment and it can cause a lot of psychological damage for the people who administer it, have to watch it, the persons family, even victims and families of victims.
It should be done medically, and privately.

The fact that America is unable to do it in a way that isn’t barbaric is awful. If you’re going to do it, it should at least work and not fail as it has several times recently.
And it definitely isn’t something to be shown on tv. There will be twisted people who get their kicks out of that, plus I can only imagine the exposure it will get with impressionable teenage minds.
It is the American version of publicly stoning a woman or hanging a ‘criminal’ in Afghanistan or Iran, all things America considered ‘uncivilised.’

But then they’ve let a convicted felon into office twice and are quite happy to watch him break rules and generally make a mockery of all their ‘checks and balances’ laws so I’m not sure why we’re surprised.

The more I see about the world and it's horrors the less opposed to the death penalty i become.

Grown-ups are thin on the ground in US politics.

Disgusting - I despair of the US administration (and anyone who would choose to watch this).

I wanted to cry when I read this earlier. What on earth does live streaming this execution bring to anyone’s lives and who will be able to view it, could young kids be able to see it?

It’s absolutely barbaric, life really does feel as though it’s going backward now, I fear for so much in the future.

For all of you making generalisations about the US, Trump and Hegseth are incredibly unpopular at the moment. The military despises Hegseth. There is a non-zero chance he will be forced out of his job.

Not at all. But as an avid reader of true crime and having watched countless documentaries in respect of murder I don't believe that the general public are actually fully informed of the horrific details of these crimes, nor would they choose to be you might well say.

But unless you are in receipt of the facts and can thoroughly understand both sides of the story you are not in any way in a position to judge.

There's a lot more to murder than a quick gunshot to the head or a stab through the heart. Some of these victims have fought so hard and so bravely for their lives, used all their wits to try and outsmart their murderer and talk them round, and yet failed and still fallen victim. Some have died in lost bope terror and agony. They were not shown a merciful death. They wree tormented in the most vile ways by vile human beings, and Life imprisonment in a nice warm cell, with 3 meals a day, access to gym, video/tv and classes or whatever other stupid privileges they receive just doesn't cut the mustard with me I'm afraid. If you'd lost a family member to one of these sadistic vile sub human beings you might feel a little different maybe?

You think adding more horrors will help?

The normalisation of killing, one word: horrific.

Well. Firing squad because it's a court martial sentence. Last deaths by firing squad in the States were 2025. Lethal injection isn't look too reliable right about now.

As for the live streaming, until 1868 Britain routinely hung people in front of baying crowds. In theory, this was to act as a deterrent. Also to demonstrate the long arm of the law. And we do see streams of people being executed in the USA, it's just usually they're young, black men and the executioners are the police. Perhaps public state sanctioned execution has become normalised for Americans.

Classic FAFO.

I have to admit that I thought: this will appeal to the MAGA people, and Trump has a midterm election to win.

Which is why justice shouldn’t be decided by emotion.
Of course people commit abhorrent crimes. Of course they need to be removed from society. But if we start saying they showed no mercy so why should they receive any, we become as depraved as them. I aspire to a better moral compass than a murderer, personally.

Again, it one th8ng to believe in the death penalty (though I do not, and there’s no evidence it is a deterrent) but live streaming? You’re ok with that.

After the shooting of Charlie Kirk the teenagers I teach could talk of nothing else for ages. Speaking to ex colleagues in other schools it was the same there. They were fascinated by the blood, the gun, the way he moved etc. It was a hot topic for weeks and there was a change in behaviour from some kids who were over stimulated by this. I can imagine how watching an execution is going to have an impact.

This is an interesting take, @ProudCat. It would be good to hear from some of our American posters. I think you have made a salinet point in that guns, and therefore death by gunfire, is far more common in the USA, and therefore not as shocking to Americans as it is to Brits. You're quite right that young black men are killed on camera by police forces in the USA in shocking numbers (given that one is too many), so is this any different? I am shocked and appalled by the livestreaming, but also trying to square that with why, when it's not like we haven't seen it spread across our news screens many, many times.

What purpose does broadcasting this execution to the wider world serve?

The death penalty is about the Americans.supposedly delivering justice.
I believe the families get to go and observe if they wish - so those directly affected get to witness that justice being served.

But this serves no purpose except whipping up negative public feeling (division between the watchers and the horrified? Encouraging vigilantism? Trump flexing his power?) for some kind of political gain.

It is not justice, it's all kinds of fucked up behaviour by extremely powerful people.
Ministry of Love comes to mind.

I find this completely unfathomable. Who benefits and how does this make our world a better place?

I feel like things have slipped very far downhill since Obama left office. I look back at the 1990’s and think how civilised the western world was. This streaming feels mediaeval.

So you want to show your sympathy for the victims by perpetuating the killing ?

I don’t particularly have any strong opinions about the death penalty except to say that there is no easy way to kill a human being. And lethal injection to my mind is more about sanitising the process for those carrying it out than it ever was about the humane treatment of the condemned person themselves.

A testament to that is the fact that there have been 51 botched lethal injections since 1982. It should have been banned long before now, yet continues to be on the statute books despite the difficulty in obtaining the proper drugs and the secrecy around recruitment of staff willing to participate.

If the state is going to execute people then it should adhere to methods causing the least suffering to the person being dispatched. It should be crystal clear by now that lethal injection does not meet that threshold. What happened to Pike should result in the withdrawal of its use.

I would think firing squad would meet the threshold of being as quick and painless as possible but in this case, that’s been negated by the fact that it’s being live streamed. Who benefits from that ? Absolutely no-one as far as l can see - they can’t even claim that justice needs to be seen to be done because that’s why there are witnesses present. It says something about the mentality of those in charge that they would add another layer to what is already controversial unless they’re trying to demonstrate to the world that it’s a humane method. In which case they’d better hope it goes to plan.

Yes 1868. That's when we considered it wrong. The US are clearly 158 years behind us.