to not understand why it is so difficult to kill a human being humanely

[ReallyTired]

Animals are put to sleep or slaughtered for food every day. They do not suffer like this poor American did. People go under general anesthetic every day for major operations without mishap. Surely an excecution is easier to carry out than complex heart surgery.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27220406

I don't want to discuss the pro and cons of captical punishment, but surely if the state is going to kill someone it can be done quickly and simply. Why is killing a person more complicated than killing a cow or a pig? I see no excuse for botched executions.

Ha. Not sorry he suffered at all. Divine retribution. If I was religious that is

It's not Devine retribution at all. It's the vengeance of man, however much you dress it up as God's will or karma or anything else. It's like all that other right wing 'religious' talk about going back to the bible. An eye for an eye. Not only will the whole world be blind and toothless but women, minorities and poor people will be put well and truly in our place for the sake of 'right' and 'justice'. It's no coincidence that the same states which have the death penalty have legalised discrimination and poor access to safe, legal abortion generally speaking .

And what about the people who aren't guilty?.

Glen Ford was released from death row last month after THIRTY years when it was finally admitted that not only did he not commit the crime for which he was sentenced to death, he wasn't even there.

He will (rightly) be entitled to compensation in the future but this will be capped at just over $300,000 (around $11,000 for every year that was stolen from him) but that's the future, he was released with a $20 'hardship payment' to try and start a life. Oh, but he wasn't actually executed so it's ok ...plenty of people were fighting for him to be and would, if they share some of the more abhorrent views of some of the posters here 'enjoy his suffering'.

If rapists, murderers and paedophiles received appropriate sentances - life meaning every day for the rest of their life - then I think there would be no justification for the death penalty.

In a world where these sick bastards are permitted to return to the streets, I for one am glad that some of them are sentenced to death.

Guaranteed whole life sentances for all murderers, rapists and paedophiles is the only correct punishment.

Of course it's not devine retribution pebbly which is exactly why I added if I was religious. If I believed it karma I'd blame that to. In this instance it's just bad luck on his part that he suffered some sort of pain, probably a fraction of what he inflicted on his victim.

You being religious wouldn't make it Devine retribution either. It wasn't even entirely bad luck. It was a string of human decisions and fuck ups.

Am against the death penalty.

But in places where it exists, it needs to be as quick and painless as possible.

As AMA does no permit doctors to be involved, and as the previously used drugs can no longer be exported to USA, this leaves electric chair (doesn't always work well), untried drug cocktail (definitely doesn't work well) hanging or firing squad.

Is the unpopularity of the latter methods are messy, and therefore remind the public that it really is a killing?

If the idea that a needle is somehow humane and akin to putting down a pet, then is there any particular reason why they don't just use a massive overdose of diamorphine?

life for ALL murderers - ALL - even those who where helping a terminally ill loved one die? or the ones who got into a drunk fight that ended in a fatal blow to the head?

also you are happy to fun the cost of keeping all those people in jail for life - even the ones who are deemed to pose no threat? What about peadophiles who haven't committed any crimes?

we have whole life tariffs in the UK and we have minimum terms which are reviewed

Meditrina-that's a very good point about a 'real' killing.

I don't understand why they don't put the person under GA before applying the drugs?

Either way I don't agree with the death penalty.

Michael Portilo did an interesting documentary on the death penalty a few years ago.

They concluded that the most humane way was hypoxia but no states use it.

is there any particular reason why they don't just use a massive overdose of diamorphine?

Maybe it would have a catastrophic effect on the supply of diamorphine for the rest of the population (if it's imported) or maybe the drug companies won't sell it for executions (if it's domestic) either for their own moral reasons or because of shareholder revolt.

maddening The first drug was an anaesthetic until the state ran out of it and 'experimented'

This article I linked earlier explains it better than I could

www.scientificamerican.com/article/lete28099s-stop-pretending-the-death-penalty-is-a-medical-procedure-editorial/

The 'poor American' was his victim.

pebbyshit maybe they could just buy it on the street? Or more seriously, import direct from the a range of supplier countries (Columbia, Afghanistan etc)

There was a guy on that Life and Death Row that was on recently who had a horrible, horrible childhood - poverty, abuse, drugs, by the looks of it most inflicted by his parents. He, his brother and his dad were involved in a fight when he was 15 years old. He was tried and sentenced as an adult and, even though he didn't commit the murder, his dad was the one who both brought the knife and killed the man, this then 16 year old was sentenced to 99 years.

In prison he killed a guard, and received the death penalty.

That is one of the most shocking things I have seen in years - that his state, Texas, would do nothing to help a clearly traumatised and systematically abused young man, but would rather take his life away at 16, and then when he killed again, decided to kill him.

And it's shocking to me because it's not one sick person commiting a hideous crime, it is a.government, a state, a society writing off a deeply troubled 16 year old boy.

Another one who is at the 'poor American'. I am against the death penalty, but I really am struggling to care about this.

The BBC headline of 'man dead after botched leathal injection' was a bit ridiculous!

Having said that, the Daily Mail's gleeful blow by blow account of the whole thing is just sick, they love this sort of shit!

meditrina They probably could if they were an underworld gang, but they are the state, which makes it tricky. 20 vials of anaesthetic were mistakenly sold to Missouri to use in lethal injections and 90% of the supply was almost cut off in the fallout. It's used in 50 million procedures a year so it was a big deal. It's a political hot potato. How would the average Texan death penalty supporter feel about buying drugs from Afghanistan? I really don't know. Does Afghanistan even have a legit pharma industry? Does Columbia? China does, and they have the death penalty but they may be tied in with EU companies (although surely not all of them). I assume people who know a lot more about it than me have already explored these avenues.

Meditrina - buying drugs off the street will not work since a recent Supreme Court ruling stated that the defense has a right to demand the list of ingredients in the drug cocktail proposed to be used to execute the defendant. Until this ruling States kept this information highly secret.

I suppose also they could quality check stuff impounded in seizures.

I doubt there would be much comment against buying raw materials from nigh on anywhere for this purpose. It's an off-licence drug, very readily available, multiple suppliers, possible to manufacture/refine outside big pharma, but easy to test in Govt labs.

The logistics are so simple (and always would have been) and the drug is so cheap, why was it never an option preferred above the cocktails formerly or currenty used?

Even if big pharma are making it impossible to use now (which I doubt, as other pharma drugs were used in this cocktail), it could have been used in the past, but it wasn't. What was the reason then?

In practical terms, using anaesthetic drugs is a very straightforward method of killing someone. Look at Michael Jackson's death.

Drug manufacturers refuse to allow their products to be used in executions. One supplier of a standard anaesthetic drug (thiopentone) stopped supplying it altogether which wasn't great for those of us who need to use it for legitimate reasons.

Thankfully doctors don't have to be involved in executions.

I am on the fence with the death penalty. It clearly doesn't work as a deterrent (most death row inmates presumably didn't think they'd get caught anyway), it's more expensive in terms of appeals etc than a life sentence and I cannot begin to imagine what inmates go through psychologically. It's also irreversible in the case of wrongful conviction.

On the other hand the rape and murder of an 11 month old baby is also unimaginably horrific. Some form of punishment is obviously required.

The supreme court ruling saying they had to say what drugs are used and from where they came was overturned.

The government STILL does not give this information and that's one of the most terrifying things about it.

There is no excuse for botched executions you're right OP - but nevertheless botched jobs are a constant factor in the history of capital punishment. Mary Stuart and Thomas Cromwell from the 16 century through to the hanging victims of the 19th century - get the drop wrong and you'll decapitate the subject - which I think happened to Saddam Hussein too didn't it? And now the 21st century sees more suffering. If you have capital punishment then you will have botched killings and you will kill innocent people as well as the guilty. Accepting the death penalty means accepting both of those things.
I think the death penalty is the ultimate barbarism. I don't want to see it anywhere in the world and I hold in contempt those who think it delivers justice. You vengeful fools, can't you see how supporting state killing in the name of 'justice' diminishes you all?

I find quite a lot of what the US does quite disturbing. I guess because in many ways we think of them as similar to us (shared language etc) when of course they are a totally different culture.

Of course we do some pretty godawful things as well.

So eg I find it more disturbing that the US executes people than some of the other nations that do.

I guess cos of all this look we're so great and democratic and everyone should follow our example stuff when really often it's not such a great example at all. And on the surface they are like us but really they just aren't at all.

Anyway I digress.

At least the USA follows a legal (kind of) process and is open to scrutiny. China on the other hand....Iran.......Saudi Arabia