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.

BMW I would feel just ad safe knowing they will be behind bars for life, don't see the need to kill them.

Mmmm horror and sympathy for someone who raped and murdered an 11 month old.

I find the death sentence barbaric and in humane.
But a man who is capable of doing if this has crossed every possible line of decency which has ever existed.
If he raped and murdered my 11 month old baby then I don't think knowing he was behind bars being fed 3 meals a day would quite seem like a suitable punishment to me.
But (again) could I kill him?
Christ only knows.

How do we handle people who are so fucked up?

Rhonda That fascinates me.

Do you believe that your DR Penpal committed the crime?

(Genuinely not looking for an argument. I'm just very curious!)

I oppose the death penalty but...

They do not suffer like this poor American did

Lets not get away from the act that this man kidnapped his victim, beat her and then gang raped her and buried her alive. He was also accused of raping an 11 month old baby.

I find it very hard to give a fuck that this man suffered.

*fact that

Just in the interests of clarity - the rape and murder of the 11 month old baby was not the executed man. That was the second man due to be executed just after. His execution was stayed due to the issues.

It doesn't detract from what this man did, but I thought we should clarify.

Sorry, AreYouFeeling you are right. I think they were cell mates, the article I read wasn't particularly clear.

Still not giving a fuck about his death though... I realise that makes me a bad person.

lucky, I'm not really interested in whether he committed the crime he's imprisoned for, strange thought that might sound.

We never discuss the crime in our letters or phone calls because he has never told me what the crime was. For many years I never knew what the crime was and it was only with the advent of the internet that I found out by chance when I was researching something else. It seems a pointless conversation to have as we have so much more to talk about.

OP, sorry I didn't answer your question as to what I think should be done with sadistic murderers.

I really don't know, tbh. I write to a prisoner on DR but that doesn't make me any better placed to have a view on this. I would always defer to people who've done the research and can put forward evidence-based proposals for how to manage such people.

Sorry, that's not much help, but it's the truth

I haven't followed the case, is it certain that he did it?

There are philosophical and ethical reasons to be against the death penalty, but I oppose it for practical reasons. As PP have said, there are very few rich, white men on death row. There have been too many high-profile miscarriages of justice to make judical murder safe.

It's not about reeking vengeance on this one man is it? It's very easy to say 'this man had no care for the suffering he inflicted so he doesn't deserve the same back at him' ... But it's not about him, it's about all death row prisoners and ourselves as a society.

I'm glad I don't live in a vengeance and evil kind of culture - its cruel and justifies horrors if you're on the right side, the avenging side. I don't think humans should have a right to decide to kill someone, there ate other ways of punishment which don't being everyone down to the level of barbarism.

I don't think it's overreacting to suggest that America's healthcare system (or lack of it) contributes to people being on death row who are mentally ill.

I think that you can judge a society on how it treats the worst of that society, and that treating them with dignity and humanity shows society in the best possible light. Human rights are rights we have because we are human, and they cannot be taken away. The man who was executed did awful things and needed punishing, but he was still a human. He still had a family, who had nothing to do with his crimes. He still had a life. He didn't have the right to take away someone else's life, but that doesn't mean that the government had to take away his - two wrongs don't make a right. That's a basic lesson people learn as children, surely? Killing him doesn't bring his victim back from the dead, it doesn't change anything, so what's the point?

Rhonda thank you, just genuinely curious really! I knew someone in the past who wrote to a death row prisoner but that was because she had issues with trust in relationships and therefore this "relationship" - which was what she described it as - was as "safe" as she could manage, e.g in reality she knew she would never meet him as he would never be free and she knew where he was at night!

No problem, tinkerball.

I think your friend is probably in the minority. I'm not having a relationship with the prisoner I'm writing to; I'm offering friendship.

I was single when I started writing to him and my, eldest child is now an adult. My DH has always supported my letter-writing - in fact, we discussed it extensively before I signed up for it (we were together when I decided to start writing) and I would never have done it if he had had any reservations. In fact, the prisoner I write to sends us wedding anniversary cards every year, on time, without fail.

Tbh, I am appalled to hear of someone using this kind of letter-writing as relationship therapy. There is a human being at the end of it and if your friend suddenly finds she is able to trust someone agin, is she going to drop the prisoner without warning? It sounds to me like a very selfish reason for writing.

It baffles me why they cannot have a gun to hand to shoot somoene in the head if an execution by lethal injection goes wrong. In fact I think that shooting someone in the head while under general anesthetic might be more effective than a complicated cocktail of drugs.

I feel that life imprisonment is a better way of treating our worst murderers than the death penalty.

The legal framework around executions is tortuous, OP.

Providing for an alternative, "emergency" method of execution, in case the designated method goes wrong, would involve a change that would probably take decades to make law.

Nothing is simple in the US legal system. The prisoner I write to has been backwards and forwards through the appeals system so many times it boggles your mind.

The prisoner I write to has been backwards and forwards through the appeals system so many times it boggles your mind.

Mind boggling is right! I really would have thought that 30 years (in the case of your pen pal) of psychological torture (which is what 30 years of waiting to be killed is) would contravene the eighth amendment with respect to cruel and unusual punishment - so does the death penalty imo but that's another matter.

"Despite the fact he shot a 19 year old girl, and buried her alive. He doesn't deserve to be tortured."

And the girl did. Can you imagine what being buried alive feels like? To be murdered in cold blood for doing nothing wrong? This guy killed an innocent and peso ole are harping on about his "rights"

By all means let's realise Gary glitter? Or shall we pardon Ian Brady?

When people commit a crime they deserve punishment. They lose all human rights, because to watch someone's life drain out if them, knowing all the pain and suffering your are and are going to cause doesn't make you worthy of human!

I apologise for my rant but this is a cause close to my heart. People who kill someone else don't deserve our potty

People who kill someone else don't deserve our potty

I'm sure then that you'll agree with refusing any kind of empathy/support to those who carry out these acts of state sanctioned murder, should the enormity of these acts have an adverse impact on them?

I looked into this when I heard the news because as a vet who humanely euthanases animals on a regular basis, I truely didnt understand what the problem was in doing a good job. (not saying it should be done but it bloody well should be done quickly and humanely if it has to be)
if injection is the problem why not give people the choice. They can drink a drug containing drink and slip painlesly to sleep (as per dignitas using freely available drug that is sold over the counter in mexico!) or they can choose something like the electric chair. Not so humane but quicker than chemical torture and blown veins.

If the US Government was truly in favour of Lethal injection as a method of enforcing Judicial murder, it would force US drug companies to provide the highly effective chemicals to the penal system.
But it does not.
So they will not be associated with it.
Since 1976 they relied on EU companies who have now turned off the tap too.

TBH I do have a tad of an issue with the money spent on "suicide watch" to ensure that people like Rosemary West and Ian Brady stay alive at our expense.

muddiboots, as I posted on the other thread, alternative methods of execution are only available if the crime was committed before a certain date (varies from state to state) and if the prisoner requests it. Most states have now moved to lethal injection as it's considered less barbaric

If you think the electric chair is quicker and better than lethal injection, read this [warning: very graphic images described]:

"July 8, 1999. Florida. Allen Lee Davis. Electrocution. Before he was pronounced dead ... the blood from his mouth had poured onto the collar of his white shirt, and the blood on his chest had spread to about the size of a dinner plate, even oozing through the buckle holes on the leather chest strap holding him to the chair. His execution was the first in Florida's new electric chair, built especially so it could accommodate a man Davis's size (approximately 350 pounds). Later, when another Florida death row inmate challenged the constitutionality of the electric chair, Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw commented that "the color photos of Davis depict a man who for all appearances was brutally tortured to death by the citizens of Florida." Justice Shaw also described the botched executions of Jesse Tafero and Pedro Medina (q.v.), calling the three executions "barbaric spectacles" and "acts more befitting a violent murderer than a civilized state." Justice Shaw included pictures of Davis's dead body in his opinion. The execution was witnessed by a Florida State Senator, Ginny Brown-Waite, who at first was "shocked" to see the blood, until she realized that the blood was forming the shape of a cross and that it was a message from God saying he supported the execution."

Sububunrhonda-No sure electric chair was horrific, just meaning as a enforcement to drink the drink, ie you are going to die, heres a nice easy humane way but you have to self administer OR we will put you in the chair.
Just thinking of a humane way that doesnt require input of another human being.
again not debating wether it should happen .