Christa Pikes is awake and ‘talking’

[wouldntyouwanthelp]

She’s out of the coma and talking to her lawyers. Aibu to think the state of Tennessee can’t possibly try to do the lethal injection again ? Surely not? People on Reddit are suggesting she might need an amputation of one of her arms because of how caustic pentobarbital is.

Christa Pike 'conscious and speaking at hospital' after failed execution in US
https://news.sky.com/share/13595950

Yw

There are a lot of rumours, yes, but this seems to be a reliable report.

The people being executed this year were convicted in the 80's and early 90's for the most part, so I'm not sure what point you're making here? We need to halt the DP until 2040?

In which case, I agree; hopefully we will be slightly less primitive by 2040.

Yes, it sucks for those innocent people, but what can you do? Justice is justice.

To be fair to MN, this isn't why that post was deleted.

Which is why I included the caveat that the death penalty should be applied to very specific cases only and these specific cases should not allow for an appeal. That isn’t to say other people in prison shouldn’t be allowed to appeal (depending on circumstances) which is why I felt your examples irrelevant to what I was saying.

Have you heard about the Heilbronn serial killer?

DNA evidence linked a series of murders in Europe. Did the DNA belong to the murderer? No, it was a worker in the cotton swab factory whose dna had contaminated the evidence.

it’s not infallible.

lucy Letby, for example, has been found guilty of a series of murders. If the conviction is correct, then she’s a serial killer of young babies, a crime many here have agreed would fit the death penalty.

however in her case there is no DNA or cctv evidence. So should someone get the death penalty if the conviction is secured without?

The victim's mother wanting blood is not healthy, especially after all this time. She really needs better counselling.

So which (or what sort of) cases shouldn't allow for an appeal in your view?

Yes. There are also records documenting that she had seizures, which in themselves can also cause brain damage.

Absolutely.

The appeal process is usually lengthy - often decades - so we wont know how many recent convictions are ultimately found wrongful for a long time.

Even then, several wrongul convictions that resulted in death sentences have been already been overturned for crimes occurring as late as the 2010s.

Isaiah McCoy - convicted 2012
Ralph Daniel Wright Jr - convicted 2014
Rodricus Crawford - convicted 2013
Derral Wayne Hodgkins - convicted 2013
Carl Dausch - convicted 2012

If you added in the 2000s and the 1990s, where CCTV was similarly widely available and DNA routinely used, the list would likely be closer to 100 long.

And those are just the ones later proven wrongful.

Yes? What were they convicted on? Who is they?

DNA evidence was still in its infancy in the 80s. By the 90s it was much more reliable and relied on.

The point I have been making all along is that the death penalty should only be applied to cases without a doubt. Considering the technology we currently have, it makes such outcomes much easier to determine.

There's no such word as "trialed". And the co-accused didn't take a plea deal to avoid the death penalty.

It's already been pointed out to you that Christa Pke refused the deal on the advice of her 4 month qualified attorney, who wrongly told her that she wouldn't get the death penalty. It's not her fault that she believed him.

As you say, both committed a horrific offence, though in fact the boyfriend seems to have been more involved - he was the one who drew the hexagon, for instance.

Why are you banging on about people who have sympathy for this crime when no-one on this thread has said they have it? Yet again, please try and get it into your head that the courts can and regularly do apply mitigating factors without condoning the underlying offence in any way.

I respect their grief, but I don't think their theology is up to much.

There are multiple reasons why the death penalty was abolished in Europe and elsewhere, and increasing numbers of countries are abolitionists in practice and are moving towards full-abolition: it does not deter crime, legal systems make errors and no system is fail-safe, it is applied in a sex- and race-discriminatory manner, it is cruel. And actually, most humans are squeamish about murder being committed in their name.

And there is also a philosophical reason: it is utterly hypocritical to kill someone for killing. The death penalty has no place in a civilised decent society. I don't want to be part of a country that uses it.

I was once pro-DP but the sickening miscarriages of justice that have led to innocent people being killed by it, and the hypocrisy of it, converted me.

Well, that's one way of showing yourself up, I suppose.

What's next? You're going to tell me vociferously that the sky is blue in case I try to claim it's pink?

Surely anyone trained as a sniper for the army should have no qualms about executing someone legally and on command, given that is what they do for their day job?

So.. Christa has a horrific life, ends up murdering someone as pretty much a direct result of what happened to her. Thats bad, she should die.

Her victims mother has an awful life because her daughter was murdered... so it's ok for her to want to kill someone...

I understand wanting justice and wanting vengeance. But at some point, like when that involves killing that person - doesn't that make you as bad as the person you want killed?

You’re missing a crucial point there though. A lot of the people on death row now are precisely people who were involved in those cases from the 80’s. The people sentenced to death now won’t be executed until the late 40’s or 50’s.

And

In the Heilbronn case the DNA found at multiple crime scenes was a curveball, but it was ultimately discovered that the DNA belonged to that of an innocent factory worker. In a way it’s a testament to forensic work.

No, someone should not be sentenced to death without DNA evidence, which is why I’ve said countless times now, that the death penalty should only be given in cases without a doubt.

By modern standards, it would require DNA, forensic evidence, circumstantial evidence, witnesses and or footage. Of course in some cases people have been literally caught in the act.

I’ve learned a lot with this situation - I would absolutely have assumed this was a humane method but I didn’t realise it’s not just as simple as an injection, and that the executioner isn’t necessarily medically trained!

I think it can be hard for Europeans to understand the concept here, that Colleen’s mother seems to want Pile to die etc. It’s surely a cultural question, and maybe a New Yorker or a Bostonian also wouldn’t relate.

I question myself why I feel sympathy for Pike - probably because of her upbringing and background but there are also many people with shocking childhoods, who go on to be good people.

I suspect so. I don't know how many times you've patiently explained about mitigating factors, but it's many. I take my hat off to you for your kindly perseverance but I think this poster is either willfully argumentative or simply unable to comprehend.

No, yet again, I have not stated that.

Wayne Broadhurst’s murderer for example.

The problem is that proving that the criminal act was committed doesn't necessarily amount to proof that the offence was committed where a mental element, usually intent, is required also. And when both have been established, there is still the possibility of challenge in relation to the appropriateness of the sentence.

And those cases from the 80s are more
likely to be innocent than people convicted yesterday. I miss no point at all.

Perhaps cases where the conviction was made without forensic/DNA evidence should be reviewed. I’m not against that, it’s kind of been my point all along. The death penalty has to be made without a doubt.