First execution using nitrogen

[Jenry]

Alabama has executed a man using nitrogen flowing through a mask for the first time. Warning - distressing detail in the article.
how is this allowed to happen in this day and age? It’s inhumane.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68085513.amp

the death penalty is an important tool against human wickedness.

I fundamentally disagree with you and am very glad I live in a country that no longer has this penalty

The argument for the death penalty as a deterrent fails when you look at the fact that the incidence of homicide is higher in US states that have the death penalty as compared with those that don't, and as compared with the UK and European states that have no death penalty. It wasn't an effective deterrent when we had it. It always sticks in my mind that we had a death penalty at the time the Moors murderers committed most of their crimes, and clearly they weren't deterred.

I can't see how it can logically be contended that killing is so wicked that the perpetrator deserves to be killed. Either killing is wrong, or it isn't. If it is wrong, it cannot be right for the state to kill any of its citizens, especially in cold blood. It can't be described as a tool against human wickedness in circumstances where it isn't an effective deterrent. It's much more appropriate to punish the wicked by making them sit in prison for as long as is necessary, normally the rest of their lives.

JohnMytton - you’ve lost me. I was replying to a post of yours addressed to me where you said arguments about the utility of the death penalty are completely separate from the argument that it’s wrong because innocent lives may be lost.

Now you seem to be weighing innocent lives lost against utility yourself.

I think it’s pretty well accepted that the death penalty does not have a deterrent effect, so I think you’re wrong when you bring that up.

The only benefit it arguably has is some sort of intrinsic value in being the fitting punishment for those who ‘deserve’ it. You say this is ‘obvious’, but it clearly isn’t as many of us do not agree that any crime ‘deserves’ the death penalty. If there are other ways of protecting society safe from the worst criminals - and there are - I for one don’t find it justifiable.

I think it’s anything but an important tool, and I’m also glad we don’t have it here.

There isn't evidence though. Homicide rates are higher in countries that use capital punishment.

Violent crime went up post war because of prolonged rationing and poverty. Nothing to do with the suspension of the death penalty. Homicide rates in the uk currently are some of the lowest they have ever been.

Jeremy Bamber? As far as I know he hasn't attacked anyone while in prison.

I'm catching up with this thread but one thing occurs to me. In the USA people on death row spend years, often decades fighting the sentence and appealing.

Someone with a whole life or a 100 year sentence doesn't have those distractions and might actually think about their victim. Obviously they might not, but there is a chance.

Personally spending 50 years in a US prison, with no personal space, with every aspect of your life controlled, limited access to healthcare etc that is worse than death.

@Comedycook

I simply couldn't care less, about an murder's welfare who has taking away the precious life of a woman from her,

Just like he couldn't Care less about taking away his victim's precious life away from her

I have far more pressing and urgent stuff in my life to even Consirder for a second about individual like that,

It's not something 😕 that's going to give me even a moment of sleepless night worrying about him or possible future murder's or rapists in America receiving capital punishment,
L.o.l 😂

@Tel12
As far as i am concerned he could have spent life in prison whatever duration of time that is meant in American prisons,
and if he supposedly became according to you a reformed character to society,

even if did become a reformed character? 🤔 it will mean sweet Fuck all to the victims family,
who are serving the most severe life sentence of their own,

the reality of never being able to escape the mental torture of the reality of what really happened to their loved one in their dying moments,
A living hellish nightmare,
that nobody else can relate to or really understand,
only pretend to understand..

He can pretend to put on a facade to attempt to sweet talk the criminal justice parole board,
so he have his prison sentence cut,

How Disrespectful is that to the victims memory to even think like that???
It's all about himself and his own ego warped needs being satisfied again in entirely different way,
Obviously shouldn't naive about that fact,

but let's face its hardly susprisely criminals attempt to sweet talk the parole board like that,
After all individuals like that are not stupid,
for example ,
they could say they have become a born again Christian through the prison service
or and
saying another classic one,
I had a bad childhood so that's why i couldn't help it
that i commited crimes such as rape and murder,
If i only a better childhood,

How insulting is that though to people, like myself who have experienced some of the most shittiest 💩traumatic childhoods going,
but have never turned to crime,

And you know what
It does work for criminals to play the system like that, especially in the UK big time,
the criminal service parole fall for it like fools mugs"
and then they are perplexed "like its intriguing psychological blind spot a puzzling enigma",

why the criminals they have helped to realese goes on to murder or rape another victim, or multiple victims in our society and the cycle of destruction carrys on...

@JohnMytton you keep insisting that the death penalty is or might be a deterrent. Evidence suggests otherwise. Are you going to comment on the fact that murder rates are lower in US states that do not have the death penalty than they are in the states that do have the death penalty?

On the point of rehabilitation and the point about victims’ families wanting retribution, I would recommended watching the series Life and Death Row on BBC IPlayer for a bit more nuance around these difficult issues.

Victims families do not always want perpetrators dead. Some oppose the death penalty from the start. Some start out wanting the perpetrator dead and later change their minds. Some perpetrators can change and can want to make something worthwhile out of their lives. Humans are complex. The documentary also helps the viewer understand that a new set of victims are created when the death penalty is carried out. You may feel that a killer deserves to be gassed to death or given a lethal injection, but do the family of the killer deserve it? To create another childless mother or take another father away from their child seems unfair to the family who themselves may have done nothing wrong.

Another nuance that death penalty supporters forget to mention is the fact that the race of perpetrators and victims is relevant when it comes to dishing out the death penalty, with black perpetrators being more likely to be put to death than white perpetrators of similar crimes. This is magnified where the victim is white.

Some will read this and roll their eyes at bleeding heart liberals or whatever but it isn’t about being a softy, it’s about always having hope that something useful or worthwhile can come out of something heinous, and it’s about looking at nuances.

It’s just a discussion for us because (assuming most posters are in the UK) we don’t have the death penalty here, thank goodness, and I can’t see that it could ever be brought back now. Those of you who would like to live in a society which puts people to death could always move to the US or the Middle East if you like that sort of thing.

Definitely recommend watching Life and Death Row- it’s a really interesting series. Another excellent (but distressing) watch is Fourteen Days in May which documents the final days of a man on death row in Mississippi in the 80s. It highlights the prevalence of African Americans on death row and investigates the effects of the death penalty on prisoners, prison staff and perpetrators’ families. It also leaves the viewer questioning whether the man was actually guilty after all- it was by no means an open and shut case. Warning: the bit where they test the gas first on a pair of rabbits is distressing.

would you mind linking some?

so i think crimes against children (csa, r@pe etc), murder and anything that is of a heinous nature that once committed waives your right to be part of society.

Just another thought.

We assume people murder strangers. Some do, but a lot of homicides are within families.

It was a contract killing and he was poor.doesnt justify it but we need context.The death penalty is uncivilised.

Japan as well, I think?

"Not particularly a supporter of the death penalty or indeed prison time for most crimes, though."

so how would you punish murder @ComtesseDeSpair ?

Sounds like karma.

Maybe it will deter murderers knowing this may be their fate.

I simply couldn't care less, about an murder's welfare who has taking away the precious life of a woman from her

@cerisepanther73 you're totally missing the point. I don't particularly care either and I feel sympathy for the victim. But regardless of the crime, I find it absolutely terrifying that the state has the power to kill people and I fundamentally cannot ever think that's ok. The crime is irrelevant to that point of view.

I read a book a little while ago, by a journalist who had watched more executions than anyone else, and had interviewed the executioners, and the families involved, both the families of the convicted and those of the victim. It was an horrific read. Most executions are not calm. Most of the convicted fight and panic. Most of those viewing it pass out or vomit. It is not humane in any way, shape, or form.

I also read a history of executions and executioners, and that, also, was an horrific read. It literally made me panic whilst reading.

Well exactly and all the typical daily mail reading rabble rousers on here spouting that they'd happily do it themselves are talking shit...it's utterly sick

That's the thing, for most people basic survival instinct must kick in and it's inevitable that people will fight and panic.

I always remember a comment in a Dorothy Sayers book when an innocent person is condemned to death, and they talk about what it would have been like for her to go through the night before the hanging knowing that at 8 a.m. she was going to die, and that there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Guilty or innocent, that seems to me mental torture of the most horrific kind.