July 23, 2014

"The execution of a convicted murderer in Arizona lasted for nearly two hours on Wednesday..."

"... as witnesses said he gasped and snorted for much of that time before eventually dying."
“I’m telling you he was snoring,” Stephanie Grisham, spokeswoman for the Arizona attorney general’s office, said in an e-mail to The Washington Post. “There was no gasping or snorting. Nothing. He looked like he was asleep. This was my first execution and I have no reason to minimize this.”

42 comments:

madAsHell said...

Ya' know....the 9mm solution is just a bang.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Why not give the condemned a choice. Lethal injection, electric chair, hanging, or firing squad or even guillotine. That seems fair to me.

Gahrie said...

Who gives a shit. Personally, I think the death penalty should be painful.

Alex said...

How about lowered slowly into flesh eating acid feet first?

Unknown said...

Yes Bill gives a good solution.

This whole death penalty cruelty process is evidence that everything liberals touch turns to (*&((. This suffering is inflicted to continue to stomp out what the rest of society continues to affirm, that some crimes are so serious they merit our societal action to take the monster's life.

Unknown said...

---How about lowered slowly into flesh eating acid feet first?

I used to think Alex was parodying liberals but this convinces me he's the real deal.

David said...

I support the death penalty, not terminal torture. That is indeed cruel and unusual punishment, though unfortunately not as unusual as we would like.

Original Mike said...

Just shoot him. But, no. We must be humane. Idiots.

Jim Gust said...

This guy committed a double murder in 1989. He's lived for 25 more years, and on the taxpayer's dime, than did his victims. Two minutes, two hours, I really don't care how long the execution took. I'm more concerned that it didn't take place 20 years ago.

Paul said...

Like I've said before, dab of c4 in each ear will do the trick.

But I still feel for the death penalty to be used they need to convict beyond A SHADOW OF A DOUBT.

James Pawlak said...

If we are to have capital punishment, then we should know and remember that the two most "humane" methods are: "Judicial hanging"; And, a single, mid-caliber, pistol round through the base of the skull.

I am curious: How were their victims killed, how long did they suffer, etc.?

Mark said...

I doubt this is what Jesus would do.

Anonymous said...

Hanging is better, takes longer. Gallows are reusable, ropes are cheaper than drug cocktails, cheaper than bullets, less messy than guillotines.

As they say, don't want to die, don't do the crime.

Still, to avoid mistaken executions, we must allow life without parole for first murder, death for serial, and torturers.

Michael K said...

Lethal injection is a poor method because so many murders were druggies and have few veins left. The gas chamber is still the best.

Browndog said...

"If the government were in charge of the Sahara, there'd be a shortage of sand in 5 years."

If the government were in charge of quick, painless, humane executions.....

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Why not try an overdose of heroin? That seems to be reliable. It can't be cruel or unusual because so many people do it voluntarily.

Clyde said...

He committed the murders in 1989, so this took 25 years too long, not two hours. Think of it as being like extra time at the end of a soccer game.

Quaestor said...

The culprit in our never-ending debate about capital punishment appears to be the Amendment VIII, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment.

Formal logic is persnickety about conjunctions. If it's given that all X is Y and Z, then both conditions must hold for X to be true, whereas if it is given that all X is Y or Z, then only one condition need hold. The Amendment uses the inclusive conjunction, therefore logically only punishment that are both cruel and unusual are banned. However, the courts have dealt with capital punishment questions as if it the wording were "cruel or unusual."

It's a real problem, because if we are strictly logical then crucifixion as practiced by the Roman Republic would pass muster, because though cruel in the extreme, being nailed to something wasn't that unusual. Crassus crucified 6000 rebellious slaves along the Appian Way, and there were so many crucifixions during the Jewish War of AD 70 the Romans had to import the timbers from Rhodes.

The notion of cruelty is also problematic. All punishments involve a degree of cruelty. A cruelty-free punishment would be indistinguishable from no punishment at all. Some death penalty opponents seems to think that life imprisonment is inherently less cruel than death by hanging. I doubt that. Death may well be preferable to being confined to a tiny room with a steel door for life. Justice Brennan struck down gory execution methods on the grounds that such punishments subjected the executioner to unconstitutional cruelty. That's rather arbitrary if not downright crazy. So who cares about the gore? The condemned? I'd say he's passed caring. The executioner? Presumably anyone who seeks such employment has given it some thought and knows what to expect. The executioner is a better judge than the Judge as to whether he's offended by bloodletting. Secondly, the Brennan principle effectively bans the guillotine, which is without doubt the quickest, most certain, and presumably least painful of any killing method ever devised. It is however the most gory. Though when the head is off the condemned is comatose in milliseconds and thoroughly dead in minutes, the heartbeat continues for up to twenty minutes, which exsanguinates the body.

Brennan also goes on at length about dignity -- executions shouldn't degrade the condemned, but affirm his humanity. Personally I see nothing affirmative about execution methods imposed post Furman v. Georgia. Dignity is Sydney Carton mounting the steps to the steps to the scaffold, or the romantic hero bravely facing the firing squad, accepting the last cigarette but refusing the blindfold -- but what's so dignified about being strapped to a gurney with needles stuck in one's veins?

Anonymous said...

Crime committed in 1989, death penalty in 1991.
In theory I'm for the death penalty (in practice, I can't see myself "pulling the trigger" so to speak), but put a man to death 23 year after being condemned? I find this a bit sick.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, on death row you are put 23 hours in a cell, and have one hour "open air", that is still between four walls but open to the sky (except for the bars). I would say that 23 years of that constitutes in itself "cruel and unusual" punishment.
Mind, I don't have a solution.

Rusty said...

look at it this way.
He had a nice nap, and then he died.

SJ said...

Would a lethal overdose of morphine work as a method of execution?

wendybar said...

Do to him what he did to his victims. They suffered, so should he.

tim in vermont said...

Firing squad so the namby pambies who want to let known murderers walk among us can shut up.

Curious George said...

Light 'em up!

Vet66 said...

He waited under cover for the father of his girl friend to show up for work and shot him point blank into the chest because the father disapproved of him. Then he shot the lady twice in the chest after telling her he was carrying out his promise to her for filing a protection order. Zero sympathy for his predicament.

Unknown said...

If you want painless, use asphyxiation with Nitrogen. The subject just passes out and then dies within a few minutes, painlessly. There is no struggling or gasping for breath; that is caused by CO2. (Inert gas atmospheres are very dangerous, because you get no warning you are in one.)

Or, if you are a traditionalist, go back to hanging.

I've always thought lethal injection is a bit creepy, anyway.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

just months after a high-profile botched execution in Oklahoma.

Why was it high-profile? Because the media wouldn't shut up about it; the anti-death-penalty nuts thought they had their golden ticket to turn public opinion against the practice.

Problem is, every time the subject of "botched executions" came up, I did a quick scan of reader reactions and they tend to run about 90% along the lines of "so? Lethal injections isn't painful ENOUGH."

At any rate, the actual experts who administered the execution say he was sedated and did not suffer--not to mention his own family--but hey, why listen to them when you have reporters who "counted over 600 gasps." Snort, indeed.

SGT Ted said...

The article reveals the press as the partisan liars they are.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"...life without parole for the first murder..."

That, my friends, is why so many people support the death penalty.

Unknown said...

"At this point, what difference does it make?"

Brando said...

It's an execution. If you're going to do it, make it messy and public. If you can't handle that, then don't execute.

The Crack Emcee said...

"This was my first execution"

Her calendar must be FUN,….

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Clyde said...

Think of it as being like extra time at the end of a soccer game.

I think the professor would consider that cruel and unusual punishment.

Rusty said...

"..life without parole for the first murder..."

See. If you execute em after the first one there isn't a second.


Unknown said...

2 victims subjected to cruel and unusual treatment by inmate. botched execution results in inmate's death. I don't see a problem.

Big Mike said...

Even a botched hanging only took 20 minutes to kill the poor bastard.

n.n said...

Abortionists have decades of experience to efficiently and "humanely" terminate human life. Since the normalization of abortion in America, they have terminated nearly 100 million wholly innocent human lives, with not only the tolerance, but endorsement of, ostensibly, a majority of women and men. So, send the convicted murderers to Planned Parenthood for their last rites, to a clinic for their last breath, and a hazardous waste receptacle or toilet for their remains. There can be no logical opposition to this simple and elegant solution.

Unknown said...

Every day many thousands if not millions of good innocent people meet fates far more cruel and unusual through random cycles of life and death, disease, accidents, disasters etc. Also - crime. I see no reason why these perpetrators should be rewarded for their crimes with an exemption to this lottery via "guaranteed" peaceful painless dignified death at the hands of the state.

Cruel and unusual would be to give them cancer and let them die of it.

Rick in Oregon (ex-Chicagoan) said...

"Dennis Novak said...If you want painless, use asphyxiation with Nitrogen. The subject just passes out and then dies within a few minutes, painlessly. There is no struggling or gasping for breath; that is caused by CO2. (Inert gas atmospheres are very dangerous, because you get no warning you are in one.)"

A nitrogen atmosphere is extremely toxic and results in incredible lung trauma and pain, then immediate unconsciousness. Perhaps you're thinking of Carbon Monoxide poisoning, which puts a person to sleep peacefully, then at sufficient doses death ensues.

I'm OK with two hours, 660 gasps, whatever it takes. Smiling at the family of the victims, saying "I forgive you" to them. Give him the Draino!

Sigivald said...

Mark: Remember Luke 23, where Jesus, on the Cross, says nothing about the notional injustice of capital punishment, nor rebukes the Good Thief for pointing out that his own [the Thief's] punishment was "justly deserved".

To put Jesus as opposing duly administered capital punishment is a very difficult task, textually.

(Now, if one says only that he would not personally have killed someone judicially? Sure. He was not, nor intended to be, a ruler of men.

But to imply he disapproved of it, as performed by due authority, is without basis.)

See also Romans 13:4, where the Apostle damn near praises capital punishment as divinely ordained.

(I'm an atheist, but... well, unlike evidently a fair number of Christians I've actually read the Bible, and a fair share of theological works.

And thus I see no reason to believe "Jesus opposed the Death Penalty" is anything but laughable.

Now, I'm not sure you were proposing that, rather than that Jesus wouldn't approve of this two-hour-long farce; that I can get behind.)

Revenant said...

See. If you execute em after the first one there isn't a second.

If the government wrongly executes someone -- which it has done, and will do again -- who do we execute for that murder?

The prosecuting attorney seems like a good option.

Phil 314 said...

"See. If you execute em after the first one there isn't a second"

Some would say the exact opposite is true.