[sunnykerr]

Amethetyst I completely respect your opinion in this matter.

I'm just trying to understand how that someone "deserving" to be executed makes the death penalty useful.

I swear. I am just trying to understand, because I don't know how to go from point A to point B on that one.

That's all.

I do think kiamay brings up some great points.

What do you do with executioners, then?

Mind you, sooner or later, it's going to become a moot point.

For instance, a Oklahoma-based company has begun refusing to provide drugs to administer in the death penalty.

That's on top of the EU also stopping any exportation of such drugs as well and lawsuits in cases where alternative cocktails have had disturbing results.

[Barstool Prophet]

I don't disagree with the death penalty, in theory. I just fear giving government that power. Once they have it, we can't control how they use it.

[sunnykerr]

That indeed the point of government.

To prevent people from imposing their individual whims over the majority, Far West style or mujahideen style.

[kiamay]

Someone sent me this today. BBC News - Electric chair haunts US former executions chief
I found it very interesting. The effect on the people having to deal with the killings as part of their jobs is rarely discussed.

[kiamay]

Someone sent me this today. BBC News - Electric chair haunts US former executions chief
I found it very interesting. The effect on the people having to deal with the killings as part of their jobs is rarely discussed.

[sunnykerr]

The effect on the executioners is rarely discussed in regard to the death penalty, but it is often the main topic of World War II discussions...

At least, it is when people understand that the gas chambers came about because of the effects murdering hundreds of innocent people had on Nazi officers.

In order to stave off drunkenness among officers, the Nazi Party came up with a way to mass murder without direct involvement.

It's also part of why, apparently, a lot of soldiers on both sides went out of their way (when possible) to actually shoot anyone.

It's not easy to kill someone. Nor should it ever be.

[kiamay]

That's an interesting comparison. And I didn't know that is why they came up with gas chambers.

[sunnykerr]

Well, to be fair, the gas chambers were probably also in a large part an efficiency issue.

But it's also well documented that the SS responsible for the extermination of Jews, Roma, and other targeted people had a generalized "discipline problem."

To solve that, the decision was made to put some distance between murderer and murderee.

Which is what the gas chambers did.



Of course, we're getting away from our topic in some degree.

The point is that I'm not at all surprised to hear that electric-chair executioners found their work difficult to reconcile with their own humanity.

When I say I oppose the death penalty, it's not because I feel bad for the murderers, rapists and terrorists of this world.

It's rather because I would hope that the person called on to murder the condemned should have serious reservations about the taking of a human life.

I like to think there's a good space of separation between people who can take a life and people who cannot. And I know where I want to see the people who will take a life.

[sunnykerr]

Missouri executes Michael Taylor for 1989 murder of girl A Missouri man who abducted, raped and murdered a 15-year-old schoolgirl has been executed after the US Supreme Court dismissed a last-minute appeal. Michael Taylor, 47, who admitted killing Ann Harrison in the Kansas City area in 1989, died by lethal injection. His lawyers argued that the drugs used for the injection might subject him to a slow and tortuous death. The execution comes amid controversy over the chemicals being used to give US death row inmates lethal injections. Ann Harrison was waiting for the school bus near her home when she was abducted by Taylor and his accomplice, Roderick Nunley. 'Heartfelt remorse' The men put her in a car, took her to a home, raped her and stabbed her to death as she begged for her life. Nunley is also on death row. Ann's father and two of her uncles witnessed Wednesday's execution. Just hours beforehand, Taylor said in a phone conversation with the Kansas City Star that he had written a letter for Ann's parents expressing "my sincerest apology and heartfelt remorse". He made no final statement, though he reportedly mouthed silent words to his parents. Taylor was pronounced dead at 12:10 (06:10 GMT) in the state prison at Bonne Terre. An Associated Press reporter who was present said there were no obvious signs of distress. It was Missouri's fourth execution by lethal injection in as many months. The state obtained the powerful sedative used in the execution, pentobarbital, from a compounding pharmacy, which prepares specific drugs to order. It chose to remain anonymous. Such outlets are not regulated by the federal government, which means their safety and efficacy are unverified. Another compounding pharmacy, in Oklahoma, last week agreed not to provide the execution drug after Taylor's lawyers sued. Since European manufacturers stopped providing pentobarbital for executions, several US states are running low on execution chemicals and turning to new suppliers or products that have not been widely approved. In addition to challenging the drug used, Taylor's lawyers objected to the state executing inmates before appeals were complete. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon had rejected a clemency request for Taylor.

Yup.

No sympathy for the deceased.

And I still don't think he should have been executed.

[sunnykerr]

Delaware lacks lethal injection drugs needed to execute death row inmates Supplies of two of three lethal injection drugs expired Delaware has 17 condemned prisoners on death row Delaware has 17 condemned prisoners facing the death penalty, but no means of executing any of them. Like other states, Delaware prison officials have found it difficult to get the drugs used in lethal injections because major manufacturers several years ago began prohibiting the use of their products in executions out of ethical concerns and fearing the unwanted publicity. As a result, supplies of two of the three drugs used in Delaware executions have expired, according to records obtained by the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act. Moreover, prison officials aren’t even trying to get the necessary drugs. “These drugs can be costly, and these drugs have a shelf life,” correction department commissioner Robert Coupe said. “There is also the challenge of navigating the marketplace because of the attention that this type of purchase gets.” The source of the drugs is moving to the forefront of the death penalty debate, as lawyers and death penalty opponents seek to find out which companies are providing the drugs. Compounding pharmacies — which custom-mix prescription drugs for doctors and patients — seemed like the answer, but some of them are starting to back away, too. As a result, many of the 32 states that allow the death penalty are having difficulty not only in restocking supplies, but in trying to find what alternative drugs might be available and changing their execution protocols accordingly. “It’s not just the shortage or the inability to find the drug. It’s the inability to make a final determination of what their whole protocol should be and get that approved,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington, DC-based Death Penalty Information Center. The result, according to Dieter, has been a de facto moratorium on executions in some states, such as Arkansas and California. Virginia lawmakers considered legislation this year allowing the state to use the electric chair if lethal injection drugs were not available. In Mississippi, lawyers for a condemned woman sued the department of correction this week, asking for more information about the procurement and expiration dates of lethal injection drugs. “No state has said ‘We’re ending the death penalty, we can’t find the drugs.’ ... It’s more of a hold on executions rather than backing out of the whole process,” said Dieter, adding that it’s hard to pin down a number for how many states have had drugs expire. Delaware prison officials have taken a wait-and-see approach, in part because no execution dates are expected to be set in the next six months. “We are watching and learning and listening from those news reports as to what options would be available for us to explore if we get an execution schedule,” Coupe said. Coupe believes the agency could find the necessary drugs if an execution date is set. The last person put to death in Delaware was convicted killer Shannon Johnson, who was executed in April 2012 after waiving his appeals. The state used pentobarbital as the initial sedative before administering two other drugs. A bill to repeal the death penalty in Delaware cleared the Democrat-led Senate by a single vote last year, even after the chief sponsor removed a provision that would have spared the lives of the 17 inmates awaiting execution. The measure later stalled in a House committee, with majority Democrats acknowledging there were not enough votes. Currently, Delaware prison officials have only one of the necessary lethal injection drugs on hand, according to records obtained by the AP. The prison agency initially refused to provide the records in response to a July 2013 FOIA request. “The DOC’s contacts with any person or entity regarding the supply, manufacture, prescription or compounding of drugs used in the execution of a death sentence should be a confidential state and trade secret under FOIA,” deputy attorney general Catherine Damavandi wrote in October 2013. “Given the controversy surrounding administration of the death penalty, the need for confidentiality to protect the identities of persons or entities who may supply the DOC with lethal injection drugs is obvious.” The AP appealed the records denial to the attorney general’s office, which ordered the agency to supply them, just as it had done in 2011 in response to the agency’s denial of a previous FOIA request. Under Delaware’s current execution protocol, a condemned inmate is rendered unconscious by a sedative or anesthetic before receiving fatal and potentially painful doses of two paralytic drugs, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. Delaware used sodium thiopental as the initial drug before its sole U.S. manufacturer stopped making it in 2009. The state then began using pentobarbital. Records show that the correction department obtained 50 vials of potassium chloride from Cardinal Health in February 2013, replacing 51 vials that expired that same month. The current supply of potassium chloride, enough for four executions, expires in October. Meanwhile, supplies of the other two drugs, pancuronium bromide and pentobarbital, expired in July 2012 and September 2013, respectively. Dieter said he was not aware of any state that had considered using expired drugs. Such a move could be fraught with trouble, and likely would result in claims of cruel and unusual punishment. “You need something that’s effective as an anesthetic, and if its 90 percent effective, you might have partial consciousness, partial awareness,” he said. “If it’s past its expiration date, there are just no guarantees. It might work, it might not.” Facing an impending shortage of pentobarbital, Delaware officials turned to West-Ward Pharmaceuticals of Eatontown, NJ, in April 2013 to try to obtain a similar barbiturate, phenobarbital. The prison agency’s former bureau chief for management services exchanged emails with West-Ward’s regional sales manager over a week, but the phenobarbital was never obtained. Similarly, the agency was unsuccessful in trying to obtain pancuronium bromide from Cardinal Health. “I can’t seem to get anyone from Cardinal to call me back or respond to my messages,” former DOC bureau chief Kim Wheatley wrote in a July 2013 email to a Cardinal representative. “Not sure what is going on, but I have most recently been told that the item that was on backorder for us is no longer on backorder and in fact was blocked for our purchase from the very beginning.” The Cardinal representative responded three days later, telling Wheatley, “unfortunately, both Teva and Hospira continue to have this item on backorder with no ETA.” Cardinal Health said in a statement it follows manufacturers’ instructions regarding restrictions on the distribution of their products. West-Ward’s parent company, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, said it was notified last year about the potential misuse of phenobarbital for executions in Arkansas. “As we strongly object to the use of our products for capital punishment, once alerted to the potential misuse, we took action,” Hikma vice president Susan Ringdal said in an email.

I do believe we're finally moving towards the end of the death penalty for most of the United States, though I have no illusions that it'll be an easy end.

But it's going to become harder and harder to carry it out, so hopefully the people in charge will reconsider what they want.

[quaist]

Everything that's making the carrying out of the death penalty more difficult, even if it doesn't directly contribute to its doing away, is to be welcomed.

[sunnykerr]

That is the way I feel as well.

I think the whole practice needs some serious re-thinking.

So if that's all that's accomplished with these issues, then I'll take it.

[sunnykerr]

U.S. man who spent 26 years on death row freed ANGOLA, La. -- A man who spent nearly 26 years on death row in Louisiana walked free of prison Tuesday, hours after a judge approved the state's motion to vacate the man's murder conviction in a the 1983 killing of a jeweler. Glenn Ford, 64, had been on death row since August 1988 in connection with the death of 56-year-old Isadore Rozeman, a Shreveport jeweler and watchmaker for whom Ford had done occasional yard work. Ford had always denied killing Rozeman. Ford walked out the maximum security prison at Angola on Tuesday afternoon, said Pam Laborde, a spokeswoman for Louisiana's Department of Public Safety and Corrections. Asked as he walked away from the prison gates about his release, Ford told WAFB-TV, "It feels good; my mind is going in all kind of directions. It feels good." Ford told the broadcast outlet he does harbour some resentment at being wrongly jailed: "Yeah, cause, I've been locked up almot 30 years for something I didn't do." "I can't go back and do anything I should have been doing when I was 35, 38, 40 stuff like that," he added. State District Judge Ramona Emanuel on Monday took the step of voiding Ford's conviction and sentence based on new information that corroborated his claim that he was not present or involved in Rozeman's death, Ford's attorneys said. Ford was tried and convicted of first-degree murder in 1984 and sentenced to death. "We are very pleased to see Glenn Ford finally exonerated, and we are particularly grateful that the prosecution and the court moved ahead so decisively to set Mr. Ford free," said a statement from Gary Clements and Aaron Novod, the attorneys for Ford from the Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana. They said Ford's trial had been "profoundly compromised by inexperienced counsel and by the unconstitutional suppression of evidence, including information from an informant." They also cited what they said was a suppressed police report related to the time of the crime and evidence involving the murder weapon. Currently, there are 83 men and two women serving death sentences in Louisiana, according to Laborde. A Louisiana law entitles those who have served time but are later exonerated to receive compensation. It calls for payments of $25,000 per year of wrongful incarceration up to a maximum of $250,000, plus up to $80,000 for loss of "life opportunities."

I don't know how one lives with knowing they spent 30 years waiting to die for a crime they couldn't possibly have committed.

I understand that the fact that he may be entitled to money, and a significant amount possibly, will lead some to believe that he's not doing so bad.

And, compared to other men who have been on death row only to be proven innocent, I suppose that's may very well be the case.

But I don't think there's an amount in the world that would make up for 30 years of prison life to me.

[quaist]

And that's 30 years he never knew for sure whether he'd ever make it out there alive... Horrifying.

[sunnykerr]

Nevermmind waiting to be put to death... prison life isn't exactly known to be safe, is it?