Positively Perplexing Problems
"This isn't an attempt to time-warp back into the 1850s or the wild, wild West or anything like that. It's just that I foresee a problem and I'm trying to come up with a solution that will be the most humane yet most economical for our state."Mr. Brattin seems to feel that firing squad executions represent a fitting option to the conundrum of how most humanely the state may proceed in executing those consigned by their crimes to death row. Apparently the most favoured method is experiencing some hiccoughs. The drug companies that produce those especially formulated drugs used in executions are located in Europe and they now balk at supplying their products for that very special purpose.
Missouri state Representative Rick Brattin
So lethal-injection drugs have presented in short supply. Besides which, their functionality has been brought into question of late. Bringing state lawmakers to the opinion that other methods should be considered. Forget the guillotine, that never was an American methodology. They're looking at firing squads, electrocution and gas chambers, the type of execution methods used in the past, and considered so gruesome they were dropped in favour of lethal injection.
While the states in question are insistent that capital punishment is a method of population discipline for criminals, meant to fit the seriousness of their crimes, they still are concerned that they must avoid inflicting distress on the public through what might be seen by some as cruel and unusual punishments. The kind of method that would come afoul of the Constitution.
So they've a lot on their punishment plate to ponder, poor them.
Mr. Brattin is also thinking about the welfare of the families of victims of crime. Delaying executing those who dispatched their loved ones would cause those families further stress, so it doesn't do to keep delaying executions while thinking of alternatives. Justice must be done, even if it takes decades to see justice served, but it's not very palatable, nonetheless.
In Missouri there's thought of rebuilding the gas chamber once used y the state. Virginia is considering electrocution to be re-introduced, as long as lethal injection drugs remain unavailable. And in Wyoming they too are thinking of allowing firing squads to do the job. Typically five sharpshooters are employed in a firing squad, one of whom shoots blanks so they never know who fired the fatal bullet; a method mostly used for military executions.
Last week in Ohio, convicted felon Dennis McGuire inconveniently took 26 minutes to die by lethal injection, repeatedly gasping, lying on a gurney, mouth opening and closing. A week before him, Oklahoma inmate Michael Lee Wilson said, as he lay dying from lethal injection: "I feel my whole body burning", causing some anguish to onlookers.
Executions have declined from a peak of 98 in 1999 to just 39 last year. Some states refuse the death penalty, while others remain wedded to it as the supreme penalty for certain hideous crimes. In Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, condemned prisoners may select the electric chair method of departing life.
Arizona, Missouri and Wyoming are fine with gas chamber executions. Delaware, New Hampshire and Washington state allow death by hanging. Surely, it is a conundrum, how best the state can fulfill its obligations to those who elect them in the effort to see that final justice is done.
If things get really dicey, and the way forward keeps eluding them, they can always consult with the Islamic Republic of Iran to get the skinny on preferred methods.
Labels: Crime, Justice, Social-Cultural Deviations, United States
posted by Pieface @ Friday, January 31, 2014
<< Home