Kids- don't do execution drugs

[SlitheryDee]

Maybe it would be more of a deterrent to murder if a killer realized they're going to be killed in the same way.

Dying itself is a pretty big deterrent. In fact, the most uncaring, unfeeling ways to kill someone might even be the most frightening. Imagine a conveyor belt with what amounts to an industrial sized wood chipper at the end of it. You can't plead with a wood chipper. You can't bargain with it. You can't even look in it's eyes and find something as familiar as righteous anger to grasp on to. It has no malice, yet it cares nothing for you and it will never stop. It is the embodiment of your imminent and inevitable death. The knowledge that doing something bad enough practically guarantees a ride down that conveyor belt is a hell of a deterrent.

I'm not saying that we'd actually use a wood chipper to kill people, but the system itself would be like that. Inexorable and mechanical in it's execution of offenders. It would kill with the same feeling that an earthquake or tidal wave would, only not as indiscriminately.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I could have swore I read that in Iran the family of the victim has to be the one that "pulls the lever" when someone is sentenced to death. Sometimes the family is not willing to go that far and the prisoner is given prison time instead.

Not that I can find. The family legally has to be present at the execution to keep open the possibility of a settlement or forgiveness. But they're not required to do the deed personally.

Iran is pretty hardcore, looks like most executions are hangings and they don't use the long fall, broken neck method. They just let the perps dangle until they suffocate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Iran

 

[lupi]

Has there been any legal reason causing executions being pretty much only via drug?

 

[Jeff7]

Unscheduled executions are likely the most humane.

Having someone wake up that morning, knowing they are scheduled for execution, then being escorted to the execution is probably pretty dreadful, so even if the execution itself is painless, there is a lot of mental anguish involved in that.

But not scheduling them, and just being gassed in your sleep on any random night, is perfectly peaceful. It could happen to any one of us tomorrow and we'd die happy without any anxiety or dread.

Damn cheap, too.

Reasonably sealed room.
Standard sleeping meds, nighty-night.
Turn off air circulation.
Pour in carbon dioxide, which will naturally sink to the bottom of the room.
Done. No muss, no fuss.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Has there been any legal reason causing executions being pretty much only via drug?

America is weak-willed when it comes to executions. It's all got to be clean and clinical because god forbid the scumbag getting whacked might suffer for 2 seconds. Firing squads are too messy, electric chairs too unreliable and might be painful, hanging is too visually nasty. Most places settled on lethal injection as the cleanest and most clinical method so that we can kill people and somehow still feel morally superior to the other countries that kill people in a less enlightened manner.

 

[Rakehellion]

They're dangerous! They can hard your heart, lungs, and everything!

http://news.yahoo.com/execution-drugs-harm-breathing-heart-function-041737101.html

Well, they are actual drugs with legitimate medical use. They aren't pumping these kids full of battery acid.

Heck, they had to stop using the old lethal injection cocktail because their supplier didn't want it to be used to kill people.

 

[soulcougher73]

I always thought that killers should be executed using the method they used to kill their victim.

:awe:

 

[soulcougher73]

That would seem "fair", but what would be the point? Is killing them in a particularly brutal way going to teach them anything? What good would teaching them anything do if they're dead after they learn it. The urge to mete out reciprocal punishment is instinctual for us I think. In most cases it would probably serve us well as social animals. In a way, the most direct way to discourage an action is to demonstrate how bad that action is on the person who committed it, hopefully engendering some empathy in them by causing them to share the pain that they caused. That's all good and well with non-lethal punishments, but it makes no sense when the goal from the start is to kill the person. Yet the instinct persists because it has aided society in correcting deviant members for countless generations.

Once you've decided to kill someone though, you've crossed the line from corrective behavior to eliminating the deviant element entirely. In that case the urge to correct through reciprocal "eye for an eye" type punishments is misplaced. The most efficient way to serve that goal is quickly and dispassionately. It still doesn't make much sense to me that we worry about whether it hurts them or not though. Chances are the quickest and most efficient way to kill someone is also not very painful anyway.

It's to teach others to not want to kill people as the consequences are very dire.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Unscheduled executions are likely the most humane.

Having someone wake up that morning, knowing they are scheduled for execution, then being escorted to the execution is probably pretty dreadful, so even if the execution itself is painless, there is a lot of mental anguish involved in that.

But not scheduling them, and just being gassed in your sleep on any random night, is perfectly peaceful. It could happen to any one of us tomorrow and we'd die happy without any anxiety or dread.

But then you'd be robbing the "forgiving" religious victims loved ones and curious onlookers the right of watching them get what they deserved.

Honestly though, I'm in the do unto them camp if you gotta do it. Obviously we aren't scaring people enough because it still happens every day.

 

[BladeVenom]

Don't do drugs. Let go with the Blood eagle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_eagle

 

[alkemyst]

But then you'd be robbing the "forgiving" religious victims loved ones and curious onlookers the right of watching them get what they deserved.

Honestly though, I'm in the do unto them camp if you gotta do it. Obviously we aren't scaring people enough because it still happens every day.

The problem is most that would commit murder don't think rationally nor believe they will always be caught.