Capital Punishment, Botched Execution in Oklahoma

[Murat Baslamisli]

I am against capital punishment for two reasons:

1- Human beings are involved from the minute you catch the perp to trials to the execution moment and human beings make mistakes. Death penalty is irreversible. You cannot go " Oops..."

2- I find it hypocritical that you can "legally" kill someone. I don't like governments having that kind of power.


This Clayton Lockett guy seems like a very sorry excuse for a human being, but waking up during your execution...that is rough man. That is the human error factor I am talking about. Something went wrong, someone dropped the ball, and this guy died of a heart attack AFTER his execution.

The world is full of people that if they were gone, she would be better off, but this human factor is a huge factor for me. I don't have a solution for what to do with these people. Making sure these guys never see the light of day and die in prison is probably the best way but the overcrowded prisons and the cost of keeping people alive are huge issues too.

Maybe we can start by decriminalizing some things to save prisons for people that really deserve it.

 

[Kieran]

I'm opposed to it as well, Murat, and you give two good reasons why. Plus, the Death Penalty has been used by politicians as a way of showing they're tough on crime, during an election. Bill Clinton stands accused of just that, executing a mentally disabled prisoner, to show he wasn't going have a Willie Horton come up and haunt him.

I think that, from the victim's perspective, however, it's understandable if the families want the supreme sanction enforced, but this is why juries and judges should be dispassionate...

EDIT: I'm not sure what you would decriminalise, to keep prisons free for those who deserve it...

 

[DarthFed]

I don't care that these condemned killers are suffering. What about their victim/s and the families? It makes more sense to me that they suffer as opposed to basically dying in their sleep after they are knocked out.

Now, whether there should be the death penalty is a whole different subject. And as Murat mentioned mistakes have happened and will continue to happen, and you can't reverse it...

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

I'm opposed to it as well, Murat, and you give two good reasons why. Plus, the Death Penalty has been used by politicians as a way of showing they're tough on crime, during an election. Bill Clinton stands accused of just that, executing a mentally disabled prisoner, to show he wasn't going have a Willie Horton come up and haunt him.

I think that, from the victim's perspective, however, it's understandable if the families want the supreme sanction enforced, but this is why juries and judges should be dispassionate...

EDIT: I'm not sure what you would decriminalise, to keep prisons free for those who deserve it...

Vast majority of drug related offenses. Prohibition does not work, never worked, will never work...

 

[Kieran]

I'm opposed to it as well, Murat, and you give two good reasons why. Plus, the Death Penalty has been used by politicians as a way of showing they're tough on crime, during an election. Bill Clinton stands accused of just that, executing a mentally disabled prisoner, to show he wasn't going have a Willie Horton come up and haunt him.

I think that, from the victim's perspective, however, it's understandable if the families want the supreme sanction enforced, but this is why juries and judges should be dispassionate...

EDIT: I'm not sure what you would decriminalise, to keep prisons free for those who deserve it...

Vast majority of drug related offenses. Prohibition does not work, never worked, will never work...

But that would never make drug taking, or pushing, right. If a law isn't working, the solution, in my opinion, isn't to scrap it. Off-topic, I know, but there's a huge drug and crime problem in the western world and I'm not sure that giving more leeway is a solution.

But as I say, this is a different topic and it'd be great to hear more views on the death penalty, and particularly how it can become cruel and unusual punishment if they botch it...

 

[tented]

I am against capital punishment for two reasons:

1- Human beings are involved from the minute you catch the perp to trials to the execution moment and human beings make mistakes. Death penalty is irreversible. You cannot go " Oops..."

2- I find it hypocritical that you can "legally" kill someone. I don't like governments having that kind of power.


This Clayton Lockett guy seems like a very sorry excuse for a human being, but waking up during your execution...that is rough man. That is the human error factor I am talking about. Something went wrong, someone dropped the ball, and this guy died of a heart attack AFTER his execution.

The world is full of people that if they were gone, she would be better off, but this human factor is a huge factor for me. I don't have a solution for what to do with these people. Making sure these guys never see the light of day and die in prison is probably the best way but the overcrowded prisons and the cost of keeping people alive are huge issues too.

Maybe we can start by decriminalizing some things to save prisons for people that really deserve it.

If anything, death penalty convictions end up costing more than simply keeping them imprisoned for life. Lawyers, prosecutors, court fees, etc. involved in fighting them drive the cost up.

 

[tented]

I'm opposed to it as well, Murat, and you give two good reasons why. Plus, the Death Penalty has been used by politicians as a way of showing they're tough on crime, during an election. Bill Clinton stands accused of just that, executing a mentally disabled prisoner, to show he wasn't going have a Willie Horton come up and haunt him.

I think that, from the victim's perspective, however, it's understandable if the families want the supreme sanction enforced, but this is why juries and judges should be dispassionate...

EDIT: I'm not sure what you would decriminalise, to keep prisons free for those who deserve it...

Vast majority of drug related offenses. Prohibition does not work, never worked, will never work...

Exactly. People are slowly realizing this, but we haven't yet hit the tipping point.

The idea that cigarettes and alcohol are legal, while marijuana is not is completely unjustifiable.

 

[Moxie]

I'm opposed to the death penalty on moral grounds, but not everyone is, and so I understand why that argument leads nowhere. Most persuasively and effectively, the case has been made that, with DNA testing, many death row inmates have been proven completely innocent. This caused Illinois to suspend, and then abolish the death penalty.

We have an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting Cruel and Unusual punishment, which this Clayton Lockett execution seems to be an example of. Drug companies in the US are increasingly reluctant to supply drugs for purposes of lethal injection. Many countries abroad will not, either. Somehow, Oklahoma is not required to disclose the sources of their drugs, which casts suspicions over provenance and effectiveness, in this case.

Criminal justice is unevenly meted out in the US, across the states. This alone should give pause. The death penalty is no deterrent to violent crime, as is widely proven. States that have a death penalty also have higher murder rates. Some people, I guess, believe the death penalty satisfies a societal need for revenge against some crimes that seem particularly abhorrent. But that introduces an emotional element into the equation, even for juries.

I don't see why living a life-long incarceration is a lesser punishment than being executed for a crime. Given time, innocence can be discovered, if a case has been unfairly judged. But also, for the absolutely guilty, a life lived thinking about what you did and the consequences offers the option of coming to a kind of Grace. I don't think you have to be particularly religious to believe that there is value in a human being coming to terms with what they've done.