Executions suspended in California, Florida
Thanks to the botched lethal injection execution of Angel Nieves Diaz, where the execution itself took twice as long as normal, the states of Florida and California have suspended any further executions by lethal injection, forcing us all to look, once again, at whether or not lethal injection is humane.
The process includes three chemicals: Sodium thiopental ((puts the inmate into a deep sleep)), Pancuronium bromide ((paralyzes the diaphragm and lungs)), and Potassium chloride ((not used by all states, it interrupts the electric signals responsible for controlling the heart, inducing cardiac arrest)). Within a minute or two of the final chemical, the inmate is pronounced dead.
However, when it took Diaz 20-30 minutes to succumb to the deadly liquids, Florida Governor Jeb Bush halted any more executions, indefinitely, on Friday, until a commission he created two look over the state’s lethal injection process came back to him with its findings by March 1st.
Dr. William Hamilton, whom performed the autopsy on Diaz, refused to comment on whether the inmate suffered any serious bouts of pain during the process.
“I am going to defer answers about pain and suffering until the autopsy is complete,” Hamilton said during a conference call. He said further tests may take several weeks.
Source: FoxNews.com
The rare second dose of chemicals needed to end Diaz’s life is what most Anti-Death Penalty Advocates needed in their ongoing battle against Lethal Injection as a means of execution, and whether or not it should be labeled as cruel and unusual, or just outright inhumane.
Diaz, who was convicted of murdering a topless bar manager 27 years ago, and could not speak English, continued to profess his innocence through a translator, along with requests for clemency by the governor of his native Puerto Rico, claimed that his representation failed to produce a fair trial, and was also challenging the lethal injection process.
So is lethal injection an inhumane means of crime deterrent and punishment? Realistically, we’ve almost run out of options with ways to kill people in a “humane” manner.
- Hanging
- Electrocution
- Gas chamber
- Firing squad
- Lethal Injection
If we’re going to look at this in a rational way, we have to think of the main reason we are doing it in the first place. The end result. Our desired end result is that whomever we strap onto this machine will be pronounced dead after we’re through with them. That’s what our taxes are going to. To insure that one more murderer is off the street. Does it really matter if they suffer for twenty minutes? They’re going to be pronounced dead eventually anyway, right?
It would seem to me that the only way to resolve this would be to stock pile shells for a double-barrel shotgun and reserve a place in the middle of the courtyard, to be televised nationally, where the prisoners on death row are to be taken, sat down execution style, and shot once in the back of the head.
It would be quick, painless, and most of all, it would drive a point home.
Using the death penalty as a crime deterrent only works when the criminals see it as a way of deterring crime. The only way you are going to get a reaction is by doing this in the most pornographic way – live execution by shotgun.
Realistically, there is never going to be a means of execution that is humane. Execution in itself is inhumane. So arguing over whether or not lethal injection is humane or not is arguing over pointless trivia.
The only humane way to do it would be to let them live out the rest of their days in prison. You can’t really call it “paying your debt to society” when the person who is paying said debt isn’t alive to pay it.
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