Electric
 

chair execution restored in Tennessee. The governor signed a bill restoring the chair as a means of execution if lethal injection drugs are unavailable.

I guess the anti's will demand to know which power plant the juice comes from, which breed of cow skin the leather straps were made of, what kind of wood the chair is constructed from, and all sorts of other nonsense.

The Questors are always with us too bad they will not volunteer to test the chair :teehee:

I know one in my family that I would gladly volunteer :hobbyhors

AC or DC current?

Which is more 'humane'?

What the devil do they mean "If they are out of the lethal injection drugs?
Why not just give them a quadruple dose of Heroin and let them OD?:hobbyhors

The guillotine is both fast and cheap to run.

Alabama still offers a lightening ride in Yellow Mama as a condemned prisoners option but will require a legislative measure to change the code making it the primary means of execution again. Of course with over 200 residing on death row and over 20 having exhausted al their appeals, its about 50/50 if our legislature re-qualifies the hot seat as the primary execution means or passes legislation protecting the drug makers anonymity.

Something I always wondered about lethal injection. Do they waste taxpayer funds on sterile needles? :hrm:

But OSHA will not approve it. Someone could get hurt. Seth

Just give 'em tv sets.

Dateline 1989:
COLUMBIA, S.C. —
Michael Anderson Godwin, 28, apparently was trying to fix a pair of earphones connected to his television set Sunday while standing on a metal toilet when he bit into a wire and was electrocuted in his cell at the Central Correctional Institution, officials said. Godwin was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1983. An earlier verdict that would have sent Godwin to the electric chair had been overturned on appeal.

Sometimes 'justice' will find it's own way . . .

Execution by electric chair is a cruel and violent death by anyone's standards. It's beneath the dignity of any government body to use it as a means of punishment. It should be categorically outlawed on a federal level, since it's so obviously unconstitutional.

What would you sugest instead? Whether it's cruel and beneath the dignity of anything is a matter of opinion, and yours carries no more weight than any other persons. I would have no problem with it being outlawed, if it was replaced by hanging, cheap, quick and very efecient.

I don't see what purpose the death penalty serves. It seems to me that life in prison does the job, and release is always possible if there was a mistake.

You couldn't possibly be more wrong, life absolutely doesn't do the job.
Google Clayton Fountain. He killed an army officer, got life and proceeded to kill at least 4 more men while in prison including a guard, Merle Clutts.

Check out Thomas Silverstein he killed guard Robert Hoffman and at least 3 other men while in prison. The purpose that would have been served by executing those 2 after their first murders would have been saving the lives of the guards and several other men.

With no death penalty, they have nothing to lose, dangerous killers serving life will kill at every chance they get, especially prison staff. Sadly, Fountain and Silverstein are not isolated cases, prisons are full of these violent cold blooded killers.

LOOK at all the wasted taxpayer money. If corrupt people were not in the legal system mistakes could be greatly reduced.

Most people with a sense of justice and morality already know the purpose of the death penalty and the few instances it should be used.
Unfortunately, if you don't know by now, it probably won't do any good to tell you.:huh:

What kind of accountability do you have in mind if a mistake is made?

I suppose hanging also would not get approved by OSHA either, as it would HAVE to be a rope that would have government standards for breakage. But I few good old fashioned in the street hang ins could do wonders as a deterrent for the most heinous acts. We have to keep the death penalty in place that is a no brainer. LOL

Studies have not shown the death penalty to be an effective deterrent. There's good reason for that, since most murders are motivated by either emotion or desperation. Most murderers have other things on their minds at the time.

It would have detered Silverstein and Fountain and many others from becoming serial killers. So called "studies", like polls, can be manupilated to show a desired result. It matters not what their emotions are a killer is a killer. You are possibly right that most have other thing on their minds....rape, robbery, drug deals, gang related activities, none accepatble excuses for murder.

Canada does not have the death penalty and I don't think we have any more or less 'heinous acts' than the US so it could be surmised that the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent so it may not be as much a no brainer as you may surmise.

I have to agree with Nevada. My reasons are:

1. Mistakes in convictions are made. If it is 1 in 100 chance and you are the 100th person, it is an uncorrectable wrong. If there was a balance to limit these errors, like a mandatory payout of ten million dollars to the estate of a wrongly executed innocent, and arrest and minimum sentence of ten years for anyone who actively perverted justice and the legal system to get the execution, I might reconsider.

2. It costs MUCH more to execute than warehouse. That has been proven time and time again. From a pragmatic dollars and cents point of view, let 'em sit.

3. Dying in prison after a long time with no hope of parole and lots of time for reflection is MORE punitive, and may allow time for the inmate to actually do something with social value.

4. The idea of "closure" for those close to a victim when a perp is executed is 99% BS. If a person who is a friend or relative of the murder victim is that angry and vindictive, there will NEVER be closure. A lot may go into it thinking that there will be closure, only to find there isn't. The anger at the lost life will still be there.

5. When there are murderers (and I exclude other reasons for a death penalty) who murder again while in prison, a simple and inexpensive method of containment might be to move them to a prison that is ONLY populated by others who have murdered in prison and allowed no contact with guards except during sedated medical care. Violent deaths among that population would be tolerated as further punishment would be ineffective. Those who live by the shiv...

6. There are worse crimes than active murder. Decisions made by individuals that casually and causually "allow" the unjustified deaths of many, such as the VA spinning of lists to delay and deny care to veterans are in my mind dozens of times more heinous that one gang member killing another. Premeditated actions that knowingly result in deaths are a type of murder by proxy.

7. There is an undeniable racial and class bias in the passing of death penalties. Those with money rarely die, those who have abused since childhood often do.

There are evil people, there are those who are a detriment to society. However, it takes away OUR humanity when one is killed on purpose by state decree.

Yep, and there was quite a fuss made over one of the recipes that had cancer causing agents included.... that of course had to be done away with! never underestimate the stupidity of any burrocrat.

Seriously?

Step #1.
Remove all immunity from prosecution that the cops, judges and prosecutors have now.
Step #2.
Then proceed according to the law as it already is now.
If your actions intentionally or unintentionally result in the death of an innocent person, there are charges that vary from manslaughter to murder, whatever is applicable.

Again, seriously?
Those "studies" always crack me up.

Are there a lot of corpses of dead murderers coming back from the dead to commit other murders?
Or you reckon they've been "deterred" from doing it again?:heh:

I've seen the studies, know how the data is compiled and compared and if I didn't have any common sense or emotions, I might be inclined to agree with their conclusions.
However, there is a very large sample group that never gets included into these deterrent studies.
The rest of us.

That's right, all of us on the outside.
I can only speak for myself, and I suspect not many others would be so forthcoming with something as personal and even a little self incriminating, but I will.
I've thought about it, seriously, and more than once.
Maybe others will admit to running across an individual or two that had done something that made you think about the 3 S's.
And if it were for some long consideration, including the possible consequences, I might come to a different decision.
So there you have it, the unspoken, unproven deterrent factor that can't be accurately measured....what's in a man's heart.


And while there are always those that will kill no matter what, why is it that one penalty is different from all others in the criminal system?
Do the laws against larceny, vandalism, fraud, etc work as a deterrent in most cases? Or should we do away with all of them since they don't really work?:shrug:

Along that same line of thought, if it's so easy to accidentally die from an overdose of a recreational drug, why the complicated 3-drug cocktail used for lethal injection? It's almost as if they're trying to introduce a dimension of complication and discomfort to the process. Why not just give a known lethal dose of a recreational drug instead?

The death penalty is quite good at keeping people from re-offending, making it a pretty good deterrent. It is 100% effective.

I am good with life in prison for violent offenders.... as long as it doesnt stretch out more than a week or two.... that really should be plenty of time to put together a firing squad, arrange a proper hangin, or if all else fails.... slit the buggers throat and let him bleed out. Make no mistakes.

The way things stand now there isnt much accountability at all if a murderer escapes or is turned loose by a bleedin hart parole board. He is just turned loose on society. Now.... had he had his neck stretched like it should have been... we wouldnt have to worry about it.

While I disagree with your objection to the death penalty, I REALLY disagree with your suggestion above. That's one heck of a reason to frame someone. If that suggestion ever comes into being, I'm getting a divorce!

And I didn't even know we were married, much less gay! :D I musta been drunk at our wedding. :hysterical:

(BTW, your reasoning is flawed. If you give false evidence that sends someone to the chair or turns them into a state pincushion, a mandatory ten years if you are found out is going to LIMIT people framing others.)

There you go projecting again!

I'm referring to my very female wife rationalizing the use of $10 million vs my limited usefullness. Wouldn't lying to have someone killed by proxy be considered murder? 10 years doesn't sound like much in that case.

I agree that 10 years doesn't sound like much. Consider it a minimum to give judges discretion to give more but not less.

(and my wife is much relieved. :D )

While I support the death penalty as long as it's the law I would also support the abolition of it. If the alternative was LWP under these conditions; solitary confinment, no human contact except for prison staff who couldn't acknowledge them, no TV, no radio, no reading material, no window with an outside view, no other privileges except as mandated by the courts. Make their lives as miserable as possible.


Give this human debris plenty to time the think about what they have done without any such distractions, although I doubt few if any would. But I'll bet the bleeding hearts would scream unconstitutional, cruel and unusual can't do that no, no, no.

Nevada, Harry C would you agree to conditions like that or is it too tough?

That description is similar to what Alcatraz was.

Imprisonment and such has a few goals.

Ideally, the first goal is rehabilitation and education so that when released a prisoner will go and "sin no more" and become a productive member of society. We can disregard the bulk of that with someone incarcerated for life, except for the chance that the conviction was in error.

The second goal is to "work off" the crime. Some prisons used to have mechanicals that forced labor that served no purpose other than the labor. The idea of making institutions self-supporting turned that into road gangs and labor shops where products were produced. That goal is unaffected. If a prison wanted to use the labor of such an inmate for public good, I would have less of an issue with that than a prison using the labor of the general inmate population for profit.

The third goal is retribution - the "feel good" aspect of making a person suffer. That is the area that the interdiction against "cruel and unusual punishment" is aimed at. There is little societal benefit to that, and it reinforces the idea of violence being good, thus having unintended consequences outside of the prison. The concept is proportional response. If you think of the scales of justice, the response is meant to equal the crime, but not sink to "eye for eye." (There is a whole other related discussion on this in relation to terror and the rules of war)

The fourth goal is protection of society from chronic or heinous evildoers. That obviously becomes primary with a murderer.

No tv or radio? No problem with that at all. Reading list - I wouldn't deny a Bible or other material that was along the lines of spiritual development or having to do with law.

Solitary is tricky. If the only reference for values is the self, and the self is warped, there is no chance to reflect on the crime within the greater construct of others or society, or experience more than a base remorse of being caught. I don't see that as being meaningful. Limited contact, perhaps ONLY with those who have more advanced morals would have more impact I think.

I think Scalia is too extreme on one side, Ginsberg too extreme on the other.

Over the years I've met quite a few ex-convicts. Some were employees, one was an ex-stepson. What I found surprising was the lack of fear of going back to prison in several. In fact, one young man - about 28 yo, purposely forged a check to get sent back. The guy was more or less "institutionalized", and just didn't feel like he could make it on the outside. If Texas wasn't such a serious death penalty state, how many people like him would opt for life without parole, rather than try to make it in society? I'm told murderers garner more respect, and less grief than run of the mill stick-up guys. That almost makes it an incentive to kill if their plan is to spend the rest of their lives inside.

Life in prison is a horrible punishment. One could even say it is a form of long term mental torture, more so when solitary confinement is involved. Now imagine you have been mistakenly convicted and it seem now to be shown it happens more often than we ever thought.

When prison involves no form of rehabilitation, it is pointless. The idleness breeds even more crime inside the walls. To a non violent offender this is a horrible situation to be put into that far outweighs any crime you committed.

The death penalty is not a deterrent, or after all these years we would now have no violent crime that carries it as punishment. The argument that one must be mentally ill to desire to or be inclined to take someones life is a valid debate. We should execute the mentally ill? I think we tend to let emotions run this subject and we dont deeply investigate many aspects of the crime. You killed, so you die.

In rare conditions, lets assume this is a proper action to take. If one is going to be clinical and logical about the act, a guillotine or a bullet in the head is as quick and painless as humanly possible, and unfortunately these are really messy and shocking methods. We could use any number of very effective and painless drugs, but as it is going, every drug is owned by some company and none of them will do business with the prison system.

So we are left with two choices; Rehabilitate and abolish the death penalty, even if this means life in a cage (which doesnt have to be inhumane) or, using a messy but instant method of execution that no doubt has mental repercussions for the executioner.

How we deal out justice and punishment reflects on us as a society, and as individuals. When someone says "I will gladly work as the executioner" one has to seriously wonder about that persons mental state as well. Nobody in their right mind wants to kill.

Which is at the core of the issue. If you kill and it did not bother you or you felt justified in doing it, how mentally stable are you?

We have to consider how we hand out justice and how that act reflects back on us.
Also, if we kill one person by mistake, thats one too many mistakes to continue to use the death penalty. And since we seem to have made that mistake shockingly frequently, we all need to be deeply ashamed.

What if it were your daughter that a convicted murderer, "without a shadow of a doubt" (which I admit has been proven to be completely wrong many times) was painstakingly spared life for God knows how long by some idiot, just to watch her suffer the pain?
Would you wish him to simply go to sleep, "OR FRY?"

Ranger