‘Death row killer’s ’excruciating’ execution was like ‘drowning’

[Victoria33]

What I wonder about is I understand them executing people for heinous acts as mentioned in the article in post #1. Right, some of those killed are children, it can not be more horrible. In other ways, people are put to death in a horrible way.

That said, killing is killing still, whether it’s drug dealers and gangs on the street. I just sometimes wonder about the scales of justice in this.

 

[qui_est_ce]

This.

I wonder why people who are killed by euthanasia don’t experience what is described in the article?

 

[neophyte]

Please correct me (gently) if I’m wrong, but didn’t our Church change her teaching about the death penalty?

That’s a question about which there is some debate, but it seems a bit off-topic.

 

[neophyte]

I wonder why people who are killed by euthanasia don’t experience what is described in the article?

Heck, we used to do Nembutols on purpose because we liked how it made us feel. A few of my friends OD’d; the ones who survived all said some variation on “D**N, that was a great rush until the lights went out!” and wanted to cop more.

 

[Victoria33]

Please correct me (gently) if I’m wrong, but didn’t our Church change her teaching about the death penalty? I also thought one of the reasons were that in most developed countries, there is an ability to make sure that person is never in the outside world ever again. If the death penalty is to be used because a person has commit a crime so heinous that it forfeits their privilege to be in our society, and would present a danger to us if they were allowed ever to be out, we in the United States no longer need to kill a person for that to happen. In a poorer, more corrupt country, where a person can easily escape our grease palms for release, the idea of the death penalty makes more sense to me.

I think the whole death penalty moral question is on topic. It’s like there are a series of these types of conversations, I thought this article looked interesting.

It’s interesting bringing up other countries, there are not that many countries that still use it. Most of Latin America does not, that’s our own hemisphere. Japan has it as does of course, China and North Korea. I believe some of the Islamic world does, Iran, Saudi Arabia and so on.

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I thought Russia had a moratorium on it.

30 States in the US have it on their books so I assume the others do not use it.

 

[neophyte]

I think the whole death penalty moral question is on topic.

Okay then, but from your OP I thought it was about what constitutes a cruel execution. And like I said, we used to do Nembutols on purpose because we liked how it made us feel; it’s the least cruel execution method I can imagine.

I supppse being on top of a keg of dynamite might be quicker and less painful when it goes off. Probably more distressing for the next of kin though.

 

[Victoria33]

I don’t know who said this exactly but apparently this was info relayed from an autopsy, so may have been in the coroner’s report. Good if one knows more than they do. I don’t believe shutting down info from the news is helpful in discussion. You can point out errors one perceives, fine.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

It is an Australian article about executions in America.

Yeah, from what I’ve seen of the Australian press in general, I’m not wasting a click on this clickbait.
And I’m anti-death penalty.

I don’t lecture other countries on their business and I expect to be shown the same courtesy by those other countries.

Go fix your own problems in your own backyard.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

No one deserves it. Unbelievable people still think this way

My guess is @Freddy was being sarcastic.

 

[MNathaniel]

I wonder why people who are killed by euthanasia don’t experience what is described in the article?

Some do.

It’s something euthanasia advocates don’t like to talk about. Or they’ll at least try to twist it around to

“This is why it’s so important to force doctors to perform euthanasia: because a suicidal person will commit suicide no matter what you do [no, many won’t, but different topic] and a doctor can at least kill by a method that involves minimal suffering, or help if something goes wrong during the process.”

This’d be a case of ‘something going wrong during the process’. And it does happen in hospital euthanasia just like it happens to death row inmates.

Shh though. We’re not supposed to talk about that.

Also @Victoria33 this map would look different if you include the countries that perform execution of non-criminals. Like my country, where we execute the sick and elderly if they ask for it. Or certain other countries where they execute disabled children for the crime of being disabled. Whoops, sorry, “euthanize”* not “execute”. Because there’s some meaningful difference there.

 

[Wesrock]

I would be perfectly happy if the USA banned capital punishment.

Playing the contrarian position, though, why do we continue to use painful drugs when people can fall into a painless sleep and then death (without any feeling of suffocation) by simply having them breathe straight nitrogen (or whatever gas it is)? Perhaps a morbid thought.

 

[Victoria33]

Some do.

It’s something euthanasia advocates don’t like to talk about. Or they’ll at least try to twist it around to

“This is why it’s so important to force doctors to perform euthanasia: because a suicidal person will commit suicide no matter what you do [no, many won’t, but different topic] and a doctor can at least kill by a method that involves minimal suffering, or help if something goes wrong during the process.”

This’d be a case of ‘something going wrong during the process’. And it does happen in hospital euthanasia just like it happens to death row inmates.

Shh though. We’re not supposed to talk about that.

Also @Victoria33 this map would look different if you include the countries that perform execution of non-criminals. Like my country, where we execute the sick and elderly if they ask for it. Or certain other countries where they execute disabled children for the crime of being disabled. Whoops, sorry, “euthanize”* not “execute”. Because there’s some meaningful difference there.

Yes, this opens up a whole new avenue and it does complicate the issue.

One could bring in abortion, I’m sure other issues pertain too or one could at least try to make them pertain, war, pollution, obesity.

 

[OKComputer]

I’m sort of against the death penalty, but I have to be honest. I don’t care if someone who killed another person suffers as they die. I just don’t. Maybe they should have thought about the consequences of their actions before they decided to kill another person. I know it’s an unpopular view, but it is how I feel.

 

[otjm]

I also think it’s terribly unkind to instead condemn his victim’s family “vengeful,” as if their feelings are somehow morally wrong or repugnant.

Matthew 18: 21-35.

On has less than perfect control over one’s feelings. However, all too often it is seen that people who are vengeful carry that with them, and find no peace of heart.

 

[Victoria33]

It’s a point of law about the suffering, if they can make a case that this is “unusual and cruel” punishment, something like that, they can have executions halted in all likelihood until another method is found.

It’s the law and at this point, this is much debated here but I’d say the Roman Catholic Church is largely against the use of the Death Penalty if not overwhelmingly so.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

Playing the contrarian position, though, why do we continue to use painful drugs when people can fall into a painless sleep and then death (without any feeling of suffocation) by simply having them breathe straight nitrogen (or whatever gas it is)? Perhaps a morbid thought.

It’s really weird. The problem is we’re trying to use a medical method of euthanasia, but medical personnel won’t participate in an execution. So you have prison guards who don’t really know what they’re doing.

We should either have no executions at all or a guillotine/gunshot to the back of the head. The current method is designed to avoid mess so we can pretend we’re not actually killing a human being.

 

[StudentMI]

The current method is designed to avoid mess so we can pretend we’re not actually killing a human being.

That’s a good point.

 

[otjm]

That said, killing is killing still, whether it’s drug dealers and gangs on the street. I just sometimes wonder about the scales of justice in this.

We need to keep in mind that the OT scripture of the 6th Commandment is properly translate “Thou shalt not kill an innocent person”. From that, the Catholic Church has provided, among other things, the morality of “just war”. Killing in self defense is not immoral.

The current “public commentary” has gone off the charts on major emotional reactions to killing, and probably should be the subject of a separate thread.

Please correct me (gently) if I’m wrong, but didn’t our Church change her teaching about the death penalty?

The word “changed” is used, often as if the Church has turned moral law on the matter upside down. Part of that may be due to the impression people have that moral law is “cast in stone”, as if it were immutable.

What has happened has also happened in doctrine; and that is that a doctrine may be later nuanced; that is, finer details of the matter are understood and pronounced; the doctrine is not “overturned”.

The issue of the death penalty being determined as morally wrong stems from several issues; as Pope John Paul II noted, in most societies, we are now able to incarcerate with far greater safety than we used to; thus society is protected from the one who would otherwise be a continuing danger to others. Coupled with that is a deeper look at the inherent dignity of human beings amounts to.

Dignitatus Humanae, while it was the V2 document on religious freedom, is based on the expanding understanding the Church’s view of what it means to be human, and what gift God has given us as humans.

Coupled with that is, for anyone who really wants to study it, the understanding that the application of the death penalty is anything except consistent. Compare, for example, Charles Manson receiving the death penalty and then the law being overturned, leaving him to die in jail 38 years after conviction (and consider the murders he was charged with) and Scott Peterson, who killed his pregnant wife and child in utero receiving the death penalty, it being overturned with the possibility of it being re-litigated. Both were murders; Manson with multiple (8 people) killed, Scott with two; and the Manson murders appearing far grizzlier than Scott’s; and then look at the number of family killings where the killer gets life imprisonment.

“Equal justice under the law” is simply not equal. And while I am aware of the wag’s comment that “nothing sharpens the mind so much as knowing that one will be killed at dawn”, the Church proposes that it is a) unnecessary; b) the individual has longer time to come to terms with their sin and repent, and c) there is something lacking any sense of dignity about a stone cold execution. We do not have truly “public” executions on prime time television. Wonder why…

 

[Rau]

I suppose, since this took place in Australia, you’d know best about it. (You are Australian, right? I didn’t get confused?)

There is no death penalty in Australia.

 

[neophyte]

Playing the contrarian position, though, why do we continue to use painful drugs when people can fall into a painless sleep and then death (without any feeling of suffocation) by simply having them breathe straight nitrogen (or whatever gas it is)? Perhaps a morbid thought.

Ummm… that’s called “suffocation”, and it’s very, very uncomfortable.