Columnist doesn't like death penalty

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The US constitution says something about a person not being deprived of life…except by due process of law. Jill Filipovic seems to gloss over that part of the law and focuses on the part against cruel and unusual punishment.

It seems that death by lethal injection would cause the convicted man to be tortured before his death. Well, if the death penalty can be justified morally in the first place, then a plain old bullet to the head would be painless and effective.

She complains that the death penalty has been shown to be ineffective. Perhaps that is because, like medicine, it is ineffective unless it is used in the right amount. Maybe we need many more executions for it to sink in that society is determined to punish those who commit heinous crimes, the innocence project notwithstanding.

If I understand it correctly, Filipovic ALSO supports abortion on demand. WHAT? How can a person who is so passionate against the death penalty be in favor of the ending of innocent life in the womb?

this is the result of making an idol of oneself, in my opinion.
 
otrrl said:
The US constitution says something about a person not being deprived of life…except by due process of law. Jill Filipovic seems to gloss over that part of the law and focuses on the part against cruel and unusual punishment.
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I don’t see where she’s glossing over anything – the point is cruel and unusual punishment. She even, quite clearly, says if what his lawyers say about his condition is correct. And if it is, this will be cruel and unusual punishment, which is unconstitutional.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that you don’t have a right to support it if you want. But pointing out what the Constitution says is hardly “making an idol of oneself.”
 
Also from the article cited:
The United States is already an extreme outlier when it comes to the death penalty. We are in the company of the world’s very worst human rights abusers when it comes to the number of people we execute: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, and Somalia. More than a hundred countries (that is, most of them) worldwide have abolished the death penalty; some others have death penalty laws on the books, but don’t utilize them. Between 1973 and 2016, 150 people on death row were found to be innocent and released.
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This is a fact. We are an outlier. Why is that?
 
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Nothing about the Court’s reasoning in the article. Possibly they did not accept as true the assertion concerning the result. It is my impression that there are two injections. The first is a powerful sedative that will ordinarily cause the condemned to lose consciousness. The second basically paralyzes the diaphragm so the condemned stops breathing.

I’m not sure where the choking (suggested to be while the condemned is conscious, but not said) alleged comes into this. Maybe it does, but the article doesn’t tell us.
 
Ridgerunner said:
It is my impression that there are two injections.
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Missouri uses one injection that is unlikely to make him lose consciousness due to his tumors.
Ridgerunner said:
I’m not sure where the choking (suggested to be while the condemned is conscious, but not said) alleged comes into this.
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While struggling to breathe the tumor in his throat will likely rupture, leading to him drowning in his own blood.

No wonder the Church has come out so strongly against capital punishment. Absolutely barbaric.
 
John24 said:
While struggling to breathe the tumor in his throat will likely rupture, leading to him drowning in his own blood.
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the inmate apparently proposed “nitrogen hypoxia” as an alternative. I’m no doctor but it seems that hypoxia of any type would cause someone to struggle to breathe. I dont see how his proposed alternative is any better for him.
 
I oppose capital punishment. But I do favor truth. Neither the article nor your analysis actually tells us why the condemned man’s lawyer’s assertions are true. You are correct in saying it’s a “one drug” thing. From what little I have read about it pentobarbital, the drug used, is more humane than the two or three drug methods.

But we’re still not informed how this particular drug would cause the result claimed.
 
As long as carbon dioxide can be exhaled, there is no struggle to breathe. The human breathe reflex is triggered by high levels of blood carbonic acid, which occurs while choking, drowning, etc.

In nitrogen hypoxia (not yet legislated by any of our states, or for that matter other countries), a plastic hood around the head is inflated with pure nitrogen. The carbonic acid is still exhaled, so there is no breathing discomfort, (in theory) but the mind rapidly goes into coma and then death from oxygen lack.

ICXC NIKA
 
All the European nations, save Russia, as well as the entire New World, with one or two exceptions, (other than us) have discarded the death penalty. It has been set aside by almost all modern “democratic” nations, excepting us and Japan.

This places us solidly in the company of the world’s dictatorships and warzone nations. We can do better.

ICXC NIKA
 
It seems they are arguing that the tumors in his “neck and throat” would block his breathing while the drug was taking effect, so that he’d be conscious and choking.

This is not the first time something like this has been argued. Perhaps two years ago, a condemned man (name and state escape me) successfully argued that, because his severe breathing problems would cause him to gasp while tied to the execution slab, a special pillow was needed to support his head so he could breathe during his execution! (The execution was later stayed, and he died naturally before it could be rescheduled.)

ICXC NIKA
 
It is easy to support a cause that costs you nothing.

Whether or not one agrees with the death penalty, the use of it by the states affects very few of us. But Filipovic, according to her blurb, is the author of a book labelling her as a “feminist.”

For feminists, opposition to abortion does have a cost, and she might just be unwilling to pay it.

ICXC NIKA
 
I oppose the death penalty, but isn’t this the ‘everyone’s doing it’ fallacy (sorry I don’t remember the latin name)? Just because Japan and the European Union do something, and we don’t, it doesn’t automatically make them right and us wrong. We could be the sole right exception to a wave of wrong thinking.
 
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GEddie said:
But Filipovic, according to her blurb, is the author of a book labelling her as a “feminist.”

For feminists, opposition to abortion does have a cost, and she might just be unwilling to pay it.
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Which has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of this thread, which is a Supreme Court ruling on an execution.
Feel free to start a separate thread on Filipovic’s views on abortion.
 
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GEddie said:
the European nations, save Russia, as well as the entire New World, with one or two exceptions, (other than us) have discarded the death penalty. It has been set aside by almost all modern “democratic” nations, excepting us and Japan.
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Popularity is a poor judge of morality.
 
vz71 said:
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GEddie:
the European nations, save Russia, as well as the entire New World, with one or two exceptions, (other than us) have discarded the death penalty. It has been set aside by almost all modern “democratic” nations, excepting us and Japan.
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Popularity is a poor judge of morality.
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Actually, it is quite a good judge of morality - in most cases. You need to make a special argument why something that most of the world finds abhorrent is actually a good thing.
 
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