After reading the news about Christa Pike, I found an article on Wikipedia listing a bunch of botched executions.
Since 2000, 5% of lethal injections have gone wrong in one way or another. That’s 17 botched injections in 26 years. That’s an unreasonably high failure rate for something that they have no intention of stopping.
I had an assignment once related to the death penalty when i was in high school. I remember reading that lethal injection had the highest botch rate. Don’t remember what the least was, but I want to say it was hanging? Either way, it’s unreasonable to do anyway. Costs significantly more than life in prison.
There are a lot of hanging entries on the botched executions list, though in fairness, that’s because the list goes back several hundred years.
From what I can tell, you’ve got a 2/3 chance of a quick death by hanging. Rope too long, you’re getting decapitated. Rope long enough: quick neck break, goodnight sweetheart.
Rope too short you’re spending 20 minutes being strangled to death while people tug on your legs to try and break your neck.
Never heard a complaint from the guillotine. That thing can chop all day every day for weeks. The French had a go at maxing it out. Didn’t even brake a sweat.
IMHO the entire injection procedure is to keep it “clean” and socially accepted.
Very few people would be happy to see somebody being shot in the head, but seeing somebody “falling asleep” is much more “ok”. It looks less violent even though the end result is the same. Surviving a lethal injection and waking up again in that nightmare must be horrible.
The reality is that death penalty is cruel and more costly than keeping someone in prison for life, and this doesn’t even consider the human cost of executing an innocent. It just doesn’t make sense.
Dying slowly from an injection (or not at all) is more cruel that a bullet to the brain. You are right that these injections are done because observers don’t have the stomach for an bullet to the head. But if you don’t have the stomach to carry out the sentence, then you shouldn’t be meting out that sentence.
After reading the news about Christa Pike, I found an article on Wikipedia listing a bunch of botched executions.
Since 2000, 5% of lethal injections have gone wrong in one way or another. That’s 17 botched injections in 26 years. That’s an unreasonably high failure rate for something that they have no intention of stopping.
I had an assignment once related to the death penalty when i was in high school. I remember reading that lethal injection had the highest botch rate. Don’t remember what the least was, but I want to say it was hanging? Either way, it’s unreasonable to do anyway. Costs significantly more than life in prison.
There are a lot of hanging entries on the botched executions list, though in fairness, that’s because the list goes back several hundred years.
From what I can tell, you’ve got a 2/3 chance of a quick death by hanging. Rope too long, you’re getting decapitated. Rope long enough: quick neck break, goodnight sweetheart.
Rope too short you’re spending 20 minutes being strangled to death while people tug on your legs to try and break your neck.
Knowing my luck, I’d get the latter.
Never heard a complaint from the guillotine. That thing can chop all day every day for weeks. The French had a go at maxing it out. Didn’t even brake a sweat.
They did, however, find out approximately how long a severed head lives after being removed from the body. It’s much longer than you’d think.
How don’t they have a backup method? There must be someone around with a gun? Double tap just in case, even if the chemical method seems to work.
If you must execute people, at least have the decency to do it properly.
IMHO the entire injection procedure is to keep it “clean” and socially accepted. Very few people would be happy to see somebody being shot in the head, but seeing somebody “falling asleep” is much more “ok”. It looks less violent even though the end result is the same. Surviving a lethal injection and waking up again in that nightmare must be horrible.
The reality is that death penalty is cruel and more costly than keeping someone in prison for life, and this doesn’t even consider the human cost of executing an innocent. It just doesn’t make sense.
Agreed.
Dying slowly from an injection (or not at all) is more cruel that a bullet to the brain. You are right that these injections are done because observers don’t have the stomach for an bullet to the head. But if you don’t have the stomach to carry out the sentence, then you shouldn’t be meting out that sentence.