Controversial execution in Ohio uses new drug combination - CNN.com
I DO NOT like the death penalty..I think it's not a great way of stopping crime, violent crime, any crime.
So I am listening to how this rapist-murderer had a bad dose of a death penalty cocktail and suffered for 15 or 24 minutes, depending on what you read. Apparently Ohio Corrections used an untried mix of drugs that backfired and the convicted murderers family was traumatized by his death.
The woman he raped and murdered, was 24 years old and pregnant.
Yeah, I'll give you a minute to think about that.
There was a lot of talk about how this guy suffered and was gasping for air. While discussing the dramatic and bungled ending to this mans life, no one mentioned the last moments of Joy Stewart's life, how she might have taken her last breath, how much pain she endured, how she suffered. How her family will NEVER be the same.
That's when I get really mad. There's no outrage about the culture of rape where daily, in this country, there are 1.3 women (ages 18 and over) in the United States are forcibly raped each minute. That translates to 78 per hour, 1,871 per day, or 683,000 per year. RTS | Statistics
Then there's murder. 40 a day on average.
I didn't hear anything about that on CNN.
Just a lot of shock and awe that there was a bad ending for a very bad man.
Today was a bad day for a murderer, his family and probably the victims family too.
I can't even imagine their pain.
What I can easily imagine, when I am out running or in a parking lot at night, or grocery shopping is a universal fear I think every woman has, every person has, that you will be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like Joy Stewart, like thousands of people that are murdered every year. For some reason I don't feel real safe because there's a death penalty.
If the death penalty works, it didn't stop this dead man walking, it's not stopping other criminals either. Whats even worse is that a veterinarian can euthanize a pet more humanely than we can execute a human being. Maybe it's time for the circus around the death penalty to end, especially since we can't even manage to execute an execution.
We like to think we are so civilized. Hold that thought.
We have several issues floating around here. First, no woman (or man for that matter) should have to suffer a rape, much less murder.
ReplyDeleteBut second, without passing judgment on the case at hand, we execute the wrong person at a fairly regular clip in this country. So I am opposed to any irreversible punishment, whether it's murder or, as Sarge suggests, castration. That way, the "only" thing we steal by convicting the wrong man is the time he spends in prison, the loss of the love and company of his family, and vice-versa.
Finally, what if we have a bona-fide, no-questions-unanswered, clearly on-the-basis -of-scientific-evidence guilty-as-sin prisoner who has committed what today we consider capital crime? What's to stop us from executing him then? Well, what's the purpose of killing him? I've seen no valid evidence that capital punishment does anything more to prevent capital crimes than life in prison.
Will it bring the family of the victim "closure?" I have no idea what that means, unless closure is a code word for revenge. My feeling is, the state is not a hitman for hire.
Should we do it purely as a memorable object lesson – a public spectacle to dramatize a moral? That would be interesting, but these days we execute convicted people behind closed doors, with no crowds, a select group of "witnesses," and no cameras, please.
However, if we must execute people, can we at least execute those who do the most damage to society? Who has ruined more lives – a rapist murderer of one person and her unborn child in Ohio, or a greedy banker who crashes the economy, throws tens or hundreds of thousands of people out of work, makes many more homeless, causes years of stress and misery for millions, and no doubt prompts a few score of suicides? He, and the Osama Bin Laden's of this world are the only candidates for execution I would put forward.
Very Crankily Yours,
The New York Crank
The death penalty doesn't prevent more slayings and I doubt it brings closure to the families of the victims either. However, I will have no problem with KSM and the 9/11 planners being taken to Terre Haute Federal Prison for a date with the needle.
ReplyDeleteAs to Mister Snowden - life without parole at Ad-Max Florence...
Sarge
I want to suggest to these States that are having trouble with lethal injections that they just waterboard condemned criminals to death. After all, we have already determined that waterboarding is not torture.
ReplyDelete