Tennessee: Execution of Christa Pike stayed!

[arthwollipot]

I suggest that even if you are fully on board with the idea of execution as fitting punishment for certain criminals, chemical execution has been shown, over and over, to be cruelly unreliable at best.

Especially in this case since the American Medical Association bans its members from performing executions, and many countries refuse to supply the requisite chemicals to countries that use them in executions, meaning that they have bodged-together chemicals administered by people who are not medical professionals.

Decapitation is more humane.

 

[steenkh]

How unusual must a punishment be for it to fall under the constitutional amendment banning cruel and unusual punishment? One must presume that the "unusual" here is not meant to apply to unforeseen errors. But in the case of botched chemical executions, the errors are, I think, frequent enough to be foreseeable, and when they do go wrong they are certainly cruel. I would contend that even if it is possible to carry out these executions without inflicting physical cruelty, their very intention is mental cruelty. They are engineered to occur slowly, and to make the person consciously aware not only that the event will occur, but of the process of their death right up to the last heartbeat. "Who can plumb the sinking of that soul?"

I suggest that even if you are fully on board with the idea of execution as fitting punishment for certain criminals, chemical execution has been shown, over and over, to be cruelly unreliable at best. One can argue about whether it's possible for any execution not to be cruel in some sense, given what it is, but in any case, this fails the test too often to meet constitutional standards.

It is easily possible to execute people without causing excruciating pain or accidents. Just apply full anaesthesia as is practiced by medical operations all over the world, after which you can kill the person in any way you like. But this method is not used, because the suffering is intentional.

 

[steenkh]

Decapitation is more humane.

Indeed. Or the execution method used by the Soviet Union and East Germany for "favoured" prisoners: shoot them from behind just when they believe they are being released,

 

[theprestige]

Why? Do you want to score a rhetorical point?

TORTURE Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

TORTURE definition: the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty. See examples of torture used in a sentence.

www.dictionary.com

View attachment 77520


I repeat - torture for any reason is morally repugnant. You say you're okay with that. I find that genuinely, viscerally disgusting.

Ah, it's the excruciating part that distinguishes torture for you. Mild suffering, such as from prolonged incarceration, is okay, as long as it's for just punishment of a crime. I assume. Maybe you don't like incarceration either.

 

[theprestige]

Does that matter? From a non-religious viewpoint, I would think redemption adds more positive to alleviate all the negative impact from the crime. Cutting off redemption cuts off potentially beneficial impacts to society.

Enh. There's a lot of courts that stream their proceedings these days, and a lot of YT channels that curate that content. I see a *lot* of arraignments and sentencings for repeat offenders who have been given probation multiple times, violated probation multiple times, and still somehow get more probation. I've seen drunk drivers who have been given literally a dozen chances to redeem themselves, and still somehow get yet another chance. There are jurisdictions in Texas where a black or brown criminal has to work really hard, over and over again, to actually get a prison sentence.

Giving people All The Chances to redeem themselves is overrated.

And yes, the system actually takes likelihood of redemption into account, phrased in terms of likelihood to abide by the terms of their probation.

 

[arthwollipot]

Ah, it's the excruciating part that distinguishes torture for you. Mild suffering, such as from prolonged incarceration, is okay, as long as it's for just punishment of a crime. I assume. Maybe you don't like incarceration either.

It is the unnecessary infliction of pain, which flogging is designed to do, that defines torture. Incarceration is obviously not torture, and the only reason you would conflate the two is to score rhetorical points.

You said that you had no moral problems with flogging, which is torture. I find that repugnant.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Perhaps the Death Penalty will be more just if, when it turns out that an innocent was killed due to a misjudgement, the police officers involved in mishandling evidence, the jury involved in the verdict and the Judge and Governor that apply the verdict will be executed once that comes out.

 

[Rolfe]

That is actually the plot of Christina Dalcher's The Sentence, although in the book it's the prosecution attorney who is executed.

 

[theprestige]

It is the unnecessary infliction of pain, which flogging is designed to do, that defines torture. Incarceration is obviously not torture, and the only reason you would conflate the two is to score rhetorical points.

You said that you had no moral problems with flogging, which is torture. I find that repugnant.

I think that incarceration inflicts suffering, but out of necessity - several complementary necessities, even. It's not obvious to me that flogging cannot be administered on the same basis of regrettable but necessary suffering.

It seems to me that a judiciously-applied public flogging has many of the same salutary effects as a prison term. It reassures the law-abiding public that there are real consequences for violating the social contract. It reassures would-be criminals of the same. About the only thing it doesn't do is lock a recidivist away, for public safety. But neither does a term of probation, and many people seem to have gotten very comfortable at being repeat probation violators. I wonder how many people would work their way up to a fourth or fifth DUI, if instead of probation they'd gotten a severe spanking in the public square after their first or second offense.

One pro-social aspect of flogging versus incarceration is that it's swiftly over. The person can go back to their life, their job, their family in short order. Not on the perhaps empty promise of good behavior, but on the basis of having already paid their full debt to society.

So there's my case for flogging as punishment, resulting in a certain amount of suffering - as all true punishment must - but only out of jurisprudential necessity. No intent to inflict excruciating pain. No desire to cause suffering for the sake of suffering - no more so than any other form of criminal punishment.

I think you must have started with the arbitrary conclusion that a sharp spanking is a crime against humanity, but life in a prison cell is not. To me the difference is not that obvious.

 

[LSSBB]

I think that incarceration inflicts suffering, but out of necessity - several complementary necessities, even. It's not obvious to me that flogging cannot be administered on the same basis of regrettable but necessary suffering.

It seems to me that a judiciously-applied public flogging has many of the same salutary effects as a prison term. It reassures the law-abiding public that there are real consequences for violating the social contract. It reassures would-be criminals of the same. About the only thing it doesn't do is lock a recidivist away, for public safety. But neither does a term of probation, and many people seem to have gotten very comfortable at being repeat probation violators. I wonder how many people would work their way up to a fourth or fifth DUI, if instead of probation they'd gotten a severe spanking in the public square after their first or second offense.

One pro-social aspect of flogging versus incarceration is that it's swiftly over. The person can go back to their life, their job, their family in short order. Not on the perhaps empty promise of good behavior, but on the basis of having already paid their full debt to society.

So there's my case for flogging as punishment, resulting in a certain amount of suffering - as all true punishment must - but only out of jurisprudential necessity. No intent to inflict excruciating pain. No desire to cause suffering for the sake of suffering - no more so than any other form of criminal punishment.

I think you must have started with the arbitrary conclusion that a sharp spanking is a crime against humanity, but life in a prison cell is not. To me the difference is not that obvious.

It is not apparent to me that by "must" you mean inevitably, or by moral imperative. Nor to what degree of suffering that "must" be applicable.

If it be by moral imperative, that sounds to me like a rather sadistic morality.

 

[sackett]

When people defend legalized cruelty, they should go
into precise detail.
Just to start with what's called flogging:

On which part or parts of the criminal's body?
On bare flesh?
With pickling after the legally specified number of strokes?
Using what implement or implements? Birch rods? Braided whips? Knouts? With or without lead weights?
How hard will the strokes land, and who will deliver them? An authorized person, or a mechanical device?
In the case of repeat offenders, how much healing is allowed before fresh punishment?

These are the sorts of details that require attention -- and perhaps public debate -- before a return to
corporal punishments. Let us by all means require advocates of flogging, branding, ear cropping, tarring,
etc. to be explicit in their recommendations.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

When people defend legalized cruelty, they should go
into precise detail.
Just to start with what's called flogging:

On which part or parts of the criminal's body?
On bare flesh?
With pickling after the legally specified number of strokes?
Using what implement or implements? Birch rods? Braided whips? Knouts? With or without lead weights?
How hard will the strokes land, and who will deliver them? An authorized person, or a mechanical device?
In the case of repeat offenders, how much healing is allowed before fresh punishment?

These are the sorts of details that require attention -- and perhaps public debate -- before a return to
corporal punishments. Let us by all means require advocates of flogging, branding, ear cropping, tarring,
etc. to be explicit in their recommendations.

I'm sure nations like Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi-Arabia are capable of giving some statistics here.
Whether the fact that these nations are the ones with flogging still as a punishment might give rise to some introspection, but eh, the US right only seems to disagree with those nations on what religion should be supreme, not their human rights.

 

[The Atheist]

*Checks calendar and quietly shakes head*

 

[Steve]

*Checks calendar and quietly shakes head*

I know, right. Some Americans have very backwards, and violent, ideas.

 

[sackett]

I know, right. Some Americans have very backwards, and violent, ideas.

Only one American here is advocating (or pretending to advocate) flogging. So far.

 

[Steve]

Only one American here is advocating (or pretending to advocate) flogging. So far.

That one is not a lone voice in his country.

 

[arthwollipot]

I think you must have started with the arbitrary conclusion that a sharp spanking is a crime against humanity, but life in a prison cell is not. To me the difference is not that obvious.

The deliberate infliction of pain as a punishment is torture, and this is why schools in most civilised countries have banned corporal punishment for children.

The difference is bleeding obvious. Incarceration is not "suffering", which is a word that you choose to use instead of "pain" only because it suits your argument better. Incarcerated people do not have pain deliberately inflicted upon them at the order of the state.

If it be by moral imperative, that sounds to me like a rather sadistic morality.

It is.

 

[bruto]

I tend to agree with Arthwollipot on this, but I'm not sure one even has to. The founding fathers were, as usual, rather parsimonious in their language, and left the interpretation of "cruel and unusual" to the discretion of those who would use those principles in the future. No doubt some punishments once common no longer are, and some once considered within bounds no longer are.

I'm sure flogging is still practiced in some places, and that it once was practiced here as well. I cannot think at the moment of crimes for which flogging would be appropriate, but I do find it possible to consider that it might be a preferable form of punishment if the alternatives were suitably inappropriate. I you commit an offense that the authorities consider should be punished with twenty lashes, that might seem attractive if the alternative is a year in a dungeon. It does not make flogging a good idea for a crime that deserves neither. And introducing the word "spanking" into this discussion is, I think, far off base if one is speaking of the punishment of adults for crimes.

Of course how we view a punishment is going to vary, and all sorts of arguments involving responsibility and free will keep cropping up. We have seen elsewhere the question of how one should regard some speculative chemical or neurological cure for violence, and in the mean time we have to try to figure out the boundary between what is necessary and appropriate and what is not. I think that changes, in part as our own society changes, and also as we learn more. At the theoretical level, there will always be the "Clockwork Orange" debate, though. Imprisonment is, at least in theory, a deterrent not only to those considering crimes, but those who might repeat them. Execution is a deterrent only to the former, and there seems to be considerable evidence that doesn't work well.

Of course, in some degree, any restraint is going to be painful in some degree. Being imprisoned for your crimes is not going to be a nice thing. it involves some deprivation of freedom, after all. There is likely to be some mental suffering going on there. We can hope that it develops into an improvement in character and a reluctance to do the crime again, but along with being the only necessary thing we know how to do, it's going to be hard. But it's not physical suffering, and it's not dying. And it's not the psychological suffering of knowing you're going to be killed.

To imagine it's the same except for degree seems, if not a bit disingenuous, not very carefully thought out.

And I repeat again and again, even if you have decided that execution is the best or only sentence for certain crimes, I think it unnecessarily cruel and inefficient. The moment of a death sentence is ultimate enough. That's as hard as it gets. Anything other than a quick and painless snuffing after that is gratuitous cruelty.

 

[arthwollipot]

The death penalty is one of the few things that I will admit to being dogmatic about.

 

[bruto]

The death penalty is one of the few things that I will admit to being dogmatic about.

I too, even though I can sympathize with the passion and anger that motivates it, can be at least in the vicinity of thinking some people deserve it, and can recognize a utilitarian argument for it. Against that stands, not only the practical and commensurately utilitarian facts that it's ..

1. Inconsistent, biased by passion and prejudice and often corrupt;
2. sometimes done to the entirely wrong person;
3. ridiculously expensive and cumbersome, owing in part to the incomplete and impossible task of trying to avoid the first two'
4. unable to predict with any real accuracy the degree to which a person deserves it or what future redemption is possible;

but also the unfortunate final fact that whether or not you find those things compelling, if you believe it's just plain wrong, the argument ends there. If you agree that this is just something we should not be doing, then argument about the way it's done is just rhetorical exercise. I've got nothing better to do most evenings, so I'm happy to dabble in sophistry, but I know that's what it is, really, because I think it's wrong at the root.

I'm always reminded of Rosie's line from The African Queen, "Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put on earth to rise above!"