Why isn't the guillotine used for executions?

Blue Mountain said:
On thing I find curious about this is the United States has a strong entrepreneurial culture. There's an opportunity here for an existing manufacturer to step up to the plate and start making it on U.S. soil. I suspect sales wouldn't be sufficient for a startup to set up a lab to manufacture it and make a profit, but surely there must be a large enough company in the States that could set aside a day or two in one of its labs to make sufficient quantities for the US market. So why aren't they?
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It is incredibly expensive to create a chemical trading company and I am not sure whether companies are allowed to manufacture sodium thiopental for commercial use without authorization from the patent holder (I assume there is one). EDIT: Did some googling and I guess there isn't any patent on it, it's just that the people who manufactured it in the US have stopped, and EU manufacturers cannot sell it to the US since it infringes on the Italian law potentially. I assume US manufacture discontinued because of cost.

So they probably aren't doing it because there's no profit in it for one, and two marketing your drug specifically to fill the "demand" in question here is not going to do well for you.
 
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I can think of many ways to kill a person, instantaneously. However, it could be gruesome. I think that's the actual problem. Many people support the death penalty, but if they see damage, then they get grossed out and could change their mind. It's all about the PR of executions and they don't think about the fact that they are actually extinguishing a life, carrying out a sentence that cannot be reversed or reconciled. With a life in prison sentence, an innocent person could be re-compensated in some way so that they can have a chance at a good life.
 
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Lowpro said:
It is incredibly expensive to create a chemical trading company and I am not sure whether companies are allowed to manufacture sodium thiopental for commercial use without authorization from the patent holder (I assume there is one). EDIT: Did some googling and I guess there isn't any patent on it, it's just that the people who manufactured it in the US have stopped, and EU manufacturers cannot sell it to the US since it infringes on the Italian law potentially. I assume US manufacture discontinued because of cost.

So they probably aren't doing it because there's no profit in it for one, and two marketing your drug specifically to fill the "demand" in question here is not going to do well for you.
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I suspect it's all about liability. If a chemical is used to kill someone who is, after the fact, proven innocent, there could be major financial damage. The chemicals from Europe have stopped being sold because they have been declared not to have the purpose of killing people.
 
Chaos said:
What they did, and still do, in China is use people as involuntary organ donors for such heinous crimes as practicing Falun Gong or being an Uighur.

You may want to find a different role model for executions.
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I think the problem is the death penalty itself. Both America and China use the death penalty for certain crimes. Neither should criticize the other for what they do. The differences are cultural, nothing more.
 
thaiboxerken said:
I suspect it's all about liability. If a chemical is used to kill someone who is, after the fact, proven innocent, there could be major financial damage. The chemicals from Europe have stopped being sold because they have been declared not to have the purpose of killing people.
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Bingo. There is no way to charge enough to cover the legal expenses associated with selling a drug to be used for executions in the US. Even if every case were dismissed, the avalanche of cases would continue so long as the company sold the drugs. Your fee would have to cover a full time staff of litigation counsel and appellate counsel. I'd budget six figures a month in legal fees if you really wanted to be the one pharmacy in the US compounding for death penalty cases. And if any one of those cases actually found traction with a sympathetic judge or professional board, all bets are off.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
So it's fairly perculiar that death penalty proponents find the slow torture resulting from botched lethal injections as no big issue, as it is deemed that the prisoner was so evil they deserve a bit of pain. Perculiar as presumably they would not care about a more messy form of execution like the guillotine or being hang drawn and quartered. But they do. Is it possible that for all their talk, they feel slightly ashamed of the practice, wishing to mask it behind something clean like lethal injections?
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Who is this "they" you speak of? I'm in favor of all forms mentioned so far.
 
I have no problem with the death penalty as long as it is applied in an equal, color-/class-blind manner. So, for example, if it were shown that poor murderers received the death penalty 10 times more often than rich murderers, that would be a grossly unfair application of the death penalty.

The death penalty brings closure and a sense of justice to victims' families. It also certainly prevents murderers from killing again.

And notice how murderers seek to get their cases tried in non-death-penalty states if they've committed murders in more than one state. They don't want to die, and so they try to get their case tried in a state where the death penalty is not an option.

I'd also like to see a policy that required the prosecuting district attorney and the police who handled the evidence in death penalty cases to submit to a third-party polygraph to ensure that they have not suppressed evidence, tampered with the evidence, or planted evidence.
 
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bobtaftfan said:
The death penalty brings closure and a sense of justice to victims' families.
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This is the part I feel has been grossly under investigated. Is there any evidence that the execution of the perpetrator is of any psycological benefit to the victims? I certainly don't believe they could ever find closure.

Also, bobtaftfan, what manner of execution would you feel comfortable with? If we allow the desire of the victims to dictate what happens to the perpertrator (as you have here), would you feel comfortable with the perpetrator being dissolved in a bath of acid if it brought justice and closure to the victims?
 
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Undesired Walrus said:
This is the part I feel has been grossly under investigated. Is there any evidence that the execution of the perpetrator is of any psycological benefit to the victims? I certainly don't believe they could ever find closure.

Also, bobtaftfan, what manner of execution would you feel comfortable with? If we allow the desire of the victims to dictate what happens to the perpertrator (as you have here), would you feel comfortable with the perpetrator being dissolved in a bath of acid if it brought justice and closure to the victims?
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I can't count how many times I've seen victims' families express outrage when their loved one's murderer escaped the death penalty or had his execution delayed for years.

The death penalty brings closure because the family knows that their loved one's killer paid the ultimate price for his crime, and they know that the killer can never harm anyone again. Among other things, this gives them the sense that justice has been done.

I know there are some groups that have been formed by murder victims' families. As far as I'm aware, the vast majority support the death penalty.

As for the method of execution, I believe it should be quick and as painless as possible. I favor lethal injection or a firing squad where two shooters aim at the head and two at the heart and with the murderer being given narcotic pain killers ahead of time.
 
bobtaftfan said:
I can't count how many times I've seen victims' families express outrage when their loved one's murderer escaped the death penalty or had his execution delayed for years.
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I've also seen victim's families and victim express outrage when the sentence isn't as severe as they would like it to be. The institutionalized taking of revenge on the perpetrator is appropriate and while it is appropriate to take into account victim's families feelings on the matter, they are generally not inclined to be lenient on the party that wronged them, regardless of what the crime is.

The death penalty brings closure because the family knows that their loved one's killer paid the ultimate price for his crime, and they know that the killer can never harm anyone again. Among other things, this gives them the sense that justice has been done.
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Most of the families I've met that have had a loved one murdered( and I count myself in that group) can tell you that no matter what is done to the convicted murderer, it won't bring the loved one back.

To all the righteous executions you can always place the wrongful convictions of people for murder beside them - if they had been executed, who then gives vengeance to their families?

I know there are some groups that have been formed by murder victims' families. As far as I'm aware, the vast majority support the death penalty.
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And they can lobby for it, if they so choose. Most of the ones I am aware of are there to help provide psychological support to each other.

As for the method of execution, I believe it should be quick and as painless as possible. I favor lethal injection or a firing squad where two shooters aim at the head and two at the heart and with the murderer being given narcotic pain killers ahead of time.
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Why? If you want a vengeance based system of punishment, then why make it painless for the convicted felon?
 
bobtaftfan said:
The death penalty brings closure because the family knows that their loved one's killer paid the ultimate price for his crime, and they know that the killer can never harm anyone again. Among other things, this gives them the sense that justice has been done.
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Surely the ultimate price that the killer can pay is having to live with the horror of what they have done for the rest of their lives. The nightmares, the guilt, the wish that they could turn the clock back. If they haven't come to such contrition, it doesn't say much for the abilities of the penal system in the world's most powerful nation.


As for the method of execution, I believe it should be quick and as painless as possible. I favor lethal injection or a firing squad where two shooters aim at the head and two at the heart and with the murderer being given narcotic pain killers ahead of time.
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Why? If you have allowed the emotions of the victims to come into account when it comes to sentencing, who are you to deny them the method of execution that will bring them most closure. Some may want to carry out the execution themselves. If they can only find closure and feel justice through this method, why do you deny it to them?
 
JoeBentley said:
The question as to what, if any, length of consciousness a severed head had after decapation was actually a really deal back when the French were using the guillotine a lot.
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I think it's ridiculous. Heart failure stops consciousness immediately. I see no reason to assume that severing the head, and therefore instantly cutting off its oxygen supply, would be any different. Muscles and nerves, however, may have enough juice to twitch a bit.
 
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