Saturday, October 21, 2017

Death Penalty: When it Should Be Permanently Removed

Enough verbiage about the death penalty has been written to fill a small building, assuming legal size paper and 12 point type, double spaced.  Maybe two small buildings.  I've read enough about appeals and new evidence to be convinced that our court system has absolutely no business sentencing anyone to death.  Too many exceptions exist, new evidence is discovered, and the courts often refuse to test DNA evidence.  Heaven help us all if one of these judges should assist in wrongfully convicting someone - which has happened so often that it's no real surprise anymore.  But I'm not going to write about that part, mainly because I have no good solution and I'm neither an attorney nor a doctor of philosophy.


Nope.

What I'm writing about today is the methodology the State of Ohio is using, which might well be cruel and unusual punishment.  From the happy publishers at Cleveland dot com we have Ohio Plans to Resume Executions in January with New Drug Cocktail
From the article:
The state will use the drugs midazolam, rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
Which is idiotic.  There is no guarantee that midazolam will cause the intended prisoner to lose consciousness, and since rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride are quite painful if administered by themselves, the prisoner is likely to suffer horribly for at least ten minutes.  Which, quite frankly, is not going to cause many people to lose any sleep.  Others... not so much.

My thought, which I've expressed before, is to use a firing squad.  Six adult shooters who willingly volunteer for this duty use a .30 caliber rifle in good lighting at a ridiculously short range, and one volley later we've got the remains of the day to dispose of.  No special equipment is needed, no elaborate ceremony takes place, we don't even need any medical personnel involved.

Consider this no good murderous son-of-a-bitch for a second.


Courtesy of WLWT5 we have 8 Condemned Ohio Killers Receive New Execution Dates
From the article:
Jeffrey Wogenstahl, sentenced to die for kidnapping 10-year-old Amber Garrett from her western Cincinnati suburban home in 1991, taking her to a secluded area and stabbing her to death. Wogenstahl had already received an execution delay from the Ohio Supreme Court.
Previous execution date: Sept. 13.
New execution date: April 17, 2019.
Now then, go into any bar or gun club in Cleveland and advertise for firing squad volunteers.  In ten minutes I'll bet you'd collect a dozen, and each one of them would offer to bring his own rifle and ammunition, thus saving the State a few bucks.  This is a tried and true method, as the firing squad has been around for a long time, it always works, and it's always over with quickly.  Ready, aim, fire - and the coroner collects the corpse and we can all go home.

But here's the best part.

Many people think the death penalty is barbaric and should be eliminated altogether, everywhere, once and for all.  And, given the way the State of Ohio screws everything up, I'm inclined to give their arguments some credence.  The thing about the firing squad is this: If you go out and can't find six volunteers for a firing squad, that is when the death penalty should be eliminated.

I've often thought that the judge, prosecutor, and jury who sentenced the SOB to death should be the ones to carry out the sentence, but perhaps not.  Instead, use the firing squad and ask for volunteers.  On the day that you can't find six, the death penalty is a thing of the past.

Credit to Big Mike for putting this idea in my head.

5 comments:

Old NFO said...

They need to do something... sigh

Tewshooz said...

Public hanging like they used to do.

Mad Jack said...

The trouble with public hanging is that the government regulations will be prohibitive, and when it's discovered that the proceeds from ticket sales will be used to fund public education, the liberals will have a double conniption fit and nobody will get any sleep.

Also the head comes off if the condemned isn't hanged correctly, which is often. Mind you, I don't have a problem with that - he's dead, isn't he? - but there is a minority that finds this unacceptable for some reason.

So nix to the hanging business.

Glen Filthie said...

There is no humane way to kill a human being. Rattled squaddies have been impressed into firing squads and blown their shots too.

I'm much more pragmatic. Do a body count: how many men have been erroneously executed? How many rightfully? And DNA? Put it this way: a jury of our peers let OJ Simpson off on the assumption that a racist cop planted OJ's DNA evidence at the crime scene. OJ shoulda got the noose or the firing squad along with the judge and jury on that one.

We can't house all these guys, Jack. There aren't enough prisons to hold the felons we have. These broken human beings crimes don't stop by throwing them in prison. They turn our prisons into animal factories - most career felons are hardened and tempered in prison.

The only guy I would trust with a 'no execution' policy is Sherriff Joe Arpio. I don't think the courts are the problem, I think the problem is with the liberals that infest them. Think about it: liberals are always racking up more and more failed social experiments. And who tries these failures in court? Other turd brained liberals for the most part! It's like putting a drunk in charge of a liquor store!

Mad Jack said...

I haven't gone into these topics on this particular post, but you're quite right. People have been executed and later found to be not guilty of the crime due to new evidence, etc.

My own thought is that a lot of these people shouldn't be in jail. Drug charges, non-violent crimes, mental illness - none of these people deserve the hoosegow.