Tuesday, December 19, 2006
A Painless Execution
With the Republican stalwart governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, putting a moratorium on executions by lethal injection because one murderer held on for over half an hour, and some federal judge in California (but not the Ninth Circuit this time) putting a halt on lethal injections unless they can be absolutely painless, I have been trying to think about absolutely painless methods of execution. It's tough; it's a short list. I mean if you can't execute a murderer because the very first shot of pain killer to block the pain of further injections might sting a little bit, the options are pretty limited.
Here they are:
That's all I can think of. This is not as easy as it sounds. Having the government put someone to death is itself pretty cruel and we hope it's unusual. I mean you wouldn't call execution a friendly act.
Here they are:
- Hanging--If the body drops eight or ten feet before the noose, properly snugged up above the Adams apple, draws taught, then the first and second cervical vertebrae (Atlas and Axis) are displaced and the big nob on the Axis piths the guy's spinal cord pretty high up so that no pain travels from the body to the brain and no signal to breath travels from the brain stem to the diaphragm. That's pretty painless. I don't see a flaw other than doing it poorly and strangling the struggling guy for 30 seconds or so. Cutting off the blood supply up the carotid to the brain by the tightness of the rope on the side of the neck will cause unconsciousness and death well before the rope's tightness on the windpipe causes asphyxiation.
- Guillotine--Again, the broad knife blade severs the spinal cord high up and there is no pain. The head stays alive for a few seconds, or so the French revolutionaries tell us. The down side is that it's too French and reminds us of the head chopping Jihadists whom we detest even more than the French.
- Double tap to the brain stem--Put the condemned on his knees and shoot him twice quickly in the back of the head so that the bullets sever the brain stem above the previously mentioned vertebrae. No pain, no breathing, no consciousness. The down side is that it might be tough on the shooter and I guess it's possible to miss.
That's all I can think of. This is not as easy as it sounds. Having the government put someone to death is itself pretty cruel and we hope it's unusual. I mean you wouldn't call execution a friendly act.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 1:16 AM 
Comments:
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A big explosion would probably do the job, too. And if you added the right salts to the explosives, it could be even more festive.
Oooh! Aaaah!
Oooh! Aaaah!
Life in prison. Cheaper than an execution and allows for the possibility of release should new evidence be presented.
Doug, cool, but too messy. Mike, there are some people we should not make even the other prisoners have to live with. I am resigned to mistakes being made in our human justice system (I convicted a guy who later convinced me he was innocent) but I am no less outraged by the guilty not being found so than I am with the guiltless being convicted. Either way (because of recidivism) innocents suffer. Thanks both for your comments.
Rog,
Better late than never. I oppose capital punishment. I also believe that some people should never breathe free air.
THere is no cathrsis in the way we execute criminals. If we made executions public, there might be, but then we are drifting into "cruel and unusal."
Better to lock them up and throw away the key and as PT pointed out, it is cheaper that way.
T
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Better late than never. I oppose capital punishment. I also believe that some people should never breathe free air.
THere is no cathrsis in the way we execute criminals. If we made executions public, there might be, but then we are drifting into "cruel and unusal."
Better to lock them up and throw away the key and as PT pointed out, it is cheaper that way.
T
# posted by 
: 8:25 AM
: 8:25 AM << Home
