Death Row Inmate Fears Death

At least he's honest. Most guys are trying to put on the facade that they aren't afraid of anything. But I'm glad he's afraid. He's probably just as afraid as the police officer who was responding to his robbery was, maybe more. Granted, the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, but there's a side of me that says "so what if he suffers a little"?

In a study published in April by the Public Library of Science -- a nonprofit organization of scientists and doctors -- six scientists spent three years analyzing more than 50 medical examiner reports of North Carolina and California prisoners who had been injected with the short-acting anesthetic thiopental, the paralytic pancuronium bromide and the heart stopper potassium chloride.

The study concluded the drug protocol a "failure" because the prisoners had below acceptable levels of thiopental in their systems indicating they probably suffered immense pain before they died.

I don't know if I would call it a "failure". The inmate does indeed die, which is the end result you're looking for. However, if you're worried about causing the least amount of pain possible before death, how about multiple gunshots to the head? How about the guillotine? How about a quick dunk in molten lava? Where do you draw the line on an acceptable duration of pain? Yes, lethal injection done incorrectly can lead to someone taking several minutes to die, and they probably are experiencing excruciating pain and cannot respond because of sedatives, but that's the leading way to put someone down like an animal.

So what's wrong with any of the above mentioned ways to execute someone? None, we just try to make it as "clean" and "sterile" as possible to avoid people getting all squishy about the process of execution, and that's the problem we face. We're not thinking of putting someone down quickly and painlessly enough, we're thinking about the effect it has on those who witness and carry out the execution.

Travis
travis@rightwinglunatic.com