Death By Firing Squad

[AngelicAssassin]

I've no problem with death by firing squad. Its cheaper then electrocution and quicker then lethal injection with the added bonus of even if the guy has crappy veins, it doesn't matter.

i personally prefer a .22 cal double tap fired at a 45 degree upward along the atlas. The medulla oblongata shreds immediately. The fragmentation of the rounds shred as they rattle around in the remainder.

Game over.

 

[Etoile]

Finally found the article I was looking for:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/06/09/utah.firing.squad/

 

[Seurat]

As a culture, we have such a flawed understanding of the punishment side of the old "crime and punishment" saw. The average person would not understand deterrence if it bit them on the ass. "Punishment" as a goal is pointless. The goal should be lessening crime. They are two different animals.

You and your logical arguments. Stop making sense.

 

[Etoile]

Having spent the past hour or so reading about the death penalty, I am now thoroughly squicked and don't feel like finishing my banana.

 

[Sir_Winston54]

Having spent the past hour or so reading about the death penalty, I am now thoroughly squicked and don't feel like finishing my banana.

It shouldn't take you an hour to eat a banana, anyway.

 

[Homburg]

Having spent the past hour or so reading about the death penalty, I am now thoroughly squicked and don't feel like finishing my banana.

Years ago while still in college, I developed an interest in law enforcement so I started taking Criminal Justice courses. A course in penology (with an extensive section on the death penalty) cured me of any interest in law enforcement.

I don't blame the cops, but I could not in good conscience be part of a system that willingly furthers cycles of rampant self-destruction. All the good cops in the world can't make up for a criminally flawed prison system.

The sad part is that my friend that lifts with me is in college for law enforcement and has heard my stories about penology. He has hit the penology course and really struggled with it. To his credit, his response was to start working with one of the major local jails. He's currently writing up some proposals on how to make the prison greener and how to ease over-crowding significantly. As one of the his instructors is the asst sheriff for the jail in question, he might actually get those proposals flown. If so, maybe one jail will not be a near-useless cancer on local society.

And perhaps more sad, many of the people involved in the jails KNOW how fucked up it is and wish they could change it. But the moment they do, they will lose funding and likely lose their jobs.

It's criminal and the whole thing turns my stomach.

 

[Etoile]

It shouldn't take you an hour to eat a banana, anyway.

It was actually five bananas. I was working on them slowly!

 

[satindesire]

It shouldn't take you an hour to eat a banana, anyway.

That depends on how long you like to make it last.

 

[Etoile]

That depends on how long you like to make it last.

Kiwi fruit + LSD = reallllly long lasting. OMG, it was so interesting. Alas, that was the last time I ever did the stuff!

 

[DVS]

It shouldn't take you an hour to eat a banana, anyway.

Oh, but if she did it in just the right way, and took pictures, she could be quite popular. And just think...an hour? Ooooh, baby.

And in that Japanese dress up, that's a whole different group she could involve. She could specialize.

 

[DVS]

Not really. Electricity is cheap, and the capacitors used mean the incoming voltage could actually be relatively small. Plain old household 220v can kill you in the right circumstances. And the chemicals used in lethal injection are likewise cheap. Rope for hanging is cheap too, as is a vat full of water for drowning.

Cost of execution methods should never be a factor in capital punishment argument. The real cost is bourne by the courts in the mandatory appeals process. That is where the money is. If you really want to save money, don't fret about how expensive chemicals for lethal injection are. You will save vastly more money by ditching the death penalty and keeping them in prison until they die. It is actually cheaper to feed and house a prisoner for 50-odd years than it is to go through the mandatory appeals process.



On the lower level crimes, possibly. Public floggings a la Malaysia might have some effect on minor crimes. On the higher level crimes it actually tends to escalate. Draconian punishments leads to greater levels of infraction simply because you know if you are caught that the punishment will be crazily severe, so why not push the envelope?

An example would be death penalty for rape. Institute that and you will find more rapists killing their victims after or during the rape. Why leave a witness that can implicate you when death is the penalty for getting caught?

Reducing crime requires societal changes on a huge level, and are often very contraintuitive. Prisons, for example, are often called upon by society to not "coddle" prisoners and make conditions harsh. This leads to greater unrest within the prisons, more violence, more drug use, and convicts that are even harder and more dangerous when they get out than they were when they got in. Yet prisons with better conditions that actively educate, train, and certify inmates to do jobs such as carpentry, electrical work, etc have vastly lower recidivism rates. Those guys leave the pen and get jobs unlike the hardcases from the no-coddling prisons.

As a culture, we have such a flawed understanding of the punishment side of the old "crime and punishment" saw. The average person would not understand deterrence if it bit them on the ass. "Punishment" as a goal is pointless. The goal should be lessening crime. They are two different animals.

First, I know I wasn't going to comment in this thread, but since it's been moved to the Cafe, we can be less serious about it.

So...shit, you know cheaper isn't ever going to fly. Sure, you are correct that good old house current can kill you dead, but it isn't always quick and it isn't very pretty. That's what's made capital punishment so expensive in America. It's got to be quick...because undue and unnecessary pain is considered cruel and inhumane punishment. Our society is just in the business of legal death, not legal torture.

That's why we now have lethal injection. It's clean. There's no need for janitor services after the deal. With electrocution by house current, you'd have to clean up the death chair, sanitize it, etc. before you could use it again. And watching it would probably be satisfying for the victim's family, but any third party against capital punishment wouldn't consider it humane.

Yes, the capacitors used in electrocution are more efficient, but it's still considered undue pain for the condemned. Again, that's why we now have legal injection. Even in Utah, they have stopped allowing the firing squad method, because it is a throwback to old times, it can be messy and sometimes less than accurate. What if the shooters all have an off day...and they have to reload?

Hanging isn't just the rope. There's a science to it. If the exact length of rope isn't used for the weight of the condemned, he can either dangle there, without his neck breaking or his head can be partially pulled from his body. One way, it's cruel and the other is not only cruel, but also messy.

The rumor is that was what happened to Saddam Hussein's hanging and it was seen as done incorrectly, but if it did happen, I think it was intentional. They (those in charge of the hanging) wanted him to suffer as much as possible and for his body to be mutilated. We can't do that in America. We have too many rules regarding the death penalty.

And with lethal injection, some are saying it's not painless. That's the problem with our judicial system. If you're going to kill someone, you should then be killed in the same way. If you make your victim suffer, then you will, too. An eye for an eye and all that.

 

[Sir_Winston54]

Bring back the guillotine. Invariably effective, energy efficient, quick, essentially painless... what more do we need?

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x95/Sir_Winston54/guillotine.gif

 

[satindesire]

As medieval and yucky as it is, I have to agree.

 

[Sir_Winston54]

I particularly like the leaves engraved either side of where one's head is held.

Here, though, they'd probably soon have advertising there.

 

[DVS]

Bring back the guillotine. Invariably effective, energy efficient, quick, essentially painless... what more do we need?

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x95/Sir_Winston54/guillotine.gif

With all of the nerve endings in the neck and spine, I don't think it would be that painless, but if the blade is sharp, I'd assume it would be less painful. Slicing through nerves with a sharp blade would be better than some other methods of death.

But, you'd have to deal with the blood. I've never witnessed a beheading, but because the heart is still beating and pumping blood, wouldn't there be quite a lot of it? I mean, how many pints are there in the human body, anyway? I'd guess a large portion of that would find its way out of that large neck wound.

Now, if you always kept the guillotine out in a courtyard or something where all that was necessary was a quick hosing off of the surrounding area, that would make it easier.

 

[Evil_Geoff]

Madame Guillotine... Word!

 

[DVS]

I particularly like the leaves engraved either side of where one's head is held.

Here, though, they'd probably soon have advertising there.

"After the show, be sure to make your reservations for Bob's Crab Shack. The best in your sea food dining pleasure."

 

[Vixandra]

The average human adult has 5 to 10 pints of blood in their body, roughly 7 to 8% of the body weight. Death by guillotine would be very messy, but in a localized area that could easily be drop-cloth covered.

So, this is a viable alternative to a firing squad. Human blood is considered a bio-hazard and would have to be cleaned but clean up for this shouldn't be that much different then clean up from a firing squad. It doesn't have to be sterilized, just cleaned.



I don't believe death is a suitable punishment for rape unless its the rape of a child under the age of 12, but that's a whole separate soap box.

Then again, I don't think a person's financial or social standing should play a role in the judicial system either, but it does. A society wide over hall of the justice system is the only thing I can think of to fix it and I just don't see that happening.

 

[Etoile]

I'm anti-death penalty, period. I just don't think one human has the right to deprive another human of their life. I don't care if the person had already deprived someone else of their life - two wrongs don't make a right.

However, I do support the justice system. It has plenty of flaws, but I won't argue with what the courts have already decided. In my ideal world, the death penalty would be abolished everywhere; since it is not, I respect those jurisdictions that have decided to keep it.

 

[DVS]

I'm not anti-death penalty, but I am anti-death penalty, if we can't be sure we're killing the right individual. There have been way too many cases where police were quick to catch someone, maybe because the case was very high profile and the media was hot on their backs to catch someone.

Not being able to prove a negative isn't proving a positive. Trust me, I know a lot about that. Or some poor slob was in the wrong place at the wrong time and only looked guilty to a witness who just saw a glimpse of the guy on a dark night. Or, just because he's black and acts nervous doesn't mean he did it. If someone has no alibi, it could mean they live alone and nobody saw them at home watching TV, except maybe the cat that they also fed that night.

And I remember the medical pathologist that decided to make a name for herself and taint evidence in cases so it would match DNA or whatever was necessary to show how fantastic she was in solving cases...her own personal CSI unit, she was. Until it was proven she was doing that, I wonder how many people were wrongfully convicted and spent time in prison for her moment in glory.

I don't know why she did it, and I don't know if she was ever convicted of altering evidence. And I don't know if she ever felt remorse for those lives she destroyed. Last I heard (and this was several years ago) she was just fired from her job and the court began checking evidence in the cases she had been involved.

Everybody in prison says they're innocent. It's the mantra of the house. So when someone says it and he's telling the truth? How do you give back lost years of freedom to someone? How to you make their mental state whole again, after society didn't believe they were telling the truth? That's got to mess with your head.

How many have we killed that were really innocent? Unless we know we have the right person, we don't have the right. There are just too many ways someone can slip through the cracks.

But, once we have a way of knowing that we have the correct individual...I say fry 'em!

 

[DVS]

The average human adult has 5 to 10 pints of blood in their body, roughly 7 to 8% of the body weight. Death by guillotine would be very messy, but in a localized area that could easily be drop-cloth covered.

So, this is a viable alternative to a firing squad. Human blood is considered a bio-hazard and would have to be cleaned but clean up for this shouldn't be that much different then clean up from a firing squad. It doesn't have to be sterilized, just cleaned.



I don't believe death is a suitable punishment for rape unless its the rape of a child under the age of 12, but that's a whole separate soap box.

Then again, I don't think a person's financial or social standing should play a role in the judicial system either, but it does. A society wide over hall of the justice system is the only thing I can think of to fix it and I just don't see that happening.

I agree, but if America decided to use this as a means of execution, I'll bet they wouldn't even allow the same blade to be used more than once. In the case of lethal injection, they use new needles to pump in the killing juice. It's the PC world we live in.

 

[fuckmeat]

I think there's a huge difference between depriving another human being of their life and a human being behaving in a way that irrevocably forfeits their right to live. People who take and destroy life are not deserving of life. UK jails are more like holiday camps these days. I'd far rather see my taxes pay for lethal injections than games consoles for inmates so violent and/or reviled for their crimes that they have to be separated from other prisoners for their own protection. The Human Rights Act here is a fucking joke, as is the european court of human rights, which every disgruntled convict wastes thousands of taxpayers pound appealing to.

I would support the death penalty for a few specific offenders. When it was outlawed in the UK there was no such thing as DNA fingerprinting and other high tech stuff that dramatically minimises the risk of wrongful conviction. I also think death penalty convicts should have a right of appeal but not one that lasts for decades. Crimes I would consider worthy of the death penalty include things like...

Serial paedophilia. Also, paedophiles should not receive protective care while inmates, nor should they get new identities when they leave. You did it, you fucking try living with the stigma.
Serial murder
Serial rape
People trafficking/forced prostitution
War crimes
Anyone guilty of perpetrating or conspiring to perpetrate 'dirty war' crimes like suicide bombs, mass murder of civilians, forcing children to commit acts of war etc. For every suicide bomber who's killed himself, there's a whole network of associates.
The criminally bigoted: by which I mean anyone who has made it their life's work to incite hatred and violence based on religious, racial, sexual (etc) discrimination. If they absolutely won't be silenced any other way, have them lethally injected by a representative of whatever societal group they've been attacking.

I'm sure there are others that would make the list but that's what I can think of right now.

In addition, anyone considered criminally insane to the point where they could never be successfully treated or released, I would have them put down. Anyone who is so thoroughly broken that they can never be re-integrated into society should just be put to sleep. It's better for them and for us, IMO.

 

[Primalex]

BDSM is all about consent.

It's not at all about consent. There is no C in BDSM.

 

[satindesire]

*Snip* It's better for them and for us, IMO.

You are so right. I hate the idea of the death penalty for most cases, but some people are so evil that death is the only thing they deserve.

 

[00Syd]

It's not at all about consent. There is no C in BDSM.

Win. .