Oklahoma botches first execution in 80 years | Hacker News Reader

Oklahoma botches first execution in 80 years

latimes.com

12 pointsjwise020 comments

I'm against the death penalty, but I dislike many of the arguments made by many who agree with me. My position is straightforward: I assert that the state should not have the power of life and death over its subjects. That's it. No need to address implementation details involving racism and cruelty and deterrence.

Really though, politics is the mindkiller[1] and this article isn't going to change anyone's position. I'm glad it will soon fall off the front page. (Even if it gets upvoted, I trust the moderators to bury it.)

1. http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/

To me, your argument is simply a restatement of the conclusion. To be a real argument, it needs to add something.

I don't disagree with you, and in fact I never said my position was an argument. Most of us use assertions when it comes to human rights. For example, most of us would agree that the state doesn't (or shouldn't) have the power to enslave or torture, no matter what crime one may have committed. There may be very good arguments for doing these things (deterrence, saves more lives than it destroys, punishment proportional to the crime, etc), but we outright reject any system that would allow, let alone engage in, these horrific practices.

We can still talk about why those things are worth rejecting. You don't seem to want that.

I don't mind the discussion, but I think the arguments on both sides are typically rationalizations. People have quick, visceral responses in which they form conclusions on these matters, then they think of reasons why those conclusions must be true. That process seems to happen in a lot of areas, but none more so than discussion of politics and morality.

By the way: Thank you for your responses. I like how you've managed to be concise, civil, and probing.

I can only say I hope to live to see the day the death penalty is abolished once and for all in the United States.

I hate injustice. I hate the idea of an innocent person being put to death. I hate strange inventions like the electric chair, which must be an absolutely excruciating death.

But sometimes people do terrible things and incur a debt that they can never repay. In one particular case I remember, the guilty party abducted a child, raped her repeatedly, put her in a trash bag, and buried her alive. There's no doubt he was guilty because he led police to her grave.

The perpetrator could never ever walk among normal people again. What do you propose to do in these situations? Is it somehow useful for these people to languish in prison at the expense of the public? Would that somehow be more correct, helpful, or humane? This is not a fake question where I'm attacking you -- this is a real question I struggle with.

Many who sexually abuse others were themselves sexually abused. This is not excusing their actions, but it absolutely should be kept in mind when considering the punishment for any sort of crime. From petty to heinous, many people who commit crimes come from very shitty situations. And even those that don't often simply have mental issues.

What about the truly evil? Should we not consider them 'sick'? The problem is that justice is seen entirely from a punitive perspective. I hope, in the future, that most crimes will be treated with not a punitive hand but a rehabilitative one. Drug abuse should be met with rehab, not mandatory minimums. Likewise, hopefully it will become the case that we will try to treat violent offenders instead of just carting them off to prison to rot or commit crimes again upon release. Prisons wouldn't disappear of course, but hopefully they would become options of last resort instead of the first solution.

Is it somehow useful for these people to languish in prison at the expense of the public?

It's certainly cheaper. Also, in the case of innocent people convicted, it preserves the opportunity to let them out. What's the harm in not executing people?

There are two independent and sufficient pillars to my belief. The first is that no human or group of humans has the right to take the life of any other. The second is based on the infinite malleability of the human mind. I believe that redemption is possible for any and all and the inability of a system to redeem someone is a failing of that system and the duty of a society is to never give up on anyone.

Why pretend life does not have a price. We price it everyday. A 100,000 people have died in Syria, mostly under horrific circumstances. Cost/benefit analysis dictates that no one should intervene and indeed, no one will in spite of the alleged chlorine attacks.

Meanwhile the taxpayer shells out a lot of money to keep dysfunctional killers alive, preserving that which they denied to their victims and thus a necessary link between action and consequence is broken.

That said, I reluctantly conclude that the death penalty should go because the greater evil is the possible death of an innocent.

Not trolling - actually confused - why would you resuscitate a person you're attempting to kill? So you can kill them again later?

So much wrong with this. The death penalty to begin with, the "experimental" method of carrying out the execution, and the attempts to save his life - the whole thing is utterly mind-numbing.

I'm not expressing any opinion on the death penalty itself but I found it odd that his execution was "botched." The crime he was convicted of committing 15 years ago was a "botched" murder where the gun malfunctioned, leaving the victim injured and requiring some repair to his gun in order to finish the job.

I heard about this on NPR last week. Apparently a lot of states have been running out of the drug that is used in lethal injection and lawyers are actually able to postpone death sentences because of the fact that new drugs are not approved.

This news will not boast well for future States attorney's.

Most people who face the death penalty are guilty a few are not. Is it worth killing the innocent to serve up "justice" to the guilty? No.

The title says first execution in 80 years, but it was supposed to be the first double execution in 80 years.

The inmate still died. It's almost double-talk to call it "botched" when you accidentally kill someone a different way than you were intending to kill them.

verb

informal

carry out (a task) badly or carelessly.

What seems odd to me is that, of all the ways humans know how to kill each other, the government is having a hard time trying to find a reliable way to do so now that they can't get the same drug they used to. There's no reason to have a "botched" execution when killing someone doesn't really take that much effort in the first place. And then calling off the execution after the drugs have been administered? Yeah, something is terribly wrong.

The issue is not that they don't know of any ways to kill a person. The issue is they are required to do it without pain and suffering. And we don't know if this went wrong because of the drugs or because they were administered incorrectly. It is possible that even if the old drug was used here that the same problem could have happened. It might just be a stupid coincidence that the IV was placed improperly during the same execution they used these new drugs for the first time.

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