Death penalties
Feb. 22nd, 2006 08:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mirrorshardI note with - well, morbid amusement, I suppose - the case of Michael Morales' cancelled execution on California, after a judge ordered that the process needed qualified professionals, who quite rightly refused.
This article gives quite a disturbing view of the usual Keystone Cops procedure. We all knew about the interminable and expensive time it takes in the States, but all this fumbling around and botchery is just... pathetic, really.
I'm not convinced that the death penalty is a bad thing in principle - although calling it a 'penalty' is a bit rich, really, when the only effect is to take the condemned person out of the game entirely - but I also don't think that the principles can be safely applied when the courts are so fallible.
Besides, it offends my professional sensibilities to see it done so clumsily and barbarically. Years of waiting to die? That's cruel and unusual punishment right there. Assuming anaesthetics will work, even on someone in that situation? Nonsense. They fail during routine hospital procedures, and stress makes that more likely (I've had that happen myself in the past, in fact). And inducing a heart attack? Terribly reminiscent of 1950s medical-science-can-do-everything ideology.
[Other point I was originally going to make, about why some people support the death penalty so strongly, excised because I can't yet find a way to put it that doesn't turn into a sneer.]
This article gives quite a disturbing view of the usual Keystone Cops procedure. We all knew about the interminable and expensive time it takes in the States, but all this fumbling around and botchery is just... pathetic, really.
I'm not convinced that the death penalty is a bad thing in principle - although calling it a 'penalty' is a bit rich, really, when the only effect is to take the condemned person out of the game entirely - but I also don't think that the principles can be safely applied when the courts are so fallible.
Besides, it offends my professional sensibilities to see it done so clumsily and barbarically. Years of waiting to die? That's cruel and unusual punishment right there. Assuming anaesthetics will work, even on someone in that situation? Nonsense. They fail during routine hospital procedures, and stress makes that more likely (I've had that happen myself in the past, in fact). And inducing a heart attack? Terribly reminiscent of 1950s medical-science-can-do-everything ideology.
[Other point I was originally going to make, about why some people support the death penalty so strongly, excised because I can't yet find a way to put it that doesn't turn into a sneer.]
