Post by Anja on Jun 22, 2006 18:11:32 GMT -5
Time to end death penalty----U.S. Supreme Court hears case
When even the U.S. Supreme Court expresses misgivings about the death
penalty, it's time for all of us to take notice.
Recently, the court agreed to hear a case to consider one of the current
methods of execution - lethal injection. The case on appeal came from
Florida, which uses a combination of 3 drugs - one that anesthetizes, a
second that paralyzes and a third that stops the heart.
The claim, as in most cases appealing lethal injections, is that the
person being executed does feel pain, despite the anesthesia. If so, that
could be considered "cruel and unusual punishment," which is forbidden by
the U.S. Constitution.
Although this case came from Florida, the whole issue comes much closer to
home, since some California death sentences have been appealed on similar
grounds. In one case, the convict was due to be executed in February, but
the execution was postponed when the Supreme Court intervened in the
Florida case.
This doubt about the constitutionality of lethal injection is only the
latest in a long, historic string of doubts about the cruelty of
executions going back for centuries. Once, the guilty were burned at the
stake or beheaded by guillotine. Then, they were hanged or shot to death.
When the brutality of those methods became too obvious, we turned to the
electric chair and then the gas chamber.
Now, we have lethal injections - with the highest court expressing
misgivings about that method. The inescapable truth is, there is no method
for killing a human being that is humane.
Granted, some of the convicts on death row have committed the most savage
kinds of murders. Why should we concern ourselves with searching for a
humane way to execute them? So that we, as a society, don't sink to the
same level of brutality with them - by murdering the murderers.
There's really no need to keep searching for a constitutional form of
execution. Not when the available alternative is a sentence of life in
prison with no possibility of parole.
That protects the public from the convict as surely as execution does.
That also would allay the endless appeals in death penalty cases, which
have left us in this contradictory situation of having capital punishment,
in name at least, without having executions.
In the past 3 decades, more than 1,000 convicts have been executed in the
U.S. - while 123 death row inmates have been exonerated before they could
be executed. These aren't convicts whose sentences were commuted to life,
but convicts sentenced to die, who were later found not guilty of the
crimes for which they were convicted.
Since we don't need executions to protect us from these convicts, and
since we can't seem to find a constitutional method of execution, it's
time to reaffirm this newspaper's historic opposition to the death
penalty.
(source: Editorial, Ventura County Star)
When even the U.S. Supreme Court expresses misgivings about the death
penalty, it's time for all of us to take notice.
Recently, the court agreed to hear a case to consider one of the current
methods of execution - lethal injection. The case on appeal came from
Florida, which uses a combination of 3 drugs - one that anesthetizes, a
second that paralyzes and a third that stops the heart.
The claim, as in most cases appealing lethal injections, is that the
person being executed does feel pain, despite the anesthesia. If so, that
could be considered "cruel and unusual punishment," which is forbidden by
the U.S. Constitution.
Although this case came from Florida, the whole issue comes much closer to
home, since some California death sentences have been appealed on similar
grounds. In one case, the convict was due to be executed in February, but
the execution was postponed when the Supreme Court intervened in the
Florida case.
This doubt about the constitutionality of lethal injection is only the
latest in a long, historic string of doubts about the cruelty of
executions going back for centuries. Once, the guilty were burned at the
stake or beheaded by guillotine. Then, they were hanged or shot to death.
When the brutality of those methods became too obvious, we turned to the
electric chair and then the gas chamber.
Now, we have lethal injections - with the highest court expressing
misgivings about that method. The inescapable truth is, there is no method
for killing a human being that is humane.
Granted, some of the convicts on death row have committed the most savage
kinds of murders. Why should we concern ourselves with searching for a
humane way to execute them? So that we, as a society, don't sink to the
same level of brutality with them - by murdering the murderers.
There's really no need to keep searching for a constitutional form of
execution. Not when the available alternative is a sentence of life in
prison with no possibility of parole.
That protects the public from the convict as surely as execution does.
That also would allay the endless appeals in death penalty cases, which
have left us in this contradictory situation of having capital punishment,
in name at least, without having executions.
In the past 3 decades, more than 1,000 convicts have been executed in the
U.S. - while 123 death row inmates have been exonerated before they could
be executed. These aren't convicts whose sentences were commuted to life,
but convicts sentenced to die, who were later found not guilty of the
crimes for which they were convicted.
Since we don't need executions to protect us from these convicts, and
since we can't seem to find a constitutional method of execution, it's
time to reaffirm this newspaper's historic opposition to the death
penalty.
(source: Editorial, Ventura County Star)