If Ohio Is Going To Persist With Capital Punishment Could They Not Find A More Humane Method?

[sandyRoe]

They could hire a headsman from Saudi of the French must have guillotines rusting away somewhere.

http://news.uk.msn.com/world/outcry-at-killers-25-min-execution-1

[Hypognosis]

The version I read was that they'd run out of phenobarbital.

Reason they'd run out is that manufacturers are presently boycotting the US justice system.

Special approval was sought and granted for the drugs used but the anaesthetic drug used here is designed to make it hard to kill a person with it (anti-overdose properties built in).

He also had pain-killers given but these are also not meant to kill you.

Complete and utter botch-up.

Much as human experimentation on prisoners might make an effective deterrent to crime, it is barbaric and just reminds people of the horrors of Dr Mengele. Complete non-starter.

[EDDIE51]

I am totally against the death penalty but with number of guns and 'shooters' in the USA what is wrong with a firing squad?

[LazyGun]

From at least one report, one state prosecutor, arguing in favour of going ahead with this experimental method of killing someone, said

"In court proceedings last week, an Ohio state prosecutor said bluntly: “You're not entitled to a pain-free execution,” and a judge allowed the execution to proceed"

Quite shocked at that notion, to be honest.

[BlueToffee]

Absolutely barbaric.

I do not condone the crime committed by this man, but to keep him in prison for 25 years and then execute him beggars belief.

[emmie]

better to have executed him after being convicted then, no chance of appeal, as is their right, all methods seem to have drawbacks, electrocution, lethal injection, does seem cruel and unnecessary

[neil42]

I wonder how long his pregnant victim struggled and suffered.No sympathy from me.

[Old_Geezer]

Implying someone we decide has done wrong sets the standard of behaviour for the State and the rest of us ?

[Sqad]

,\\\\ to put McGuire to death for the 1989 rape and fatal stabbing of a pregnant newlywed Joy Stewart.\\\

That says it all to me and in State that has the death penalty.

With that combination of drugs, he may have twitched and gasped and whatever else for 25 mins, but he would only be aware of the first 4 or 5 mins.

[emmie]

perhaps they could shoot the next one, it's got to be quicker.

[youngmafbog]

OG, not quite but did it make news and can her familly sue the familly of this man if they win their case?

I would like to see a medical report on it before making too much comment. Statements put out by a lawyer about to make a bucket suing the State are most likely to be one sided and distorted at best.

Having said that, although I am pro capital punishment I dont see the need to be barbaric about it. I believe Pierpoint was able to execute very quickly but some of his colleagues were not so hot so maybe it really depends on the knowledge of the executioner?

[emmie]

they used an unknown barbiturate, or whatever one calls it, surely it had been tried and tested before it's current use.

[LazyGun]

"they used an unknown barbiturate, or whatever one calls it, surely it had been tried and tested before it's current use."

No, they hadn't. They could not get any Doctors to go ahead with it, as far as I understand these things.

If you are going to have state sanctioned executions, they should at the least be quick. There is no place for torture or long drawn out executions or cruel and unusual punishment or inflicting pain.

[emmie]

then i go with Sandy's plan, a quick beheading with a sword, one fell swoop and all that.

[emmie]

can't really say i have a great deal of compassion in this case,

Prison officials gave intravenous doses of two drugs, the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone, to put McGuire to death for the 1989 rape and fatal stabbing of a pregnant newlywed Joy Stewart.

The method was adopted after supplies of a previously used drug dried up because the manufacturer declared it off limits for capital punishment.

[Sqad]

\\\\\\Prison officials gave intravenous doses of two drugs, the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone,\\\

Nothing new or mysterious about the use of these two well known and used drugs.

[LazyGun]

"Nothing new or mysterious about the use of these two well known and used drugs"

Neither have been used as a protocol for execution before.

You might have no compassion for him. Neither do I ,as a matter of fact. Does not mean I would want the state to execute him in a way that causes pain or excess suffering though. Do that and you bring us down to his level.

[Mosaic]

It would be considered truly rotten to make a euthanased animal suffer like that. The man was, certainly at the point of his crime, an animal. It would have been humane to euthanase him quickly and quietly. His punishment should have been to be put down but for society to choose to make him suffer, by long years in jail and a long painful death, reflects very badly on society. We are not all animals even though we have animal instincts.

[ToraToraTora]

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of capital punishment, surely the US can come up with a better method than this. It's as if suffering is designed in, I mean electric chair is a total disaster, lethal injection, gas chamber, all have their problems. The quickest by far is the old fashioned drop hanging, use that F_F_S instead of trying to come up with something that is invariably worse.

[LazyGun]

@3T Thing is, although we tend to think of hanging as being very quick and very final, there are many documented instances where they got it wrong, and those being killed "danced at the end of a rope" for some while.

There was a very interesting documentary by Michael Portillo a year or so ago on capital punishment which is well worth watching, if you get the time;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/broadband/tx/executions/

[ToraToraTora]

Yes LG but that was before Pierrepoint, who did a lot of research and produced drop tables etc based on weight. I read his book and he was horrified at some of the c0ckups and set set about correcting that.