Why Have The Us Always Been So Imcompetant At Execution?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27215508
whatever you think of capital punishment surely it is incumbent on the authority to employ a "fit for purpose" method. Electrocution/lethal injection, both terrible methods, surely they can come up with something more effective.

[Old_Geezer]

For sure

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1333134.html

[Gromit]

Dropping a bomb by drone has been very effective at killing civilians in Afghanistan. Worth a try?

[ToraToraTora]

yes very constructive gromit, well done.

[Quizmonster]

I can't recall old Albert Pierrepoint mucking a hanging up and he produced detailed instructions on how to do it properly. They're probably available somewhere online, so perhaps the Yanks should start googling.

[ludwig]

Isn't the headline..

// Oklahoma inmate dies after 'botched' lethal injection //

..an oxymoron?

[Old_Geezer]

:-)

Not quite. The end result is not the only determinant of whether the journey there was botched.

[andy-hughes]

Let's face it, a culture that thinks execution is appropriate is probably not too worried about the finder points of the method.

Even when carried out efficiently (images of nazi death camps spring to mind!) executions are for the most part drawn out affairs for all concerned, and cannot in any civilised society be seen as a way to end a human life.

As advised, Albert Pierpoint could have his prisoner through the door, on the trap and dropped in something around eight seconds, barely enough time for an already tranquilsed prisoner to be aware what was happening - if there has to be an execution method, this, or firing squad, has to be the best (?) one.

I personally do not agree with capital punishment, so the additional barbarity of this man's death does nothing to change that view

We are either a humane peaceful culture which does not kill people in cold blood, or we are a barbaric cruel society which spends millions of dollars doing exactly that - there is no middle ground.

Capital punishment should be outlawed today.

[emmie]

the zealots in Afghanistan don't care how they despatch their victims, chopping heads off one method, torture first, or stoning women to death, that's a good un, Gromit you should get a grip, this was about the methods used in the USA, you had to bring it in didn't you, strange that
there would be almost no foolproof method of killing the criminal, lethal injection may be the best of a very bad bunch.

[mushroom25]

would stoning be more acceptable in the 21st century?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-27216798

[emmie]

AH,
this is the method used, when not shooting, bayoneting, or shoving them in ovens, this is barbarism on a grand scale, and these people were not criminals. Their method of killing was second to none, and the victims suffered horrendously,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zyklon_B

[emmie]

mushroom, no,

[mikey4444]

In a country that has more guns than people, I wouldn't have thought it difficult to find someone who could have done a proper job. Daft Americans.

[andy-hughes]

emmie - "AH,
this is the method used, when not shooting, bayoneting, or shoving them in ovens, this is barbarism on a grand scale, and these people were not criminals. Their method of killing was second to none, and the victims suffered horrendously,"

I cited the waft of Nazism into my argument simply because that is what I think of when 'efficient execution' is debated - the notion is barbaric.

If a country chooses to use execution as its sanction, then surely the death is the desired outcome, not a prolonged pantomine of hoisting the criminal up for the last words, lying them down again, inserting needles, and then taking time to release a cocktail of chemicals to kill him or her.

There is no way in any civilised society that this can be seen as a humane or appropriate way of executing a human being.

If anyone wants to argue that no humanity is deserved, then why don't we save time and money and simply bludgeon the prisoner to death, or hack him to pieces, or stone him, or any of the other methods that supposedly less 'civilised' societies use?

Death is the aim and the outcome - the obscenity is not alleviated by some perceived veneer of humanity because the criminal dies on clean sheets with sterilised needles in his arms.

[emmie]

i am sure the victims families, those who will not forgive the murderer, rapist, care whether he is thrown to lions, or chopped up for fish bait.
we are not civilised, where people can walk past a human being lying on the ground without intervening, when they walk past when a child is being physically abused, or turn their heads when a elderly person slips and falls, not everyone is callous and uncaring, but there are plenty who are,

I watched a documentary on the Holocaust featuring Jerry Springer, members of his family ended up in the gas chambers, he said something like "the Germans, they were a civilised people" its a very thin veneer, and all it takes is a disaster, a war, or some slight to make that mask slip.

[emmie]

if they were going to have state endorsed killing, then they should have a firing squad, its quick.

[andy-hughes]

emmie - "i am sure the victims families, those who will not forgive the murderer, rapist, care whether he is thrown to lions, or chopped up for fish bait.
we are not civilised, where people can walk past a human being lying on the ground without intervening, when they walk past when a child is being physically abused, or turn their heads when a elderly person slips and falls, not everyone is callous and uncaring, but there are plenty who are,"

What you say is true, but your point appears to say that - since we are uncivilised in our treatment of each other, we can be uncivilised in our system of justice.

I would prefer that we encourage a civilised attitude for everyone from everyone, and a good place to start would be tbe civilisation of our governments in stopping them from murdering people and calling it justice.

[Quizmonster]

As Andy has confirmed, Albert Pierrepoint - Britain's longest-serving hangman - and his assistant were able to:
a) walk a condemned person from his cell through the door to the execution chamber
b) place him/her on the trap-door whilst attaching the noose
c) pull the lever
in a matter of seconds.
Any last words were spoken in the holding cell and there was no paraphernalia of strapping down on a gurney, needle-placement or any of the rest of it.
A firing-squad is clearly far less efficient as regards preparation-time, numbers involved and so forth.

[andy-hughes]

Indeed QM - there is, in my view, no such thing as a humane way to execute another human being, but Mr Pierrpoint came as close it as is possible.

By the end of his career, he had dispensed with the need for the prisoner to be weighed in order to calculate the length of the drop to facilitate a clean break of the neck - he could gauge by simply glancing through the peephole of the concemned cell, and the condemned would be blissfully unaware of his prescence.

It's a far cry from that to the brutal pantomime of US executions.

[scooping]

Interesting to remember that Louis XVI helped design the guillotine that was used to kill him. He came up with the 45 degree angle on the blade to improve on the horizontal blade originally proposed.

[jno]

the point about these injections is that they're supposed to be more humane, not less. Brutality isn't the object. They can and do go wrong, but so can other forms of execution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Babbacombe_Lee