View Full Version : Utah lawmaker wants to bring back firing squad executions
mojaveman
05-17-2014, 17:34
In the wake of a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma last month, a Utah lawmaker says he believes a firing squad is a more humane form of execution and he plans to bring back that option for criminals sentenced to death in his state.
Don't know about how humane it is but probably much more effective. More like poetic justice for those convicted of horrific crimes against innocent people.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/utah-lawmaker-bring-back-firing-squad-executions-23760918
Most folks won't shoot to kill....they stopped that because of so many 'targets' getting multiple gunshot wounds in extremities etc.
Most folks aren't killers.
That's a good thing btw.
OK using my Google-fu it cost around $1,200.00 for the meds used in lethal injections, it cost $1.20 for each round of 300 Win Mag (my favorite long gun). Using my Jethro Bodine Schooolin' of Higher Mathematical Ciferin' Dieploma, the executioner could dispatch 1,000, count 'em, 1,000 death row clinger-ons, for that price.
What is the down side? Makes economical sense to me.
Worked for Gary Gilmore. ;)
Pat
JamesIkanov
05-17-2014, 18:35
It's a nice thought, aside from the stats suggesting at least 5% of the people you'd be executing are innocent. Not that a single shot to the head is less humane than drugs that induce heart attacks in my book.
It's a nice thought, aside from the stats suggesting at least 5% of the people you'd be executing are innocent.
May be innocent of that particular crime but how many death row inhabitants are innocent of all felonies?
I am not sold on the claim that they can be rehabilitated. IMO they are too great on the system to serve life.
...aside from the stats suggesting at least 5% of the people you'd be executing are innocent.
Innocent of the crime or of the "special circumstances", which is a recent idea of the lefties who love murderers?
Pat
WarriorDiplomat
05-17-2014, 20:07
May be innocent of that particular crime but how many death row inhabitants are innocent of all felonies?
I am not sold on the claim that they can be rehabilitated. IMO they are too great on the system to serve life.
Even if they could be rehabilitated their victims can't be brought back nor the damage undone.
Liberal judges are always saying that "this is unconstitutional". Fine. Let's go back to the method of execution at the time that the Constitution was signed. Hang 'em!
Pat
The Reaper
05-17-2014, 20:45
James, please provide your source for the 5% rate you cited.
Hanging is the way to go, IMHO.
I would accept carbon monoxide gas as an alternative.
They are fortunate that the Constitution prohibits executions in the same method as the killer used. That would be my actual preference.
The scumbag in OK that took so long to die recently, had killed a young girl just out of high school by shooting her twice with a shotgun and then burying her alive while she begged for her life.
It took 15 years for him to finally face the executioner. He would have likely been killed out on the streets before then, if the state had not convicted and incarcerated him.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
The goal of the libs is to make death penalty cases too expensive to try. Many smaller courts cannot afford to put up the million dollars required to get a death penalty conviction, and the opponents will provide the defense in the case with superior legal assistance.
Alternately, having failed at that, they want to make the appeals endless till the state makes a mistake or gives up and the penalty is overturned. Delay, delay, and delay.
Finally, if all else fails, they want to make all the methods of execution unfeasible or unconstitutional. Like telling physicians that they cannot participate as it violates their Hippocratic oath. And getting pharmacies to refuse to provide prisons with the chemicals used for the execution.
They will not stop as long as the death penalty is on the books and being used.
The death penalty is supposed to be a deterrent. Let's make it one again.
TR
TR Stated: "The death penalty is supposed to be a deterrent. Let's make it one again."
It is the ultimate deterrent for those it is carried out on, they are never repeat offenders. If that Okie suffered recently too bad, they should all suffer.
JamesIkanov
05-18-2014, 00:54
Allright, Here we go.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/28/us-death-row-inmates.html
I distinctly recall another article I have read stating a similar percentage. If I can find it, I will also link that one. The exact stat listed is about 4%, however, I rounded this up in my haste. Read and decide as you will. Personally, I'll just be up front and say I'm against the death penalty, but it's more a matter of philosophy for me than the legality of it.
Edit: Found a few more articles
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-study-claims-41-of-death-row-convictions-are-in-error-20140428-story.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/death-penalty-study-4-percent-defendants-innocent
I consider Al Jazeera to be relatively objective, but if it's not considered acceptable there are two more articles here as well that I hope should be.
Allright, Here we go.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/28/us-death-row-inmates.html
I distinctly recall another article I have read stating a similar percentage. If I can find it, I will also link that one. The exact stat listed is about 4%, however, I rounded this up in my haste. Read and decide as you will. Personally, I'll just be up front and say I'm against the death penalty, but it's more a matter of philosophy for me than the legality of it.
Edit: Found a few more articles
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-study-claims-41-of-death-row-convictions-are-in-error-20140428-story.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/death-penalty-study-4-percent-defendants-innocent
I consider Al Jazeera to be relatively objective, but if it's not considered acceptable there are two more articles here as well that I hope should be.
James, your first post suggests that around 5% of the people being put to death are innocent. The links from the story say over 4% of those sentenced are innocent. There is about 15 years and many, many appeals between those two.
Hey, I'm all for putting them to death the same way they murdered their victims.
Shot twice and buried alive? Works for me.
And a lot of those overturned cases?
A lot, to include rape cases, were based on eyewitness accounts and sketchy examination of physical evidence. Overturned because the new examination of the evidence showed the convicted person couldn't have done it.
Overall I'd say our court system leans to the convicted and kinda-sorta forgets the victim.
The Reaper
05-18-2014, 09:37
"Monday's report, published by the National Academy of Sciences, determined that 4.1 percent of inmates sentenced to death row are innocent. It reaches this conclusion by calculating how many former death row inmates whose sentences were reduced would be exonerated if they were deemed innocent at the same rate as inmates still on death row."
So this passes for scientific method at the NAS?
TR
I find it saddening how the cost of keeping one inmate alive is cheaper than one killed on death row. Never understood the how and why. Yes the reasons are there. But come one, if one was caught red handed, under CCTV or some other way. Why not kill them the first year?
JamesIkanov
05-18-2014, 17:10
I'd like to say there's a complicated good reason for it, but really it seems like the courts are just too much of a mess to even want to get into the whole expedited sentencing. Most people who are caught redhanded and know they've been caught redhanded will plead out and get life without parole or maybe less. Usually the people that end up fighting their case are the ones who get worse sentences if they are found guilty, so basically, admitting you did it is often a way to get out of the death penalty, whilst claiming you are innocent often means a worse punishment if you are found guilty. Heck, there's a whole Wikipedia page dedicated to pleading guilty while maintaining you are innocent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea
Edit: Oh wow, that's a nice catch. I'm gonna go re-read that and see if I can make sense of what they hell they're trying to say.....
Ok, I think this sums it up pretty well:
"The study concludes that were all innocent people who were given death sentences to be cleared of their offences, the exoneration rate would rise from the actual rate of those released – 1.6% – to at least 4.1%. That is equivalent in the time frame of the study, 1973 to 2004, of about 340 prisoners – a much larger group than the 138 who were exonerated in the same period." -From the Guardian article.
"Gross and his co-authors estimate that 36% of all those sentenced to death between 1973 and 2004 – some 2,675 people – were taken off death row after doubts about their convictions were raised. But they were then put on new sentences, usually life without parole, that mean they will almost certainly die in prison. The study concludes chillingly that “the great majority of innocent defendants who are convicted of capital murder in the United States are neither executed nor exonerated. They are sentenced, or resentenced to prison for life, and then forgotten”." - Also from the Guardian article
That seems to sum up what they seem to be saying quite nicely.
As for the advocates against the death penalty thing, the way it's worded leads me to believe that they did not conduct the study, but commented on the numbers after the fact. If they did conduct the study, the conflict of interest there would be quite alarming to me.