"Progressives" Mandate Torture - Unintentionally

Death penalty opponents succeeded in banning the chemicals once used for humane executions. The result has been deaths of excruciating agony caused by less effective drugs. Another step forward towards "progress"!

A bullet through the brain is more humane than any drug, faster and less painful. Yet several states are struggling to restore firing squads as an option. The inhumanity of death penalty opponents is another example of "progressives" valuing ideology over people.

Read this story from today's New York Times -

After a Prolonged Execution in Ohio, Questions Over ‘Cruel and Unusual’

By ERICA GOODE
JAN. 17, 2014

As the lethal drugs flowed into his veins in the Ohio death chamber, Dennis B. McGuire at first “went unconscious” and his body was still, his daughter, Amber McGuire, said Friday.

But a few minutes later, she said, she was horrified to see her father struggling, his stomach heaving, a fist clenching.

“He started making all these horrible, horrible noises, and at that point, that’s when I covered my eyes and my ears,” said Ms. McGuire, who watched the execution on Thursday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, near Lucasville. “He was suffering.”

Mr. McGuire’s execution, conducted with a new and untested combination of drugs, took about 25 minutes from the time the drugs were started to the time death was declared. The process, several witnesses said, was accompanied by movement and gasping, snorting and choking sounds.
Related Coverage

It has not been established whether Mr. McGuire was conscious of pain or whether the drugs that were used were responsible for his prolonged death. But at a time when the drugs once routinely used in executions are in short supply and states are scrambling to find new formulas, the execution is stirring intense debate about the obligations of the state toward those it kills.

Ms. McGuire and her brother, also named Dennis McGuire, said Friday that they plan to file a federal lawsuit next week alleging that the execution violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

“We’re mainly just hoping that no other family has to go through what we went through yesterday,” Ms. McGuire said.

Allen Bohnert, the lawyer who represented Mr. McGuire, called the execution “a failed, agonizing experiment by the State of Ohio.”

But the family of Joy Stewart, the woman Mr. McGuire raped and murdered in 1989, said in a statement that whatever Mr. McGuire’s suffering, it paled in comparison with what Ms. Stewart went through at the hands of her killer. “He is being treated far more humanely than he treated her,” the statement said.

Three decades ago, lethal injection was pioneered as a more humane method of execution than electrocution or gas. But in recent years, European manufacturers of previously used drugs like pentobarbital and sodium thiopental, in response to pressure from groups opposed to the death penalty, have blocked their sale for use in executions.

Ohio, which had run out of its supply of pentobarbital, used a combination of midazolam, an anti-anxiety drug in the same family as Valium, and hydromorphone, a powerful narcotic derived from morphine. A court gave its approval to the combination, overruling lawyers for Mr. McGuire who had argued that the drugs could cause “air hunger,” a struggle for breath that, the lawyers said, could result in “agony and terror.”

But in persuading the court to allow the use of the drugs, Thomas Madden, an Ohio assistant attorney general, argued that although there are constitutional protections, “you’re not entitled to a pain-free execution.”

Death penalty opponents said that the shortage of drugs has led to a chaotic national picture, with individual states trying out different drug formulas, sometimes with disturbing results. Mr. McGuire’s execution was not the first in Ohio to inspire controversy: In 2009, the execution of Romell Broom was halted after executioners struggled for two hours to get an intravenous line to deliver the drugs. His lawyers argued that a second execution attempt would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Mr. Broom is still on death row.

Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University and an expert on lethal injections, said that a Supreme Court ruling that upheld Kentucky’s use of a three-drug cocktail for lethal injections in 2008 was based in part on the uniformity of drug combinations across the states.

But she said, as the drugs have become less available, “That’s no longer the case.” She added, “This is a very different world in 2014 than it was in 2008.”

In Wyoming, the shortage of lethal injection drugs has led State Senator Bruce Burns, Republican of Sheridan County, to propose offering a firing squad as an alternative method of execution. Currently, the gas chamber is the only alternative available in Wyoming, but the state does not have one. Mr. Burns said that given the infrequency of executions, a gas chamber is too costly to maintain. In Missouri, State Representative Rick Brattin introduced a bill on Thursday to add firing squads as an option. Utah is phasing out its firing squad option.

Debates about the relative humaneness of different execution methods have persisted as long as arguments about the death penalty itself. In 1890, electrocution was substituted for hanging in the belief that it was less painful, but George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison both fought to keep their electrical currents out of the death chamber (Mr. Westinghouse lost). Lawyers for William Kemmler, the first person to die in the electric chair, argued that the method constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

Jon Paul Rion, a lawyer representing Ms. McGuire and her brother in the lawsuit, said that the children were following their father’s wishes in bringing suit.

“Before Dennis was executed he knew that this could be an issue given what the defense experts had articulated to the court, that exactly what happened in this case could happen,” Mr. Rion said. “Dennis made his son promise that if in fact the execution was as painful and disturbing as the experts predicted, he would make sure” that others would not have to face a similar ordeal.

Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University, said that if the McGuires did file suit, they would have to prove “by a preponderance of the evidence that he suffered unnecessary pain.”

That might be difficult, he said, because Mr. McGuire is in no position to testify and the definition of “unnecessary” is uncertain, “given that state officials were trying their darnedest to avoid having him suffer unnecessary pain.”

“By my lights, this is a very hard lawsuit to prevail,” he added. “But who knows?”

 

I am going to have to clarify soothing here.

The shortage of the drug is due to, of all things, Italy's refusal to allow the export of drugs used in lethal injection. Italy has had no death penalty for 100 years, and it would seem that they refuse to allow their tacit participation in it on ideological grounds, and the "death penalty opponents" are not domestic, in this case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/22/us/22lethal.html?_r=0

The drug that is needed is not "banned" in this country.

 

I didn't specify US opponents of the death penalty. The Times mentions that "European manufacturers of previously used drugs like pentobarbital and sodium thiopental, in response to pressure from groups opposed to the death penalty, have blocked their sale for use in executions." Whether those groups are domestic or European, "progressives" share similar values and methods. I'm not suggesting anyone wants prisoners to suffer - although some quoted in the article do, or at least don't care - rather that it's an indifference to the real world consequences of political posturing which has caused this. I'm arguing for pragmatism and against ideology.

 

Guess we'll have to change the phrase 'circular firing squad' to 'circular lethal injection squad.'

Noted.

 

What a load !

Yes, I do believe in capitol punishment.
That said, there are obviously cultural and personal differences as to what is cruel and unusual.
Offer a choice.
1) Hanging
2) Firing Squad. Remember Gary Gilmore, a class act at the last moments.
3) Electric Chair
4) Gas Chamber
5) The best modern medicine can provide. Try Profolol !
Anesthesia kills more people than the surgeon does.
The seeming incompetence at times of execution is a "load of manure"
6) Reasonable alternatives.


If I had to chose, I would chose firing squad or modern medicine.
The firing squad gives one man a blank bullet. A target is placed over the heart and in an instant
there is a hole where the heart use to be.
Modern medicine.
How about anesthesia, morphine, and insulin. If that doesn't do it, add large amounts of potassium.
If that still doesn't do it, put a piece of Saran Wrap over the nose and mouth.
I mean really, once they are under anesthesia they aren't feeling a thing.

Moi

No ​

 

gotta luv the absolutely absurdity of the OP premise that "progressives" have forced "conservatives" to use brutal execution methods that torture the victim while killing him.

don't bother looking up, it won't help.

 

Yup. You've got it.

 

Allow me to present the OP's new argument if Italy were still supply these chemicals to the US for executions:

So, progressive Europe are against the death penalty but provide the US the chemicals used in lethal injections. Can progressives be more hypocritical!!

^^ You know that argument would be used.

 

I agree completely.

There are so many fast painless ways to kill people, I've always wondered why we do what we do. One might suspect that causing suffering was the concealed purpose of even the supposedly humane injections we've used.

Drugs that impede breathing cause terrible fear and distress. In grad school, I learned about drugs used to suspend breathing for just 5-10 seconds. These were used to induce extreme fear in the subjects of psychology experiments. (Today, such research is banned as unethical.) This is what we've been doing to prisoners, only not for just 5-10 seconds. And this torture has been promoted as a humane alternative!

Were I to be executed myself, I would prefer a bullet through the back of the skull. This would cause instant death, and probably be without any pain at all, since the brain's pain center would be destroyed before it could register. Why don't we do this? Because they can't find anyone to fire the gun? I doubt that. Because no one wants to mop up all the bloody debris? Perhaps. Or maybe just to be cruel. This is, after all, the country that invented the electric chair and the gas chamber, two barbarities that represented "progress" over old fashioned hanging, or so it was said.

 

Yeah lets not blame the people who unnecessarily continue to push through executions despite not having the tools to do so, lets blame the people who try to stop executions. I'm sorry but this is an absolutely sick argument. No one is forcing us to kill our criminals, thus being denied the drugs used to kill these people is not mandating torture; it's an attempt to end a barbaric practice that has likely resulted in the death of innocent people.

 

Please explain how the premise is inaccurate. Is that not what the Times reported?

I've twice emphasized that this wasn't done out of deliberate cruelty, rather the ideological zeal which so often renders "progressives" indifferent to the real world consequences of their policies. Perhaps the ultimate story of our political age is how well-intentioned leftists have blundered into one disaster after another (think of Obamacare), dragging others with them, and always from the best of motives. This happens because they know too much about ideological theory and too little about how things actually work. Execution is a good example. The "progressives" saw the low-hanging fruit of banning the chemicals used for lethal injections without ever realizing that executions would just be carried out by other means. What they thought they were doing was preventing executions. As anyone not a blinkered ideological "progressive" would have expected, they only compelled execution by less humane means.

 

Not by me. The reason I wouldn't is that I'd understand the "progressives" and those selling the chemicals were different people, even though they live in the same country. This failure to make obvious distinctions is just the sort of ideology-driven avoidance of thought I spoke of in the preceding post.

Do you know anything other than "we good, you bad"?

I notice that the "progressive" posters have nothing to say about methods of execution, the topic of this thread. Even now, you're indifferent to these state-sanctioned obscenities, concerned only to defend your reputation.

 

And there it is! Even in the face of what's happening, a "progressive" hurries to defend his fellows' idiocy. Let me explain it to you -

We have a system of laws. These laws set punishments for crime. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution mentions capital crimes, so execution is constitutional, and is not, in itself, cruel or unusual punishment in the law. The Supreme Court has confirmed this repeatedly. The question is whether the method of execution is cruel or unusual, but execution itself is permitted. In many states, the law allows capital sentences, often after a jury has unanimously voted for that sentence. So while it's certainly arguable that execution is an ineffective or inhumane or immoral sentence, it's not an illegal one.

Those opposing execution are free to lobby state governments to ban it. The Federal government, starting in the Clinton Administration, now can also impose execution for various crimes. Again, those who disagree are free to lobby for changes in the law.

But to get to the "progressive" idiocy at hand, you assume that by interfering with one method of execution (the most humane currently available) you are somehow interfering with execution. This is obviously not the case, as the Times article made clear. If one method becomes unavailable, others can and will be used. If you oppose execution, what you need to do is oppose execution, not just a method of execution. If you oppose a method, another method will just take its place. This is so clear that I can only call it stupid to expect otherwise. So long as executions are ordered by courts, and the means exist, executions will continue. So yes, those who limited access to the least painful method of execution are solely and directly responsible for any resulting pain. Shame on you. Your stupidity is no excuse.

 

Yes I do. My little reverse argument, which certainly would be used as an attack against "progressives", is pointing the "we good, you bad" out. Look at your little tittle "Progressives" Mandate Torture. It is a ridiculous statement.

 

I'm a libertarian, and I don't believe the state has the right to kill its own citizens. It is not necessary to do so and the only people who are supporting a torturous death penalty are the ones supporting its use still despite not having the proper tools to carry it out. Sorry to break it to you but if you support shooting people full of drug cocktails to kill them and not knowing the effects, you are the one supporting torture, not me.

 

I haven't said I supported the death penalty. You are, of course, free to believe what you will. But the Federal and many state governments do, in fact, execute people. The question is neither my belief nor yours. Execution is a fact. If you dispute the government's right to do so, then you must persuade the government. Blocking the least onerous method of execution does not advance your cause one iota. It only results in suffering, as the Times reported. You're substituting a pyrrhic victory and much self-congratulation for progress, and, in a style common among ideologues, ignoring the consequences of your actions for real people.

 

Yet it is "progressives" who have made cruel executions inevitable, isn't it?

 

No, it's the people who support executions who have made cruel executions inevitable. Without executions being legal, there would be no cruel executions.

 

Well we'll let all the murderers, rapists, pedophiles stay at your house then.

In truth a bullet to the brain is about as humane as it gets(ask any neurophysiologist). A good drop from the gallows is almost as quick.

But no!

You so called "progressives" can't handle natural reality so by your own "unintention", You DID lobby for this, and thus by your very aversive nature... created this very scenario you had proposed to have wanted to avoid.

Get real folks!

[video=youtube;XMW2lbNVaXY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMW2lbNVaXY[/video]
.
.
.

 

Your case for your entire thread is both fraudulent and non-existent.

A company that manufactures the drugs desired to be uesed for lethal executions are NOT "legally banned", it is simply that the companies that make them refuse to sell them for the purpose of the forced killing of humans.

This decision is in part driven by the historical average of at least three executions in 10 are of people who are either innocent and/or mentally deficient to understand their actions
.
I know of NO "progressives" who have tried to ban lethal injection drugs - they work to ban executions of ANY kind!

It is further quite ironic to observe the same people who think the government is too incompetent to hand out school lunches should be allowed to execute its citizens.

Given the history of execution and their own attitude of absolute "government incompetence", the only possible conclusion is Republican and Right Wing death penalty suppoters don;t care who dies for a crime, they just like seeing SOMEONE killed in order to indulge revenge blood lusts in the act of doing SOMETHING, even if it is wrong.

It is true enough that the death sentence means never having to pay for wrongful arrest or execution!

 

Why would we not simply keep those people in prison as we do now? BTW no one lobbied for more painful executions. Again you are the problem, you are the reason this is happening. So long as executions are legal, these kinds of drawn out executions can and will happen. It's very simple to understand. You're trying to deflect the blame from yourself, but so long as you support state sanctioned killings then people will die in whatever way the state decides to kill them, torturous or not. How do you justify this reality? I'm assuming you're having problems doing so being that you made this thread with the ridiculous premise that your political enemies are the ones causing people to go through these horrible executions despite the fact that they do not support executions and if it were up to them these torturous executions wouldn't happen, nor any executions.

 

Look at the evil progressives forcing us to murder somebody less humanely.

A person could drown in the irony and you can't see it for all the trees.

 

Ok, so log your political position on this issue in a Federal Database so YOU and your political cohort, and ONLY you and your political cohort will be taxed to support their living costs.

Split up your word mangle and I might respond point for point...

[video=youtube;l_5UZfwX0ss]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_5UZfwX0ss[/video]

 

So you want people put to death because you find keeping them alive a financial burden? Disgusting.

 

Lol! Yes... that's exactly what I said genius. Go back and enjoy your by-default tenure...
.
.
.