BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)

Subject: BS: USA sliding into depravity
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 07:50 AM

How can any civilised nation - never mind one that presumes to lecture the world on human rights - tolerate this sort of thing?

Botched execution takes two hours

OK this one was in Arizona, and it's predominently the southern states that indulge in this disgusting stuff. But they are signed up to a federation that seems content to have them on board, and indeed the (federal) Supreme Court paved the way for this latest atrocity. Is there any point at which states that shame the union (Texas is the egregious example) will be kicked out of it?

If judicial killing is still deemed necessary in this day and age, what's wrong with hanging? In the method perfected in the UK, there was no blood, no suffocation, and the condemned individual was dead within 20 seconds of leaving the cell, by dint of a snapped neck.

We've moved on in the UK of course, but for the US, which is still on a learning curve, it's surely worth considering?

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 09:03 AM

Just say no to drugs!

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 09:18 AM

The US has some way to go to catch up with Robert Shiarella's 1970s satire Your Sparkle Cavalcade of Death, in which an execution is sponsored by a soap powder company for an advertising campaign, but they're getting there.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 10:00 AM

"How can any civilised nation...."

As I have said before, and you noted, it's not a *nation*... it's a few states dominated by conservatives. You simply cannot comprehend what the concept of "states rights", which was put into our Constitution for good reason in 1789, now enables certain states to do!
In order to seriously change it, we'd have to amend the Constitution.......... which would require getting a divided Congress to agree on wording, and then get 3/4 of all the states to hold votes ratifying it! "If we only had some eggs, we'd have ham & eggs-- if we only had some ham!"

Travesties like this will only be gradually avoided by public outcry in each individual state, and by judges (all to many conservative!) making rulings on each individual case.
(and by the way, the last hanging in Arizona resulted in a woman being decapitated.)

As horrible as these stories are, they are serving to raise awareness and turn more & more people against executions in general.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 12:14 PM

I prefer the old English way. Slit the belly, roast the intestines on an open fire, before the beheading.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Musket
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 12:37 PM

I prefer the English way of most people's living memory. Incarcerate and deal with society's failures rather than inflict cruel and unusual punishment.

Capital punishment is a medieval stunt to sate the appetite of erotic kick sick bastards, doing what the prisoner was doing in the first place. If it were so wrong for the prisoner to do it, it is just as wrong for the government, who are complicit in this appalling deed.

The most sick part is that everybody knew and expected the outcome here. We even covered the appeal, stay and reaffirming on The BBC.

I notice that a private member's bill is to be heard in October to refuse entry to any US citizen involved in prosecuting or carrying out capital punishment. It won't get anywhere, but the message it gives at least shows the abhorrence. Already, healthcare professionals involved, even "not touching" ones are not allowed to practice here and are de facto "struck off" by BMA, NMC etc.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 04:11 PM

This is one time I fully agree with the consensus displayed above. In what way is it more moral to act in cold blood than to commit the original act in hot blood? The whole concept is unconscionable.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 04:29 PM

Before all the questions about the methods or the rights and wrongs of capital punishment, there is the possibility of wrongful conviction.
Witnesses make mistakes. Juries make mistakes. People with mental and/or emotional problems confess to crimes they did not commit.
Once a prisoner is dead it is too late.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,H.W.
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 05:38 PM

it's Putin's fault

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 06:43 PM

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/lethal-injection/appeals-judge-says-guillotine-probably-best-executions-n161641

We will see more and more "botched" executions as we work our way toward guillotines. Can't have a real Reign of Terror without Madame Guillotine.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 07:09 PM

Quite apart from the debate over whether to allow capital punishment at all, I am bewildered by the problem they are having.

A few years ago, a male nurse was convicted of killing at least 30-40 - probably many more- hospital patients by slipping readily available drugs of various sorts into their IV lines.

Myself... I had an outpatient surgery several years ago. They put in an IV and had me lie down on a table. The anesthesiologist attached a drip and put something else in a feeder line... then he turned a valve.... and ZAP... I was out like a light for about an hour.

It is my guess that any trained anesthesiologist 'knows' how to render a patient unconscious... and how to NOT kill them with various useful drugs. Killing them would simply require a different dosage.

I wonder what I am missing in my analysis?

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 07:36 PM

I was anaesthetized with fentanyl when I had my gallbladder out a few years ago, and I was out like a light with no warning at all.

For the US to adopt fentanyl for executions would mean that nobody would supply them with fentanyl, so that would be out.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 08:12 PM

What Topsie said

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ed T
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 08:57 PM

I dont mean to seem insensitive, but could they not employ Michael Jackson's doctor, Conrad Muwrray-I believe he was released from prison last year, and he may be available for specialized mefical procedures.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Janie
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 09:06 PM

Macabre as can be.

What is even more macabre is that sufficient numbers of the residents of some states are so committed to the notion of the death penalty that they are considering reverting to firing squads, the electric chair or the gas chamber as it is becoming more and more difficult to obtain lethal injection medications that work quickly and (presumably) painlessly.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 10:19 PM

First, I cannot believe that anybody here can be against the general proposition of capital punishment for premeditated and/or multiple murder. It does not compute.

If the last several executions have not gone well, it is on those who are anti-capital punishment; they have convinced legislatures and penal authorities not to use sedatives and drugs which would put the murder out within seconds, and then allow for the lethal injections.

There is no medical reason that more pain than the insertion of an IV shunt should be felt by the prisoner, if modern, humane methods, medications and trained personnel are used.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 10:55 PM

The Wikipedia article on capital punishment is distressing to me. I hadn't realized that 32 states and the federal government still have the death penalty. The Wikipedia map shows the that almost all southern and western states have the death penalty. Most of the New England and Great Lakes states do not have capital punishment.

This page says my home state of Wisconsin abolished the death penalty in 1853. I'm proud of that.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 24 Jul 14 - 11:55 PM

IMO, the various States have to decide what the purpose of the death penalty really is.

If it's the eye for an eye philosophy, that's one thing. If it's a get-even punishment, that's another. If it's to rid the world of specific 'monsters', that's yet another. Some arguments--both pro and con--hold up well to scrutiny.


"Capital punishment used to be sentenced for a variety of crimes in Canada, but as of 1961 its use was limited to homicide and treason.
On December 10, 1962, Robert Turpin and Arthur Lucas were the last people to be executed in Canada.
In 1967, a moratorium was placed on the death penalty.
In 1976, the death penalty was abolished as a sentence in Canada.
A total of 710 people have been executed in Canada; all were hanged."

from

http://www.victimsofviolence.on.ca/rev2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=327&Itemid=17


(It appears the issue is not as cut and dried when it comes to lethal injection. The folks supplying the drugs don't want to be named--ie., the drug manufacturers because they fear backlash from folks who don't agree with the death penalty, and the administrators of the injections for the same reason.)

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 12:18 AM

It is frankly embarrassing to live in Texas where they have such a high rate of executions, and at the same time, a high rate of exonerations, including people on death row.

With the pressure on states to reveal the source of their execution drugs and the pushback from states to protect those sources from public scrutiny, there is a void where individuals without a great deal of experience are involved in the dispensing of deadly cocktails. Medical professionals will rarely have anything to do with execution. If the volunteers can figure out the right cocktail and hit the right veins, it works. But it is a haphazard way of running a process that has such powerful ethical objections that all executions should be put on hold. Forever.

So often the wrong people are fingered in fatal crimes and not represented well by public defenders (a hugely underfunded and over-stressed part of the legal system). And then you have the situation where too many individuals who lost a family member have been able to push through emotional state legislation that targets specific situations - i.e., the "three strikes" laws, and the legislated sentences instead of leaving judges free to impose sentences as they deem appropriate. Forget glib chatter about guillotines being more efficient, the problem is in good LEGAL representation and 100% certain convictions - something that simply isn't possible in many of the cases that result in the death penalty. And even if it is proved 100%, there are still problems. The fairest thing is to get rid of the death penalty. We spend billions on incarceration, what is the tab for a few more inmates in for a lifetime instead of death?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 12:54 AM

Actually, it is less expensive to incarcerate than it is to execute due to the appeals that are mandatory.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 01:03 AM

I'm vice president of an organization that works for criminal justice reform in our county. One thing we're working against, is California's thirty-year escalation of the penalties meted out for criminal offenses - "three strikes" laws, and all that stuff. It's a tough battle, because the "victims' rights" groups are strong and well-funded.

The argument of the victims' rights people is hard to refute - no criminal penalty can possibly be adequate to compensate the outrage and injury suffered by a victim of crime, especially is that crime is a particularly outrageous crime. So, in their outrage, these groups keep demanding (and getting) stiffer and stiffer penalties for crime. The penalties don't do any good, but it's hard to convince a crime victim of that. They want vengeance, and rightly so.

I'm friendly with a woman at church who's a primary spokesperson for a well-funded, statewide victims' rights group. She got involved in her crusade twenty-five years ago, when her sister was brutally murdered. So far, I've been able to avoid direct conflict with her, but I suppose it will happen some day. I just finished writing an article for the local newspaper that may well set her off when it's published.

While I can see why people demand the death penalty and all the other still penalties that state legislatures have enacted, I can also see that stiff penalties haven't really given solace to the victims of crime; and the penalties don't seem to be able to reduce crime, either. So, we need to develop effective alternatives.

It's an uphill battle.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 01:52 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law

It's a long read but it shows many of the problems with three strikes laws. The focus is on California.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 02:37 AM

"If the last several executions have not gone well,"
Now there's a chilling phrase to conjure with.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Musket
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 02:55 AM

This thread certainly gives an insight into the minds of those whose moral stance you grapple with on other subjects.

Am I mis reading here or have we 1) at least one person in favour of this barbaric sentence and. 2) a macabre discussion on alternative ways of killing people?

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 04:39 AM

As I always chip in when this topic come up [which is one on which I have that disadvantage I so often labour under of seeing both sides & so feeling a bit helpless and ineffectual with regard to such] --

Both emotionally and semantically, it is foolish to use terms emotively which have more precise meanings: in particular, in re this topic, "civilised" & "barbaric". The latter [or its variant 'barbarian'] was the term used by the Romans for those not within their 'civilised' jurisdiction. Now, seriously, can anyone deny that the Romans, along with the ancient Athenians and Thebans and Spartans, & the ancient orientals like Japanese, Chinese, Indians &c, were all highly 'civilised' within any reasonable and rational meaning of the term? Yet they all went on judicially executing criminals all the time. Same considerations apply to mediæval Europe &c. It is, in fact, only, at most, within the last couple of centuries that such legal deterrents were even questioned by any civilised nations. Can you really denounce the whole of history before about mid-C19 as relating to the "uncivilised"?

My point, to reiterate, is that terms like "civilised" & "barbaric" in this context are so imprecise as to be liable to confuse, rather than clarify, the issues; and so are best avoided if one expects one's posts to carry any conviction or intellectual respectability.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 05:01 AM

Can you really denounce the whole of history before about mid-C19 as relating to the "uncivilised"?

Things is moving on, sort of. The emergent distaste for capital punishment is of a higher morality born of an emergent and entirely secular spirituality which one might term 'enlightened'. This term is, of course, relative to what happened before (or happens elsewhere) rather than absolute in itself.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Musket
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 05:11 AM

We like to think we are civilised I suppose. But future generations will see this time as one of knowing what is needed to create a fair and just society but still held back by superstition and primeval savagery.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 06:40 AM

Yes, JotSC, I oppose all capital punishment quite simply because whatever test one applies 100% certainty can never be achieved. Wrongly imprison a person and they can be released and (sort of) compensated. Wrongly execute them and it's rather final.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 11:42 AM

Richard, I suppose that is the second most used argument against the death penalty, and I certainly would not want to execute a person who did not do the crime. However, the long appeals process, and other legal safeguards make this an extreme rarity. I believe human life to be so important, that the only way to adequately punish the wanton murder of a person, is to take the life of the murderer. Your argument is overbroad owing to the the fact that wrongful execution of an innocent is extremely, perhaps infinitesimally rare; there is no 100% in any human endeavor or creation. Life would come to a standstill if we required 100% certainty in our actions.

I'm guessing the most used rationale for non-execution is that it is considered considered, by antis, to be state murder; it is not. Without the death penalty, there could well be more personal revenge killings and vigilantism, and perhaps even family/clan feuds, because the families of victims do not feel their loved one did not get justice.

Finally, murderers who are given less than death sentences have been known to kill whilst in prison, both other prisoners and guards. Some have escaped and murdered again, and some are paroled and murder again.

It is a pleasure, Richard, to exchange ideas with you.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Stu
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 12:02 PM

"I believe human life to be so important, that the only way to adequately punish the wanton murder of a person, is to take the life of the murderer."

What separates us from them? The intent to kill is there in both cases.

What might we have learned about the human condition from executed prisoners? How might we have helped people not to stray outside the bounds of our society's moral framework? If we kill people too, how can we justify our place within that moral framework?

The death penalty is about revenge, not justice.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 12:48 PM

"...the fact that wrongful execution of an innocent is extremely, perhaps infinitesimally rare; "...

Sadly, not so... there have been many proven- too late. And only recent DNA technology has prevented many more. In the Wild West and in the first 2/3 of the 20th century, executions were common, often hurried, and done with little public outcry. Only modern communications and research has shown how frequently vengeance and the desire of prosecutors to pad their records has led to wrongful executions.

However...this IS a serious concern: " murderers who are given less than death sentences have been known to kill whilst in prison, both other prisoners and guards. Some have escaped and murdered again, and some are paroled and murder again."

Every day prison guards deal with unrepentant and seriously dangerous prisoners who bank on the idea that "they can't execute me, and they can't give me MORE than life in prison" to try to harm guards & other prisoners.
It is considered fair & unavoidable to use deadly force to deal with a dangerous person on the streets, but 'barbaric' to use it after they are captured.

We needs to understand the serious aspects of ALL sides of the debate as we grapple with it all.
I will make this prediction: If ... as population increases and societal pressures grow and more & more serious crimes are committed, costing more & more money and resources, the pendulum of opinion will swing back to general public favoring of capital punishment. (This opinion reflects my sad view that the &%#@%$* gun culture in the US shows no sign of diminishing, leading to more & more murders)

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 01:01 PM

First, I cannot believe that anybody here can be against the general proposition of capital punishment

Believe it, John. It computes just fine.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Musket
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 01:09 PM

Well, reading what John on the sunset coast just said certainly wasn't a pleasure.

Perhaps before embarrassing himself with such awful disdain for human life, he might think on that many people reading Mudcat live in the civilised world that moved on from such barbaric savagery years ago.

I find the subject abhorrent yet find myself fascinated when people are interviewed on the TV news when we cover botched executions on The BBC. They seem to walk dress and just about talk normally yet their excitement over killing a person seems somewhat surreal.

Despite our government's fawning over The USA in some areas of agreement, I am proud of the fact that we will not and by law cannot allow people to be extradited there when a capital charge is possible. The successful prosecution of a company supplying lethal injection drugs to US prisons demonstrates how we do not allow such things to flourish.

Sure, there are people who would welcome the death sentence here, but they tend to be a small minded small number minority. It is sport for newspapers to interview them from time to time so we can laugh at their lack of reasoning.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 01:20 PM

Had the death penalty been in place during the 1970s and 80s around a dozen people, later exonerated, would have died wrongfully, including the Birmingham Six and the Guildford 4.
The death penalty was finally abolished in Britain in 1964 - it would have happened 8 years earlier had it not been for the intervention so the House of Lords.
This wonderful piece from The New Statesman, describes that intervention:
"From the hills and forests of darkest Britain they came: the halt, the lame, the deaf, the obscure, the senile and the forgotten — the hereditary peers of England united in their determination to use their medieval powers to retain a medieval institution."
The U.S. practice of carrying out the death penalty puts it to shame, along with its archaic 'Wild West' gun laws.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 01:35 PM

"The death penalty is about revenge, not justice." Stu

.,,.

Not entirely mutually exclusive terms. Revenge against the wrongdoer on the part of Society, along with deterrence, & the protection of Society by isolation of offenders, is indeed one of the recognised constituents of justice.

I incline to believe that for certain good reasons, such as its irredeemable finality and irreparability in the case of error, death of the offender should not be one of these instruments of justice. But I think I can see the counter-arguments a little more clearly than some.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Musket
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 01:46 PM

That'd be a first...

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 02:28 PM

"The death penalty is about revenge, not justice." Stu.
Well, Stu, while I disagree about that, if I did agree I would say that structured, societal 'revenge' sure beats individual revenge six ways to Sunday.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 02:38 PM

"But I think I can see the counter-arguments a little more clearly than some."
I wonder (doubt) if you can see it half as clearly as the survivors of those who went to the drop innocent of the crime they were condemned for - or for Paul Hill and his friends who, but for the grace of..... Chris Mullins.....!
The death penalty is neither humanity, nor is it logical or effective; few acts of revenge are
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 03:14 PM

Stu already said it - execution is a form of revenge. Execution is a codified legal form of revenge, where the individual is not responsible, the onus of the act rests on all of us, the public, as the government sanctions the act. In theory our hands aren't dirty.

It's a step removed from lynching. Tidied up with legal justifications and rituals and practices that keep it from being a spontaneous vicious act. And no mistake about it, many of these people who are eligible for execution or the life without parole sentence are pretty awful people. But I'd much rather the penal system be reformed and the profit be removed from it (all of these private for profit prisons just love the high incarceration rate in the US) and at the same time, those who really do need to be in prison be housed in a humane way. And while they're at it, make a way for meaningful work and useful education for those who will eventually be released.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 03:36 PM

There are some very good reasons not to have a death penalty in Canada. Those reasons are Brandley, Clarence Lee; Chew Wing, George; Cirofici, Frank; Cruz, Rolando; Ford Heights Four; Grzechowiak, Stephen; Johnston, Dale; Marshall, Donald Jr.; Milgaard, David; Morin, Guy Paul; Nepoose, Willie; Peek, Anthony Ray. All were convicted wrongfully.

I noticed that a few people have intimated that the US is a backward place because so many States do have the death penalty. The people doing that forget that the death penalty existed in the land of the Britons for close to two thousand years. Finally they got it right. The US has some catch-up to do, but they've only been at it for fewer than 400 years.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 03:49 PM

"Finally they got it right."
A couple of millenium late - but I'll drink to that at the session tonight
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: GUEST,#
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 03:51 PM

I'll raise one with you, Jim.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Janie
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 04:57 PM

Even if there is no doubt of guilt, I don't understand the arguments of those who argue others 'deserve' to die. I don't understand arguments for death as punishment. I don't understand how any of us can rationally decide that some one else 'deserves' to die. I understand that people, individually or collectively, do hold that belief. It simply is not a belief that seems to me to make any sense.

I'll have to think a bit more about you comments regarding barbaric and civilized, Michael, but at first blush, they do make sense. Involve, it seems to me, very moralistic and ill-defined concepts. I can't tell, from your postings here, what you may think about socially endorsed killing, so not commenting from that aspect.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ed T
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 05:00 PM

An odd related item on Youtube?


??? 

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 05:02 PM

I think I know who posted the following. It is, I believe, someone whom I respect, so I looked up his list which I've annotated [-].

There are some very good reasons not to have a death penalty in Canada. Those reasons are Brandley, Clarence Lee[RELEASED]; Chew Wing, George[EXECUTED 1937]; Cirofici, Frank[EXECUTED 1914]; Cruz, Rolando[PARDONED]; Ford Heights Four[PARDONED]; Grzechowiak, Stephen[EXECUTED 1930]; Johnston, Dale[FREED]; Marshall, Donald Jr.[FREED]; Milgaard, David[FREED]; Morin, Guy Paul[FREED]; Nepoose, Willie[NOT A CAPITAL CASE-FREED]; Peek, Anthony Ray[RELEASED]. All were convicted wrongfully.

From this list we see that three folks were executed, probably wrongly. All of them were put to death before WWII. It should not have happened.

Nepoose, was not convicted of a capital crime and so was not subject to the death penalty. His second degree murder conviction was overturned.

The remaining enumerated persons were subsequently found to be wrongly convicted either by evidence or technicality; they were released and compensated for their wrongful convictions, not to say that money heals the wrong done them. All of those cases are from the latter quarter of the last century until more recently.

I would say, based on Guest,#'s list, that the ultimate protection of wrongful execution is now quite, good...perhaps even excellent.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ed T
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 05:21 PM

I suspect some of those Canadian folks noted earlier would have escaped the death penalty in many states in the US of A anyway, due to their age, the type of crime they were charged with (initially convicted of) and the amount of the alotted for new appeals. After all, Canada is not the only country where innocent folks are wrongly convicted and eventually releasedcas time passes.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 05:32 PM

Ed T--that list consists mostly of Americans, and some--2 or 3, I think--Canadians. The important thing is that civilized countries (among which I consider USA and Canada) take great precautions to not erroneously execute the innocent.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ed T
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 05:43 PM

As stated earlier, unfortunately sentences for murder in some locals are so low (with parole) that the deterrent value is seen by many as minimal. In addition, some found guiltyty of more than one murder only face actual time for one murder. This reinforces those supporting capital punishment.

Below is a recent example of just how slack the Canadian justice system is ( as I am unsure if the link is available to all, I will cut and paste the news article.:


25 years for two murders 

Recent Canadian Case:

There was a shocking display in a Halifax courtroom Wednesday by a man who was being sentenced to life in prison for two different murders.

Dustan Joseph Preeper was unrepentant when a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge asked him if he had anything to say before he was sentenced.

"I just want to say thank you and congratulations and you can all go f--- yourselves," the 26-year-old Dartmouth man said, giving the court the finger. "You mutts."

The victims' relatives and friends in the gallery applauded after Justice James Chipman said the remarks were inappropriate and ordered Preeper to sit down.

"What are you going to do, give me another 25 years?" Preeper said.

Preeper pleaded guilty Wednesday to first-degree murder in the 2011 death of Melissa Dawn Peacock, 20, of Dartmouth. He must serve 25 years before he is eligible for parole.

His brother, Joshua Michael Preeper, 22, of Kennetcook, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the killing and also received an automatic life sentence. He can apply for parole after 12 years in prison.

Peacock was reported missing in November 2011. Her remains were found in a shallow grave in the Upper Stewiacke area of Colchester County in July 2012.

According to an agreed statement of facts, Peacock was killed Nov. 8, 2011, in Upper Rawdon, Hants County, after partying with the Preepers.

Dustan Preeper stabbed Peacock and then instructed his brother to drag her into the woods, where they poured gasoline on her body and set it on fire.

Later that day, the brothers returned to the scene, retrieved Peacock's burned remains and drove to a remote wooded area off South Branch Road near Upper Stewiacke, where they buried the remains. Dustan disposed of the murder weapon, a knife, by throwing it off a nearby bridge.

The court was told that Dustan was mad at Peacock because she had tried to leave the party house with his car. He stabbed her several times in the chest.

Dustan Preeper also pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the July 8, 2010, beating death of Ben Hare, 26, of Truro in a brawl outside an apartment building in the east end of the town. That life sentence will be served concurrently, with parole ineligibility set at 12 years.

The facts revealed that Hare attacked Preeper first, stabbing him with a knife in the face, neck and back. A melee ensued and Preeper struck Hare with an aluminum baseball bat.

Hare lost consciousness and fell to the ground. After chasing Hare's colleagues away, Preeper repeatedly bludgeoned the prone man on the head and chest with the bat.

The medical examiner said Hare suffered multiple skull fractures and died from blunt-force trauma to the head.

Preeper had been acquitted two months earlier on a charge of assaulting Hare's younger brother, Denver, in October 2009.

Barbara Elizabeth Marshall, 26, of Halifax, Dustan's girlfriend and the mother of his child, was also accused of second-degree murder in Hare's death, but the Crown withdrew that charge Wednesday.

The guilty pleas and joint sentencing recommendations were the result of weeks of discussions between Crown attorneys Peter Craig and Shauna MacDonald and the defence lawyers. Peter Planetta represented Dustan Preeper, while Brian Bailey was Joshua's lawyer and, with son Mark, acted on behalf of Marshall as well.

The judge said the two killings were horrific.

"These were indeed heinous crimes perpetrated on individuals who in no way deserved the fates that befell them," Chipman said.

"Two young and promising persons are now gone forever and all that we have are their memories — memories of who they were and who they might have become."

The judge prohibited the brothers from having weapons for the rest of their lives and ordered them to provide DNA samples for a national databank.


Outside court, Rufus Peacock, Melissa's grandfather, said he was satisfied that justice had been done.He said it was difficult to have to hear the details of his granddaughter's killing and to understand why it happened."But it happened, and we go on with our life," he said. "Melissa was very, very close to me. I spent a lot of time with her, and someday I'll see her."Peacock said Dustan Preeper's comments to the court were "just horrible, horrendous.""It made it very difficult for the families on both sides. All we can say is that justice has been served and we're thankful for it."

Tiny White, the Preepers' aunt, blamed Dustan's courtroom outburst on the fact he has Asperger syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder.

"He's not a monster, he's not a monster," White told reporters.

The Preepers were arrested in July 2012 thanks to information about the Peacock case that police received through the provincial Justice Department's Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes Program, launched in 2006. It was the first time a tip to the program, which offers rewards of up to $150,000, had led to charges in a murder case.

The court heard Wednesday that investigators used an undercover police operator and a police agent to gather evidence against the Preepers. Dustan took the undercover officer to the burial site in July 2012 and divulged that he burned his clothing and Melissa Peacock's wallet and phone the day after the murder. Dustan also admitted that he hit Hare in the head with the bat severaltimes and did not stop until police arrived.

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Ed T
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 05:49 PM

Thanks JotSC, I only recognized a couple as being Canadian cases?

Subject: RE: BS: USA sliding into depravity (botched execution)
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jul 14 - 06:06 PM

""The death penalty is about revenge, not justice."

Here goes Bill D again:

I'm sorry, it certainly is for some...even for many- but it is not that for everyone.

We cannot read minds... and many people view it much as they would culling overpopulating deer or shooting a marauding lion who preys on a village in Africa.

I am not defending the death penalty--- there are far too many problems with flaws in both flawed convictions and the current 'methods' --- but it IS possible to treat it as one theoretical pragmatic solution to dealing with evil.

There is a phrase.. "with extreme prejudice" that is used to explain.. if not to justify... an assassination of an enemy- or even an out-of-control friend of some sort. I can see the point of the concept, even as I would hate being involved in such matters.

As I posted above, 'most' of us can imagine situations where we would use deadly force...if possible.. to protect the family, etc. It is not a huge leap to the idea of eliminating permanently a known & avowed threat.. i.e., a murderer who has killed again after escaping or being paroled.

I still predict that society's view will change over time as crime & danger increase.

   Do the math... if there is always a certain % of the population which resorts to evil & crime, and the population continues to increase, and the need for more & more prisons costing more & more money and requiring more & more people willing to be prison guards keeps growing, there MUST come a time when there are not only many dangerous criminals near everyone, but practical ways of incarcerating them and training psychiatrists to treat them is not in ANY budget.


We cannot simply define executions as 'barbaric', any more than we can define all abortion as ... wicked/murder/immoral... whatever.

I favor counseling. treatment, gun control, legal reform, and a host of other things in the attempt to minimize all consideration of the death penalty... I just doubt the very long-term societal view that banning it will solve much. YMMV