This should be a really good topic for debate since there are groups that are for and against it and I really think we need something that is very controversial to talk about on this forum due to the lack of topics and I wanted to bring this up sooner. Anyway, what are your views on it? I'm AGAINST it, EXCEPT if the murder was PARTICULARLY brutal like a torture murder or you kill more than once. Rhode Island doesn't have it since we hung the wrong man.

Considering the ridiculous amount of cases where the wrong man has been killed/almost killed, I'd say no. That being said, our investigative technology and ability has greatly increased since those days, so yeah, we're probably a whole lot better on that.

Regardless, our system still isn't perfect, so I don't believe our execution of the ultimate judgement is justified. Especially considering that every citizen has their right to life(as explicitly stated in the Declaration of Independence) and taking away that right(especially of an innocent man) is completely against what this country was based on...

But I only speak from the american legal standpoint.

As in the words of Ron White "In Texas, if you kill someone, We will kill you back :double:"

I think it is a waste to use tons of resources to just keep people alive doing nothing in jail if they are just going to die anyway. how about we just kill those people and give all the food they would have eaten to the poor. (We should also throw all the illegal immigrants over the boarder)

Typically, the death penalty is given to those who have committed a capital offense, most notably being the crime of murder. If every citizen, as you say based on the Declaration of Independence, has the right to life, then how about the victim? The one whose life was so cruelly taken away from him without a second chance?

As you said, everybody has that right, but when if somebody intentionally took that right of life from someone, retribution has to be given. When they commit the crime, when they commit a murder, or another capital offense of the sorts, they must be willingly to face the just punishment equal to the potency of said crime.

With being said, the only instance, from my view, where as the death penalty is justified to be used would be if the crime involved murder of some sorts.

What, so that's how laws work these days? Eye for an eye?

He breaks into a car and steals your expensive radio, so the government breaks into the guy's car and steals his?

Sorry, government doesn't work that way. They're supposed to be above the petty criminals...

As Ghandi once said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves the world blind and toothless. The killing cycle has to stop somewhere.

It actually costs more tax money to have someone on death row than to put someone in jail for life. The defendants have a right virtually limitless appeals if they work it right, and high security prisons and what not costs a dang fortune. The court costs are the real killer.

I am pretty positive they only kill if they disobey their religion and if they killed someone else and caused nothing but pain into the other guys life (bymessing his family). Killing a man is not the right thing to do but if he/she killed someone it is just revenge put into another form. Oh and if police kills that's ok,only murders. But in somecases the penilty is wrong. Can a child get it? And if he/she can....then it is not right at all. Childeren don't know what to do. They are just kids.(sorry for grammer mistakes I was in a hurry D:)

You killed him so we kill you... Honestly, I think it's nonsense. What kind of punishment is that? Putting them out of their misery is considered a friggin punishment? Prison for life is so much more of a punishment.

All this vengeance nonsense... sigh.

Well if we kill them, we stop the cycle because they wont be able to kill any more :double:. Also prison for life takes A LOT of resources. if yo wanted to torcher some one, just put the Teletubbies or the Barney song on everywhere in the jail cell and just wait for them to strangle themselves. Of course we could always go back to the Renaissance and use the iron maiden ^^. The death penalty is just easier than keeping a dangerous convict alive.

Read one of my above posts, it costs us more money to have someone on death row than it does to throw them in jail for life. The cost is actually astronomically different... You wouldnt believe how much it friggin costs.

They want the guy to die since he killed another man for no reason. It is not about punishment it is about revenge. If you commit murder in the mideast you most likely will have your throat slit. When your in prison you have a chance of getting out. Once your dead,there is no way back unless god does something cool.

It's a different case then. If it's self defense, then the charges are generally different than if the murder was intentional.

Plus, it isn't about revenge, it is about punishment.

OK, what about the method of execution. Lethal Injection is the method that is mostly used except for Nebraska, which might switch from frying people but are not sure yet. Do you think the method that we are using is humane for the prisoner? I mean, there is chances executions can backfire, so are you against the current method or for the current method. Even if the guy is a killer, and the government still wants to kill people, it makes them less of a hypocrite if the guy gets a peaceful death.

In case your wondering: The lethal injection is:
1. Pre-injection 10cc antihistamine, one half hour prior to execution
---> This prevents the inmate from choking and spasming from the drugs

2. Pre-injection 8cc 2% Sodium Pentathol
---> This is used to calm the inmate when they know they are going to die

3. Machine Injection, Full Syringe, 15ccs of Sodium Thiopental
---> Works as an anesthetic agent, puts the inmate in a very deep sleep and shuts down all the senses so they can't feel pain and suffer during the execution.

4. Machine Injection, Full Syringe, 15ccs of succinylcholine chloride
---> The infamous paralytic agent and the cause of much controversy, paralyzes the inmate by collapsing the diaphragm and slowly shutting down the heart with the lungs collapses, breathing is ceased and the heart and brain aren't effected immediately, meaning that if the inmate wakes up, he'll be paralyzed and slowly suffocate.

5. Machine Injection, Full Syringe, 15ccs of Potassium Chloride
---> Causes cardiac arrest by giving the inmate a massive heart attack

Now, at first glance, this is a fail-safe execution right? Well, that's were your wrong, because there are several concerns about these drugs.

Lol.... Friggin lethal injections. I love how humane they are about it.

Before they stick the needle in, they cotton swab the area. Wouldn't want the guy getting any minor infections!

Lol you seem pretty misguided, mi amigo. Revenge has absolutely nothing to do with anything. As I stated earlier, nearly all of our laws do not follow the revenge ideal. You're caught and chastised according to the crime. We don't do what you did to some other guy. According to your kinda ridiculous logic on this one, the government should beat the crap out of people who have mugged other people, steal equal amounts of things from shoplifters, and shoot anyone who tried to shoot someone else.

..... It probably costs so much to kill a person because of all the lawyers B****ing about everything. Why don't we just go back to the guillotine, it's cheap and effective. It's not like your going to feel your head being chopped of for a millisecond. Also to Zeratul's comment on the equal eye for an eye in the last post. killing someone is a lot different than shoplifting. The punishment for shoplifting is usually a fine or getting banned from the store making it so you can shoplift there anymore. With a person shooting another person, that is immoral, but isnt high enough to take drastic measures such as killing or shooting the person, the jail and crap like that works with this most of the time. To take a persons life out of hate is the ultamit (sp) crime and therefore needs to be dealt with so it wont happen again.

Lol so it won't happen again? You realize that it's the government that's doing it again?

And no, its not different from the other crimes I mentioned. Yeah, it's on a higher scale, but it's still a crime all the same. We handle criminal behavior in the same way in nearly every case except murder.

Seriously, it's nothing more than state-sanctioned murder. So to stop it from happening, we do it again? Isn't that kind of an oxymoron? And wait, has it ever worked? No, murder still happens. Do you even realize how many murderers in recent years have escaped and killed more people? From my own research, I've found none. (I'm talking since the year 2000)

They swab the area and disinfect it so the needle can go in easier and if the guy gets a stay (James Autry did, but he was executed later). Also, so it's not a hazard to the staff setting everything up.

Lethal Injection is NOT humane after all. It seems that the sedative is wearing off, leaving the inmate paralyzed and slowly suffocating to death why they feel the agony of the Potassium Chloride castrating the veins and causing the very painful heart attack. It isn't serene but the problem can't be the drug cocktail. These three drugs are used in surgery everyday and if they don't work, I'm sure the awake and very terrified patient would say something after the surgery. It's human error. They don't insert the needle right, the lethal injection machine (which I have pictures of) isn't set up right, the saline solution isn't set up right, and they don't put the drugs in right. It's human error that is causing this.

Well technically the least agonizing way to do that is the electric chair. But obviously we can't do that anymore, because of the horrible image it now has radiating around it. Thank you, media.

Like Stop sign guy said, we've abolished eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. Why do we still keep to life for a life?

It wasn't humane to begins with. The inmate can still be awake after the first inital jolt, plus I have unnerving pictures.

The inmate only stays awake if the chair is set up wrong and the process was done horribly.

If we actually fix what we've got, the electric chair is the most painless and risk-free way to go.

How would you know for sure it was painless? Other than theories without much evidence you can't know for sure. The only way I can think of to find out how much it hurts is to put someone through it and hope they live.

I have read quite a few horror stories about the chair and evidence the guy was in much pain while being executed. Of course, ANY method could cause pain. They think in Lethal Injection, the aesthetic wears off too fast leaving the second and third to cause pain and they can't respond because the second one paralyzes so they can't cry out.

Because back when the electric chairs were the most common ways of doing it, it was also a very unstable technology and were often made poorly.

And honestly horror stories don't mean a thing. For the most part that's just the media or some other biased group(ACLU) trying to ingrain that horror picture into your mind. In reality, it's not THAT bad. Journalists have a horrible habit of completely overemphasizing.

true....everytime you watch a movie or something you always see the journalist making up stories along the line...like in Mr.Deeds

I remember in particular instance where a forum user killed himself(it was the MGS forums). He left a few signs on the forums and the users tried to talk him out of it, and eventually tracked down his family after he hadn't posted in a while to make sure he was ok. Turns out he already did it.

But, of course, it was reported in the news as the forum user drank a gallon of anti-freeze on his webcam to general applause of the forum users.

There's no such thing as a journalist reporting it "how it is/was"

I get that, but even today it still is unstable technology because not everything will go right when trying to electrocute somebody. It still may take several shocks to knock them out, which is generally painful for the condemned. Electrocution has an air of uncertainty to it. Even if the volts are high enough, it still can be torturous for the condemned. That's why they switched to Lethal Injection. Those drugs will kill you, no matter what, but what they are saying is that the protocol is inflicting pain, when I don't think that at all. I think it is HUMAN ERROR. Especially when they puncture the vein or set the injection pump up wrong.

I'm bringing this back because there is a new update in the death penalty trial.

It has been deemed humane again, meaning that they are going to start executing people by lethal injection again. It will only be a matter if time before Texas starts killing again.

Deemed humane on what grounds?

Probably the same grounds on which putting dogs to sleep is deemed humane. Granted, they are two very different things, but who knows...

Well the can't call it humane merely using pathos as grounds...

Technically, it would be like euthanasia, but it is so NOT. They use three drugs. One of those three drugs is banned from the euthanasia of animals. That drug was causing controversy as people were saying it paralyzes you and you suffocate and are unable to cry out as the third drug causes incredible pain.

Here are the differences:
Lethal Injection (Texas Protocol)
1. 500 milligrams of Sodium Thiopental to cause a deep coma and disrupt pain signals from the brain. The fear is that it doesn't work and the inmate is left awake.

2. 100 milligrams of Pancuronium Bromide to paralyze the muscle diaphragm and stop the condemned's breathing. Injected in an awake person they would be paralyzed slowly from the inside out and slowly suffocate to death while they are awake and aware. It is an unpleasant experience.

3. 300 milligrams of Potassium Chloride, a negatively charged solution going towards your positively charged heart and when it hits it causes your heart to go neutral and shut down. Injected in an awake person would cause extremely horrible pain and would burn you from the inside out.

Animal Euthanasia:
ONE INJECTION. 75 milligrams Sodium Pentobarbital which it causes rapid unconsciousness. Respiratory arrest follows next, through paralysis of the diaphragm and collapse of the lungs. The drug would then suppress cardiac activity, thus causing death.

It works in animals effectively though because they have a lower respitory drive, but in humans it can be prolonged up to DAYS and they can regain consciousness which is why they don't use it.

Yes, doesn't sound like a particularly happy and painless experience.

It would just be easier to add an ACTUAL analgesic (pain killer) to the mix and up the dose of the Sodium Pentathol and lower the does of the Pancuronium Bromide. That way, the execution could go by smoothly. If it was me, I would do it like this:

1. 750 milligrams Sodium Pentathol (puts the inmate to sleep)

2. 500 milligrams of Acetaminophen (morphine to ACTUALLY disrupt pain receptors)

3. 50 milligrams Pancuronium Bromide (paralyzes and stops breathing)

4. 100 milligrams of Potassium Chloride (stops heart)

That way, the Sodium Pentathol will be SURE to work, the Acetaminophen will insure comfort during the execution, the Pancuronium will not stop the Sodium Pentathol from working as others claim, and Potassium Chloride will be able to stop the heart. Of course, this requires changes to the machine. It has enough syringes for 2 of each injection. They would have to add another slot to the holding area and another electronic plunger to get it to work.