Pat Oliphant for May 03, 2014

Someone in Richmond VA Thursday raped a 13 year old girl and bashed her 9 year old brother’s head in with a brick, killing him, when he tried to save her. I wouldn’t mind hearing agonized screaming and groaning from this guy when his time comes.

Poisoning them means you can’t even harvest their organs, so now their pathetic lives are TOTALLY wasted.

Throw them in a vat of acid. Who cares?

On some killers Id pay to see that!

And yet Oliphant is silent on big government VA bungling.

The threat of impeachment focuses the mind:.

“On Tuesday, the day after Gov. Fallin went rogue, a Republican state lawmaker, Rep. Mike Christian, introduced impeachment proceedings against the five state Supreme Court justices who had voted for the stays of execution. In Christian’s view, the justices had used “unsupportable arguments regarding constitutional rights” in a way that “should be considered a violation of the oath of office because it constitutes a willful neglect of duty and incompetence.” In other words, one day after the executive branch violated separation of powers principles, and overtly threatened the judiciary for an unpopular decision, the legislative branch did as well.

And that’s when the Oklahoma Supreme Court simply, tragically, caved in to the political pressure.

On Wednesday, just two days after it had issued its stay, the five justices responsible for that stay declared that the injection secrecy law was, in fact, constitutional. Never mind, these justices suddenly said after weeks of litigation in which they had expressed doubts about the constitutionality of the secrecy law — the executions may now proceed."

from http://theweek.com/article/index/260632/oklahoma-just-neutered-its-state-supreme-court—Andrew Cohen

It would be useful if every governor in state capital cases and the president in federal were required to perform the execution, no matter the method and to remain in attendance until the prisoner is declared dead. They are, after all, the ultimate executive power in their own circles and it is unfair for them to avoid performing what is probably their most important task. I predict an instant downturn in executions (except maybe in Texas and surrounding states where I predict an uptick accompanied by maniacal giggling and cackling).

The Chinese also send the bill for the bullet to the parents. Almost all of the convicted richly deserve their fate. The bungled execution was for a guy who was burglarizing a home, a young lady came home unexpectedly so they shot her and later buried her alive. I do have a problem with the fact they do very rarely execute an innocent person. Perhaps restricting execution to those where there is clear, solid physical evidence (like a video) would help. I also don’t like paying tax dollars to house and take care of these clearly violent prisoners for the rest of their lives. A bullet is a lot more cost effective.

Killing someone because he has killed someone doesn’t make sense to me.

jnik23260, conservgov;

It’s not about them, it’s about us. One of the few times that I have agreed with John Mccain and he states the essence of morality, Christian-Judaic principles, etc.

The issue around the death penalty, as someone has already noted, is about OUR morals, not those of the criminal. Saying “he did something horrible, so we get to do something horrible to him” is not a logical statement. Horrible is horrible.But there are MANY reasons to eliminate the death penalty, ranging from the moral to the practical:First of all: killing is killing, whether done through a government or by an individual. I should think conservatives should object to government killing.Second: torturing someone to death says more about us than about them. Hardly a civilized approach to crime.Third: for those here who claim a Christian background, it’s pretty clear that the person who said “love your enemy” and went through capital punishment on our behalf would not approve of it today. (TRUE right-to-life advocates oppose the death penalty as well as abortion and euthanasia.)Fourth: continuing on Christian mores, there is no limit to the power of God to forgive. Redemption is always possible.Fifth, as I note above, it is more expensive to execute than to imprison for life. The death penalty is impractical!Sixth: look at the company we keep. We are the only G7 country that executes. We are fifth on the list of “most executions,” with China at #1, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq just ahead, with Pakistan, Yemen, North Korea, Vietnam, and Libya following. These are not models for a modern society.Seventh: The Founders believed in Blackstone’s formulation that it is better to let guilty go free than to convict an innocent man. Franklin put it that: “it is better one hundred guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.” Adams agreed. When death is on the line, shouldn’t we? Given that, as noted above, 4% of convictions appear to be wrong?I don’t think there’s a lot to be said for the death penalty.

Motivemagus — Perfect Comment!!!

Your opening point says it all.

The death penalty is a punishment, not revenge.

Remember he buried a human alive!

“Bring the Guillotine Back to Death Row” The Atlantic

Lonecat, in essence, execution is an “eye for an eye”, which is Biblical. Judgment should be commensurate, not excessive or (as I would submit is the case with modern justice) insufficient. Housing someone for the next forty years with access to television, education, three meals, health care, etc…is insufficient punishment for particularly heinous crimes.

To me it sounds like the system is working because the innocents are freed on appeal before the sentence is executed. Now if you told me that investigations had demonstrated that 144 innocent people had been put to death, I would be interested in revisiting the death penalty.

Murder is the taking the life of an innocent, execution is the taking of life of the guilty. The morality did not change, the judgment did. I understand that some people do not like the death penalty, but the alternatives to particularly heinous crimes are absurd, in all honesty. Why should the victims’ families of Timothy McVeigh (for example) pay taxes that feed him and provide for him for the rest of his natural life? If you have an alternative to the death penalty, let’s hear it.

Ben Franklin was willing to risk “life, liberty, and sacred honor” for his principles. He let his son rot in jail because his son was the Royal Governor of New Jersey and he rejected him for that. Your blithe assumption that he somehow “got it wrong” is naive at best. Your hypothetical situation assumes that my personal experience somehow overrides the moral principle. The principle is the principle regardless of whether I can follow it. Yes, I want to abolish the death penalty.

A majority support the death penalty and abortion rights, get over it.

My third post of this idea under a cartoon relating to this latest “execution” fiasco, hoping it might actually be given some attention:..There is and always has been a simple, inexpensive, proven, and “humane” (in case that’s considered important) method… carbon monoxide. Proven not just in the lab but in “regular” use every year in both accidents and deliberate suicides, carbon monoxide painlessly renders its victims unconscious before eventually killing them. And if for some reason it fails to do the job the first time, it can be tried again, with no more suffering in the meantime (as has been reported by survivors) than one would get from an alcoholic hangover...Yet I’ve never heard of this method being discussed by law enforcement, politicians, or the media. Why not?..The question of the execution of innocent individuals, or of which crimes might possibly deserve the death penalty should be a separate issue. E.g., what about making death the penalty for a prosecution that excludes exculpatory evidence in a trial which leads to an innocent person being sentenced to death? No statute of limitations, either.

You mean you are willing to kill people in the false belief that it is a Christian principle? It certainly is NOT an acceptable practice to the modern Catholic church.

Plus, I understand they bill any surviving rekatives for the cost of the bullet….

The death penalty may not deter others, but it sure ashell deters the executee from any further crimes! That’s the best we can hope for.. “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Thus also,a life for a life is only fitting.