They Still Do This?
Earlier today, the state of Tennessee executed a man via the electric chair. Yes, they electrocuted him. Tenn. executes man by electric chair – USATODAY.com. No sympathies for the animal. He murdered four children (3 his own, 1 not) in cold blood, and even though I am not a fan of the death penalty (because I think getting it wrong once is worse than getting it right 100 times) I’m not going to shed a tear for him. He’s one of those people my daddy would say “needed some killin.” My problem? TN is one of these states that lets an inmate choose how they want to be executed. They stopped this in 1999, but anyone convicted prior to 1999 still has a choice. The state prefers lethal injection, but Holton choose the electric chair.
Okay, WTF with mass child murderers getting to make the choice in the first place? I don’t care if thats how you used to do it, it’s stupid so it should just be stopped period, not for only since you realized it was stupid. Did Holton ask his children, ages 4, 6, 10 & 12, how they would prefer to be murdered before he lined them up in his auto garage and shot them dead with an assault rifle?
Second, electrocution is violent and I have a problem with that. I realize ending a life is what it is and there is no “good” way to do it and in itself it is a violent act, but if you contend that state-sponsored execution should not be cruel and unusual, then it can’t resemble a violent murder in any manner, which is why lethal injection should be the only choice if you’re going to make the choice at all. Frying someone from the inside out seems at least unusual, if not cruel, to me.
BTW – This article states that the last person executed via electrocution in TN was a convicted rapist in 1960. Wait…rapist? Uhm…I’m assuming there was a murder at some point, but who knows? They’ll give you the needle for speeding in Texas, so its possible in 1960, rape could get you dead in TN. I’m just surprised the chair still worked after collecting dust for 47 years. If it hadn’t worked that could have been awkward.
25 Responses to “They Still Do This?”
This execution is a travesty. In Tennessee many of us have been working to get rid of the death penalty outright. The death penalty is premeditated murder. We as a society are no better than the condemned man. But we needed our bloody vengeance. I feel so much safer in Tennessee now…
Execution for rape was constitutional until 1977.
Angela,
As Elrod said, the Supreme Court only started refusing to permit execution for rape in Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977), and in any event, first applied the Eighth Amendment against the states in Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962) – two years after the rapist Tennessee executed by electrocution in 1960.
This is actually quite apropos, because of a Louisiana case appealed to the Supreme Court yesterday, which seeks clarification from the court as to whether Coker forbade the death penalty for the rape of an adult woman, specifically, or (as it has been previously understood), at least all rape and at most all non-homocide crimes, as you allude to. I have argued (not to universal agreement, it must be said) that “[w]hile the Coker plurality may have spoken in terms of an ‘adult woman,’ the principles enunciated in that case apply with no less force to all rape everywhere, regardless of the characteristics of the victim,” that no fewer than three and perhaps as many as eight members of the Coker court so understood the case, and thus “the Supreme Court cannot distinguish Coker in any meaningful sense, and must therefore either reverse the Louisiana Supreme Court, or grasp the nettle and overrule Coker.”
Also, while I haven’t looked at this particular case, I suspect the reason Tennessee allows the choice is because of the prohibition against ex post facto criminal laws. The law at the time this monster was convicted provided for only electrocution. If the manner of execution were changed, and he had no say in it, then his execution would be challenged in court on the grounds that the punishment for the crime had been changed after he was convicted. This would delay executions even longer and cause the state to spend even more money in the appeals process. To avoid it, most states provide for the defendant to have a choice under such circumstances.
Wouldn’t be against the prisoner’s best interest to make that choice until after all the appeals are exhuasted?
Angela, I disagree with you on the death penalty, which I favor, though I could be persuaded to oppose (if there were such a thing as life with no parole EVER, no matter what laws changed, with forced labor as a booster) but I agree with the details. The electric chair is a grisly device, designed to prevent the sight of blood I guess (as if somehow you were less dead that way). Chinese style bullet in the brain is much more merciful, never mind being a lot cheaper.
I find the death penalty to be a barbaric practice,
To find excuses for it is no better than jsutifying any other barbarism, like public beheadings. There is always a ‘reason’ fo be found to justify any action.
Some things just should not be reasoned into existence.r
Gotta disagree with Doma on that. There are some people so dangerous there really is no alternative. Take someone like Pablo Escobar, locked up yet was still running the entire organization. Also, that leader of the CA Aryan Nation. Guy was implicated in the murder of 44 people, witness intimidation, and ran the drug operations of 3 prisons FROM SOLITARY. There are a few cases where death is the only way society can be protected from certain individuals.
But for regular murderers I could go either way. As long as they are permanently removed from society life in prison is fine with me.
Sam,
The instances you cite demonstrate failures in the incarceration system, which is a separate issue.
Obviously, prisoners shoudl be prevented from doing what these people did. Restrictions tp prevemt can even be made part of sentencing.
The problem of the death penalty is two-fold. One impacts the prisoner in the obvious way. The other affects us as a society. To carry out a death penalty, someone has to do the killing. The state, in effect, creates a hit squad.
Like in the argument about torture, some measures change society so much, that the measure defeats its purpose, that of preservation of society.
Actually, murders have more control over the use of the death penalty than anyone else. All that’s needed for its use to disappear is to stop committing heinous crimes.
As for the business of turning the state into a hit squad, I’d say there’s a fundamental misunderstanding about the law, cause, and effect.
The law – death to murderers – came first. Then the crime. Then the punishment.
Don’t do the crime…
No doubt the system needs improvement, but I think you are lacking in imagination about the levels of brutality and coercion that a man like the leader of the Aryan Nation can bring to bear to get done what he wants done. For instance, he says let me pass communications to the prisoner that comes to feed me, or I will have your entire immediate family raped and murdered. Something certainly within his power to arrange. Or maybe its something simple, like a bribe.
Either way a normal person is put in a situation of dealing with a very non normal prisoner who has nothing to lose. If someone is strong enough, and ruthless enough, they can get just about anything done until someone kills them. That’s just a fact. These people, these monsters, exist and frankly society is better served by their execution. I find it hard to believe you wouldn’t feel differently if by fate you ended up in the crosshairs of such a man.
There’s no way the opponents will be satisfied. The more humane the execution method, the spookier it is, and if all executions became humane, the spookiness would be how it would be attacked (as “cruel and unusual,” though capital punishment itself for the worst crimes is neither, as well as being fully constitutional — it is mentioned numerous times in the Constitution!)
Blackshard -
Your comment has nothing to do with the death penalty. You seem to be saying that all laws are just and good – because they’re laws.
I can;t address such circular thinking.
Sam-
You are talking about revenge, not justice.
Surprisingly, some of the strongest advocates for abolishing the death penalty are family member of victims. This answer to horrendous crime says more about the proponents (our society) than about the merits of the death penalty. I’m not criticizing the wish for revenge, per se; that’s a common human reaction. For the sake of society, though, it is vital that we keep the notion of justice and punishment separate from the practice of revenge. That kind of thinking seeps down to the indibidual level, until taking personal revenge begins to look acceptable.
It is absolutely possible to restrict and supervise prisoner contacts to avoid intimidation, or worse
If it hasn;t been done, it’s a failure in the system.
So, solve the problem where the problem lives – in our prison system.
I’m not talking about revenge or justice, I’m talking about public safety. About prisoners who even behind bars are capable of murder and other violent criminal behavior. However you slice it, the prisons will be staffed by people who can be gotten to. Maybe someone can come up with a prison staffed only by fearless, unbribable people willing to work in a forsaken location and have no family members to be threatened. But I doubt it.
Fixing the system is a worthy goal and it needs to be done too. But I feel the death penalty is justified in certain cases. How many lives would have been saved if Pablo Esobar had been executed instead of temporarily imprisoned? Lots and lots.
There are flaws in the system, but we are best remembered thinking that it should be hard to kill an inmate.
I don’t like the death penalty, but it should be very, very hard to use it when it needs using.
He picked it and I should worry? I don’t think so. If he wanted to fry instead of getting the needle so be it. I’m not bothered by this guy at all. Since this is a dead issue after they flipped the switch the horror of the electric chair doesn’t really resonate.
Sam-
I can’t go along with the ‘lives saved’ argument. It’s exactly the kind of thinking that got us into the torture business.
Once you let the cat out of the bag. it’s only a small step to asking how many lives would be saved if we just executed every prisoner? The ;rare case argument, similarly, is susceptible to mutation, according to how how passions of the public are roused.
At the same time, we are creating a job with the description: go to work to kill someone, and then come home to have dinner with the family. That’s psychotic mobster mentality, not fit to be encouraged by the state, IMO.
The only exception I would make is in the case of a prisoner who chooses to die rather thatn face umpteen years in confinement. In that case, I could accept assisted suicide.
I don’t think the state should inflict either life or death on anyone.
We;re never going to agree, I suspect.
I just can’t accept killing in a cold, premeditated fashion as being a function of the state, one that is supposedly represening civil society.
lynx,
Life-without-parole sentences are now the law in every state. Texas finally signed such a law in 2005, becoming the last state to do so (though I believe New Mexico was still considering one). Life-without-parole means what it says. 1980s talking points about revolving doors at prisons for murderers don’t make sense anymore because the laws have changed.
sam,
99.99% of convicted murderers are not Pablo Escobar types, launching hits from behind bars. They are so rare that they can be held in solitary at maximum security facilities. We already do that for convicted terrorists like the 1993 WTC plotters.
My beef is not with the method of execution but with the fact of state-sanctioned murder. With other available means of punishment, including life-without-parole, there is simply no rational need to preserve the death penalty. It does not deter more than life in prison. It is no cheaper than life in prison considering the need for appeals, especially in light of corrupt prosecutions (see: Illinois, state of) and DNA evidence. The only reason we still execute people is because of the desire for vengeance. Much as I’d love to kill the murderer of my loved one, that’s not justice. It’s time to abolish the death penalty and join the rest of the civilized world.
elrod,
there is nothing that stop the judicial systems from change the sentence years after the intial sentence. The State of Maryland was caught red handed doing just this. The prisoner gets life without parole but ten or fifteen years later, the court system comes back and lowers the sentence to the point that the prisoner can get out.
also, the lack of capital punishment makes all prison guard and staff fair game for the prisoners. What do they have to lose. Of course, you do not find many prison gaurd in the anit-death penalty crowd because they are expose to such violet predators every day.
I support the death penalty. If you deprive another person of their life, you should forfeit your own. This, to me, is just. I don’t want to see us return to torturing people to death, or drawing an quartering, but I don’t think executions should be antiseptic, clinical process as is the case with injection. It’s like putting our old beagle to sleep, an act of kindness. I’ve got no problem with the chair, or the noose for that matter.
Unfortunately, the reality is that Elrod’s view seems to bemore wishful thinking than reality. Life sentences more often than not mean ten to twenty years, then a quiet parole. So I am very skeptical of talk of life sentences really being life sentences. And, I also would prefer that it be life at hard labor. No TV, no rec center with weight room, just a big pile of rocks to break into little ones with a sledge hammer, six days a week.
I don’t find the death penalty to be any less barbaric than abortion. Both are unpleasant, but sometimes they are the “least bad option” in our imperfect world. I support the use of both as appropriate. We should not hang people for unpaid parking tickets or petty theft. Abortion is not my preferred means of birth control. But both are appropriate for certain situations. I’m willing to execute for murder in the first degree, murder for hire, hiring a contract killer, and acts of terrorism, and, during war, treason.
> Life-without-parole sentences
are illogical and themselves may be subject to intelligent criticism. Prisons are dangerous and expensive places whose costs and use should be subject to oversight (as we have learned from HMOs in medicine and what many have yet to learn about government health programs now and in the future).
The prisons should be reserved for the most dangerous and the prisoners should be released (expelled, in fact) from the prisons when the reduced threat they constitute when older is less than threats by other, younger criminals who constitute a better, wiser use of limited prison space. (And do you really want to pay for health care of criminals for the rest of their lives?)
In the book “Papillon” by Henri Charriere, during one escape when Charriere was caught and held in Colombia, the penal system there was mentioned by another prisoner and it’s actually simple and quite practical for felons: “twenty years or death, nothing else.”
[Do] ["]they["] still do this? Yes.
Do you remember the flap about Tiny Davis? (Look it up.) It wasn’t bloodless when the hood removed.
Well then, in order to protect life (per Orson),
we should just execute all actual and poltential criminals. Then we’d be really safe!
Framing the issue by politicized terminology can not negate the fact that the death penalty means killing people. Trying to sanitize it by calling it protecting life, calling it a strategy or anything else does not change the fact that some people are payed by the governemtn (us) to kill other people.
We can not call ourselves civilized simply because these killings don’t happen in the town square.
Had the French put the guillotine behind curtains, heads would have rolled nonetheless. Justifying killing because it would be rare is like being a little bit pregnant.
All the reasons cited to justify the death penalty are the same reasons given by others to jussify forture, chopping off hands for theft, stoning to death, etc.
In order to claim to be a civilized society, civilized’ has to mean something.
“99.99% of convicted murderers are not Pablo Escobar types, launching hits from behind bars. They are so rare that they can be held in solitary at maximum security facilities.”
I’m not proposing we kill all prisoners. What I was saying is that there are exceptions to the blanket rule that no execution is in the public interest. But the fact is we do NOT put all those guys into solitary super max prisons. As evidenced by the fact that one Brotherhood boss was able to do what he did.
The Surenos and Nortenos also run signifigant business from prison, its actually quite common. You think these guys are rare and that we have supermax confinement for all criminal bosses, you are wrong.
An interesting article on the topic.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0603/15/i_ins.01.html
Domajot @ 22 – you are correct, it’s unpleasant. No argument. But all of your comments about the revolting reality of capital punishment are equally applicable to abortion. So shall we outlaw abortion as well?
This is something I feel strongly about. I can respect the Catholics and others who absolutely oppose all killing. I don’t agree with them, but I do respect them,because they are being logically consistent, and not skewing the argument to favor their beliefs, but work against someone else. they oppose all killing – abortions, murders, executions, and even war. Fair enough. I don’t think their utopian vision is attainable by mortal man, but it is a fair and uniform vision, applied equally to all.
I have a hard time buying the anti-death penalty case from many of my liberal friends who argue that killing human beings for any reason is wrong – but then they argue that abortion is different – that’s just a matter of privacy and personal choice, and the rest of us should mind our own business.
I repeat – I don’t particularly like either abortion or capital punishment, but I think there are legitimate reasons for both. I can live with the notion of Saddam Hussein stretching hemp, or Ted Bundy frying in the chair as easily as I can live with the notion that a woman may feel that after weighing the various issues, abortion is the most desirable of the options open to her. Both involve taking life. It is not ideal, but this world is not ideal. Some situations require extreme measures. Murder One or hiring a killer are reasons to forfeit your life in my book.
Thanks for responding, but I think we will just have to agree to disagree.