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The Death Penalty

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PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#2051: Feb 15th 2023 at 3:38:18 AM

I have literally not once in my life considered which one I would rather get rid of first, that is a completely separate thought from me thinking one is worse than the other.

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#2052: Feb 15th 2023 at 4:01:45 AM

Using the entirely subjective metric of 'which would I prefer', I much prefer being alive to a notion of freedom. "I'm trapped with no hope of things improving" is hardly a concept or feeling reserved for being imprisoned.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#2053: Feb 15th 2023 at 4:05:53 AM

Most death row inmates agree. Hence why they try to appeal. Admittedly, there are death row convicts who choose to get it over with instead for various reasons. But that has more to do with the harsh conditions that come with being a death row inmate specifically. Being on death row for decades is a special kind of hell even worse than regular life imprisonment.

So not only are they sentenced to die, they spend the rest of their lives stuck in even worse prison conditions than the lifers.

Edited by M84 on Feb 15th 2023 at 8:07:24 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#2054: Feb 15th 2023 at 5:50:38 AM

Yeah, uh, that's one of the problems with the death penalty, especially in the US.

You get executed...but you also get a very extended period of time in shitty conditions and sometimes people croak before they get executed, in part because it takes so goddamn long. It's also why the death penalty is so expensive to have around. So, in many cases, the death penalty is also life imprisonment without chance of parole. For decades.

IMO, I'm for rehabilitative justice where prisons are intended as basically, long-term therapy and vocational training and people deemed too dangerous to be put back into society are treated well, they're just never allowed to re-enter the general population. Punitive justice is obviously a failure.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 15th 2023 at 8:51:25 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#2055: Feb 15th 2023 at 5:54:25 AM

So, in many cases, the death penalty is also life imprisonment without chance of parole. For decades.

It's actually worse. Death row inmates also get solitary confinement for most of the day, everyday.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#2056: Feb 15th 2023 at 5:57:01 AM

Oh, so basically, getting the death penalty means you get psychologically tortured for decades while the government constantly moves the execution date around due to bureaucracy and you never have any certainty about when it'll end.

Yes, that seems like the superior option. /s

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#2057: Feb 15th 2023 at 6:06:25 AM

Yep, solitary confinement and uncertainty about when or if the state is going to execute you. Followed by the actual execution in cases where the death sentence was not overturned or something.

It's basically two punishments at once.

Edited by M84 on Feb 15th 2023 at 10:07:27 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#2058: Feb 15th 2023 at 6:07:29 AM

I want to note that solitary confinement is so bad that the fucking Puritans thought it was horrifying and so inhumane that even the worst possible criminal they could imagine didn't deserve it, because the result usually was someone who was totally incapable of repenting or even really understanding what they did.

And if the Puritans, who abandoned some of their children in the Netherlands for the crime of learning Dutch, thought solitary confinement was that bad, maybe we shouldn't encourage it like this.

Edited by Zendervai on Feb 15th 2023 at 9:08:14 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#2059: Feb 15th 2023 at 6:12:06 AM

The appeals process can also make the wait on death row even longer since it takes such a long time. Meaning attempts to try to get out of the death penalty result in even longer stays on death row. Small wonder that some inmates eventually just give up on appeals.

Edited by M84 on Feb 15th 2023 at 10:12:43 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Florien The They who said it from statistically, slightly right behind you. Since: Aug, 2019
The They who said it
#2060: Feb 15th 2023 at 11:27:50 AM

Also, to be extremely morbid, life without parole gives the prisoner the option to die if they'd rather not spend the foreseeable future in prison, while the death penalty takes away that choice.

Neither are particularly good options outside of a few edge cases obviously.

(Dictatorships like the death penalty for shows of force, its only real use-case, and life no parole may be a good idea in very specific circumstances, like compulsive murder.)

TheWildWestPyro from Seattle, WA Since: Sep, 2012 Relationship Status: Healthy, deeply-felt respect for this here Shotgun
#2061: Feb 15th 2023 at 12:32:37 PM

Life without parole is an automatic death penalty and I redirect death penalty proponents to that.

Irene (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
#2062: Feb 15th 2023 at 3:59:27 PM

They're severely different, though.

Death Penalty means a person is no longer alive at all. They also have to suffer quite severely on Death Row for a long time before ever getting a release(or do it themselves). They're basically being tortured. And come a botched killing attempt, and it gets even worse. This is not really the same for Life without Parole at all.

Life without parole is still bad, but they're not automatically put in solitary confinement, and the treatment isn't always going to be horrible either. The fact they can still be treated humanely makes it automatically not only different, but better overall.

They're... nothing alike. Beyond the fact both will always suck(as it stands. The latter option can be improved, since it doesn't involve killing someone. You can't improve the Death Penalty. Like, it's not possible. It's inherently inhumane by design). Which means nothing, really.

Shadow?
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#2063: Feb 16th 2023 at 12:32:50 AM

I should note that solitary isn't the only thing that makes death row worse. Death row inmates are also denied access to some of the few amenities regular prisoners get. No education programs, greatly reduced visits, little to no exercise, etc.

They're basically treated by the system as dead people walking. Or not walking, given they don't get much chance to work out and do cardio.

Disgusted, but not surprised
TheWildWestPyro from Seattle, WA Since: Sep, 2012 Relationship Status: Healthy, deeply-felt respect for this here Shotgun
#2064: Feb 16th 2023 at 2:18:36 AM

[up][up]

My stance has always been 'We already have a death penalty, that's why we don't need one. It's very efficient. It's called life imprisonment.'

Irene (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
#2065: Feb 16th 2023 at 5:09:23 AM

And it downplays how horrible the Death Penalty really is by even remotely comparing it to Life Imprisonment. No, we don't have a Death Penalty like that. They're massively different.

It's apples to oranges and a poor comparison. Also, that. You're treated like you still have a life overall with life without parole. That's a key difference. There's no inherent death involved. It's not a penalty that must have death. It really makes no sense to give it that kind of comparison when they're not even similar, again, beyond both being sucky situations. Even the terminology alone is highly contradictory. What you're saying really makes no sense.

[up][up] That one I couldn't remember. Yeah, the fact you're still treated like you have some kind of life in general is a major deal. If you're on death row, you're more or less unpersoned as much as they can(hence why it's easy to justify torture towards a person. They don't exist anymore, right? They're not a human by that point, but some pile of trash we can do whatever we want with).

Once that gets abolished in the US(it'll come someday), we'll finally be rid of that awful system and have nothing close to it currently. Though I can imagine they might try to find another punishment outright equivalent, but whether or not that'd ever be let through is another story.

Shadow?
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#2066: Feb 16th 2023 at 5:16:04 AM

There's that absolutely psychotic freak who came up with the idea of using a drug regimen to make time feel longer. Like, drug up the prisoner and stick them in a cell for three hours, it'll subjectively feel like three weeks.

I can't think of anything that would justify doing that.

SprayPay ??? from Who Knows? Since: Jun, 2017
???
#2067: Jan 25th 2024 at 8:17:24 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/alabama-inmate-kenneth-smith-put-to-death-in-first-u-s-nitrogen-gas-execution/ar-BB1hgCTa?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=27abfdd672754771bc393ef81de6a22b&ei=12

Alabama inmate Kenneth Allen Smith has been put to death via nitrogen gas, the first in over 25-ish years.

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Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#2068: Jan 26th 2024 at 4:31:42 AM

[up] Yeah, I was about to post that. And it seemed like he really suffered.

Sick.

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#2069: Jan 26th 2024 at 7:55:57 AM

I'm not sure where you're getting that idea? The article's entire summary of the execution itself: "Media witnesses said he appeared conscious for several minutes into the execution, and then he appeared to shake and writhe on the gurney for two minutes. That was followed by several minutes of deep breaths until his breathing slowed and it was no longer perceptible to media witnesses."

That's... fairly mild, honestly. People executed by lethal injection have been seen visibly gasping for breath before they die. Reports on this case seem to be inconsistent on whether Smith was unconscious during the movements, but the prison officials said afterward that they were an expected and normal side effect of nitrogen hypoxia. Said official also said that Smith appeared to be holding his breath, which would prolong consciousness and could possibly cause the kind of distress that nitrogen asphyxiation is intended to avoid. (Humans cannot detect a lack of oxygen, only a buildup of CO 2, so breathing something with no oxygen in it won't trigger a sensation of suffocation but not breathing at all will.)

Ultimately — separately from whether you support the death penalty in any form — nitrogen asphyxiation seems to be the most humane method of execution, and this case seems to bear that out.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Smeagol17 (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#2070: Jan 26th 2024 at 8:05:40 AM

Most humane? Among the medicalised 20-century methods, probably. But I doubt it is more humane (for the victim, I mean, not the executioner) than surprise bullet to the back of the head, beheading, or even long-drop hanging.

jawal Since: Sep, 2018
#2071: Jan 26th 2024 at 8:12:08 AM

Physically, I will imagine the most human way would be to drug the executed first before killing him in his sleep to avoid pain.

But this won't solve the problem of psychological terror that the condemned face while waiting for the day of his execution (in some countries, at least, he won't be informed beforehand of the day of execution, so he will wake up every day wondering if this is the one).

Every Hero has his own way of eating yogurt
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#2072: Jan 26th 2024 at 8:14:24 AM

[up] This guy had that for 35 years. Combine that with how high the rate of bad convictions are, and it means that anything like this is just not acceptable.

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#2073: Jan 26th 2024 at 8:21:55 AM

[up][up][up]All of those are much easier to botch than nitrogen asphyxiation, and will cause extreme pain if death is not instant. One of the things you have to take into account is real-world conditions. Even lethal injection has had problems where the IV needles were difficult to insert or inserted improperly, and they typically use a cocktail of multiple drugs which must be administered in a specific order in order to have the desired effects, which leads to bad outcomes when everything isn't done correctly.

One of the benefits of nitrogen asphyxiation is that it's extremely simple. Affix mask. Feed nitrogen into mask. That's it, that's the whole procedure. The worst case scenario is that they don't get pure nitrogen and (depending on how much oxygen they are getting), either they never lose consciousness at all (at which point the execution has failed and they need to try again) or they still fall unconscious but it takes longer for them to actually die than it would from pure nitrogen. There's no pain during any part of the procedure, even if the procedure is botched.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Smeagol17 (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#2074: Jan 26th 2024 at 8:48:05 AM

But it takes much longer than the more violent methods, and the acute fear, struggle and the anticipation of death are also probably pretty bad.

Edited by Smeagol17 on Jan 26th 2024 at 7:50:43 PM

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#2075: Jan 26th 2024 at 9:23:25 AM

Nitrogen asphyxiation, done properly, results in unconsciousness within a few seconds. At that point it doesn't matter that it might take another 10 minutes to confirm death — as far as the condemned is concerned, they're no longer suffering.

As far as "the acute fear, struggle and the anticipation of death"... that's going to happen regardless of execution method, so I'm not sure why you bring it up? I'm not sure why "strapped to a gurney waiting for someone to put a mask on you" is worse than "stood up in front of a firing squad", "being put into a guillotine", or "having a noose put around your neck on the gallows".

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

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