Whatever my thoughts are on the death penalty - I still think it should be really rare, and I’ll even qualify that to “exceedingly rare” - this is pushing me toward the “abolish the death penalty” side.
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My aunt in Canada had Parkinson’s for a few years and it had progressed to the point where she just didn’t see the point of continuing with all the pain and aggravation of not being able to actually live a robust life. She decided to go through with this procedure about a year ago, then eventually went through with it last week. She spent the last year visiting with family and saying her goodbyes. She was at peace with her decision and I’m glad she was able to go out on her own terms.
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Yeah it’s horrifying. This is the second botched execution in TN this year (the other one played out very differently).
It’s possible for me to hold space for two truths: some people doing evil things and should be kept from society permanently, and the death penalty should be abolished.
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The other botched execution from earlier this year:
Convicted and sentenced to death for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Marcellos Anderson, Delois Anderson, and Frederick Tucker in 1994, Mr. Carruthers has consistently maintained his innocence, and no forensic evidence has ever connected him to the crime. Prosecutors relied almost entirely on the testimony of a jailhouse informant, who Mr. Carruthers’ counsel now knows was paid for his testimony. There is unidentified physical evidence from the crime scene, including fingerprints and an unknown male DNA profile which have never been analyzed despite many requests by Mr. Carruthers’ counsel. In addition to DNA testing, there are five fingerprints that were recovered from the crime scene that do not match Mr. Carruthers and remain unmatched at this time.
Death penalty advocates talk about the merits of capital punishment when there is no doubt to guilt, but not analyzing all the forensic evidence hardly meets that standard.
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Unrelated: I watched “The Last Samurai” the other night…
Of course the pro-life crowd would spout shit like that. He should do his own research and try it on himself to see if it works first.
looking at the options in OP:
i think it is ok in esp bad cases. i don’t actually see it as a deterrent bc in these horrible cases, one of the things I view as making it so bad is the individual was indifferent to consequences.
however it is used far too often and disproportionately against vulnerable subsets of society. and as recently shown, the state might not be good enough at it or lack the means to do it.
so i might not accept it in the way it exists now. but am open to it in narrow cases (with a further burden on the state to demonstrate that it is applied fairly across individuals regardless of demography). maybe the state can’t clear that hurdle
You’d think that a state that claims to be the buckle on the Bible Belt would be receptive to the notion that if G-d steps in at the last moment to prevent an execution, perhaps that person shouldn’t be executed.