Georgia executed a convicted murderer on Tuesday, the first person to be put to death in the United States since the Supreme Court ended a de facto moratorium on capital punishment last month.
William Earl Lynd died by lethal injection at a prison in Jackson, central Georgia, at 7:51 p.m. Lynd, 53, was convicted of shooting his girlfriend to death in December 1988…
Lynd’s execution is the first since the same court on April 16 rejected a challenge to the cocktail of three drugs used in most U.S. executions, which opponents had argued inflicted unnecessary pain…
A nationwide pause in executions had been in effect since shortly after the court said on September 25 it would hear an appeal by two death row inmates in Kentucky against the use of the lethal drugs.
And it only took 20 years to execute William Earl Lynd.
#29 – “That’s not an option after the government kills them.”
Kinda hard to fix THAT mistake.
Dr Chapman, the man who came up with the current three drug execution protocol, is in favor of bringing back the guillotine. He says “The simplest thing I know is the guillotine and I’m not opposed to bringing it back. It’s absolute, if the person’s head is cut off, that’s the end of it.”
We of course cant do that, because SCOTUS has ruled that disfiguring the corpse is “cruel and unusual”. The current method is easier to watch, not neccesarily easier for the condemed.
>>Thats why I would only allow capitol
>>punishment in cases with DNA evidence.
Not feasible. Most crimes don’t have DNA evidence, no matter what CSI and Law & Order might lead one to believe.
DNA evidence usually exonerates, rather than shows guilt. Unless you leave some “bodily fluids” on the victim (or your skin is under their fingernails), there is no DNA evidence.
>>Dr Chapman, the man who came up with the
>>current three drug execution protocol
I wonder where he got his medical degree, Sears & Roebuck?
Why can’t they just pump the guy they want to kill full of morphine until he dies? What’s up with the ridiculous three-drug cocktail that the executioners often fuck up and give in the wrong order?
#20
> What it does, it appeals to our lowest
> desire: the desire to take revenge,
> to do to you what you did to me.
If that is the case, then how do you explain imprisonment for life without reprieve or parole? Are you telling me that LWOP is not about revenge?
#27
Thus, the creation of Supermax prisons. 22-23 hours a day in lock down. No natural light. In many cases little or no human contact.
#29
Really. “Sorry, old bean, our bad. Off you go.” The person just picks up where they left off? No that is not what happens. What happens is that the person’s career and generally their personal life is completely wrecked. People that are convicted of crimes that would have warranted the death penalty but given LWOP and are later freed are psychologically scarred for life.
Tell you what, why don’t we make a law that says that if you are convicted of a crime that would have warranted capital punishment but are given LWOP and are later freed, that the State pays you want was paid out for all court costs on both sides. If that were to happen, the cost advantage of LWOP would disappear and it make it far clearer that mistakes in cases of LWOP are almost as costly to the wrongly accused as capital punishment.
O.J. Simpson had Nicole’s blood on his socks, how does that exonerate? A recent exoneration localy included dna on the victims pants from the fingers of the person who pulled down her pants. Of course, the exonerated man had been convicted with no phyiscal evidence.
DNA evidince points to one person, it can include or exclude any person. How can you say the DNA evidence “usually exonerates”. Does that mean we usualy convict the wrong person? I refuse to believe that.
Project innocence has created “216 post-conviction DNA exonerations” in the last 19 years. Funny how they wont tell you how many cases they have investigated.
>>Does that mean we usualy convict the
>>wrong person?
Of course not. But how many innocent people executed by the government does it take for it to become unacceptable? 216? 240986029348? 1?
And I never said that DNA ALWAYS exonerates. Just usually, when it turns out that the semen or the blood or the whatever on the victim was from somebody OTHER than the accused.
>>mistakes in cases of LWOP are almost as
>>costly to the wrongly accused as capital
>>punishment.
Hey, I’m all for 100% accuracy in criminal convictions. That’s not possible though. At least the innocent LWOPper CAN be released. The wrongly executed have no such option.
They’ve probably investigated many more than that. Their death penalty exonerations are around 20, and they’ve definitely done more than 100 tests.
I like how all these anti-death-penalty politicians try to make themselves sound tough by saying that life in prison is a punishment worse than death. So they’re OK with giving innocent people a tougher punishment now?
And then you have John Kerry taking it a step further, saying that he would give the death penalty to terrorists. So he would go easy on terrorists!
#37,
I suspect that you think that number should be 0. I would accept some number. The US has executed 1100 criminals since 1976. Would I accept 1% (11 of them) could have been innocent? Probably. Would I accept 21% (236) of them could have been innocent, no way. But that would assume that these 236 people were all on death row (NOT). The cases could not have been strong enough to get a death sentace conviction.
On exonerations. I understand now. You are saying that in the cases where DNA points to someone else, it usualy exonerates. OK, that is a lot differecnt than saying “DNA evidence usually exonerates” (your quote).
#37,
238,337 people die from mistakes made by Doctors in the US every year, does that mean we should get rid of doctors. The phrase “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” comes to mind.
>>238,337 people die from mistakes made by
>>Doctors in the US every year, does that
>>mean we should get rid of doctors.
A lot of them should be gotten rid of, yes. They’re always bitching about the malpractice insurance premiums, but quite a few of them are malpracticing. In too much of a hurry to get to the golf course or the time-share.
In any case, there’s a fundamental difference between a practitioner of the healing arts who just happens to be a fuck-up, and government-sanctioned genocide of “criminals”, some of whom are innocent.
#24 – Your question assumes that I said something other than what I did say. Read what I did say… Not what you wish I would have said.
I’m not getting caught in your Jedi Mind Trick just because you want to portray prison as something it isn’t to prop up your ‘tough on crime’ mindset.
>>I suspect that you think that
>>number should be 0.
And that’s exactly what it would be, if we joined all the other civilized nations on Earth and abolished the death penalty.
See how simple?
I am from the town where this happened. You guys can bitch and moan like a bunch of girls about the justice system, but I know first hand what an evil douchebag this guy was. He deserved worse than what he got.
#44,
and how many additional, non government sanctioned murders are you willing to accept to get this?
>>I know first hand what an evil
>>douchebag this guy was.
I’m not so concerned about the evil douchebags (although state-sanctioned murder is a little barbarian); it’s the INNOCENT GUYS WHO ARE MURDERED that I’m worried about.
Here’s a solution. Since countries like France won’t extradite s/o facing the death penalty; just sentence ALL violent felons to death and put them on a plane to France. Total cost= one plane ticket. 🙂
#47,
thats the issue, you dont care about the majority of this issue, the evil douchbags. You are more concerned with the occasional mistakes.
Dog bites man is not news, man bites dog is. Thats why we hear so much about the mistakes.
BTW, allways enlightening to debate the Mustard man
Most of Europe, if it were put to a vote, the death penalty would pass easily. Something’s wrong with those so-called democracies that on so many issues the will of the people is denied.
>>you dont care about the majority of this
>>issue, the evil douchbags.
Aw, sure I do, Lester! That’s why I’m proposing LWOP. That way, the evil douchebags spend a lifetime getting fucked up the ass by Bubba and his friends. The innocents get released after a few years of that, with a nice civil settlement.
Why are you so hell-bent on killing?
As I proposed earlier, the death penalty should be applied to certain cases, and should be applied promptly in those cases. I see no reason to let these people live. It’s like having a pit bull in your fenced in yard, all is well until he gets out.
For questionable cases, go ahead and give the potential evil douchbag LWOP. But then again, lawyers, judges and jurys should not be convicting if there is a reasonable doubt.
#35, “Thus, the creation of Supermax prisons. 22-23 hours a day in lock down. No natural light. In many cases little or no human contact.”
Except a very small percentage of total murderers and child rapists make up those populations. As I said, I’d like to see them all subjected to that punishment, as I don’t really want to see any of them eventually set free.
>>As I proposed earlier, the death penalty
>>should be applied to certain cases, and
>>should be applied promptly in those cases.
Gonna have to agree to disagree here, Lester. Even in cases where the evil douchebag is really an evil douchebag (and not a wrongly convicted innocent person), murdering him or her in the name of our Government Overlords doesn’t really put us much above the Salem witch-burners. No one has the right to take away another person’s life against his or her wishes. And those who do, should get LWOP. Executioners on the gummint payroll included.
#54 “No one has the right to take away another person’s life against his or her wishes.”
Sorry, wrong there. If some guy breaks into my house threatening the lives of my family I have a right to terminate said persons life. Even if it is against his wishes…
I don’t know why they lost the case. They weren’t even asking to stop the execution, just to use a different method such a barbituate overdose that wouldn’t cause pain. The 3 step setup was adopted in a kind of abitrary way in the first place.
#53
> Except a very small percentage of
> total murderers and child rapists
> make up those populations.
Indeed, said population is comparatively small. However, people that would have merited the death penalty make up the majority of that population.
#54
> murdering him or her in the
> name of our Government Overlords
> doesn’t really put us much above
> the Salem witch-burners.
Yet, stuffing them in a 5×5 cell for life somehow does put us above Salem witch-burners?
>>Yet, stuffing them in a 5Ă—5 cell for
>>life somehow does put us above
>>Salem witch-burners?
Nobody goes in a 5×5 cell. They can stretch out on the bed, enjoying the A/C, using the StairMaster, watching Law & Order, and applying soothing balm to their tired, stretched out anuses.
Then, when and if they’re found not guilty, they can go on about their lives. With that $12,424,845.00 settlement check to get them on their ways. Courtesy of the the fuck-up cops and the fuck-up criminal “justice” system.
What’s the problem?
#36, Les,
O.J. Simpson had Nicole’s blood on his socks, how does that exonerate?
Because the Defense demonstrated that the blood was on both sides of the sock, some of the blood drawn was missing, and the blood on the sock contained a preservative used in the sample of blood drawn. In other words, it was planted evidence.
Project innocence has created “216 post-conviction DNA exonerations” in the last 19 years. Funny how they wont tell you how many cases they have investigated.
No one has said that everyone convicted or even a majority were innocent. What is being said with the Innocence Project is that they have uncovered several wrongfully convicted. The Innocence Project is run using volunteer help and donations. With their meager resources they have to battle expensive appeals, investigations, and testing. They only take the cases they feel they will have some success with. I am sure that with more money they would be uncovering many more wrongfully convicted.