South Carolina schedules firing squad execution for April 29th

[ibagli]

Extremely weird and deranged that these people need to come up with the most graphically violent way to execute prisoners, instead of just copying whatever the Dutch do for assisted suicide.

That's basically what lethal injection is. The most common method in the Netherlands seems to be sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide, which were two components of the standard three-drug execution that states have had so much trouble with.

It's different when doctors and pharmaceutical companies won't be involved (states haven't been able to get sodium thiopental since 2011), speed is much more important since there's a crowd watching, and the person dying has a lawyer watching to report any problems in graphic detail.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Ugh. The government has no right to do this but I guess I agree with Dule, at least out of legal and authorized methods.

[politicallefty]

My initial post shouldn't have been taken to say that there's something inherently bad about firing squad versus other forms of execution. It probably is the least objectionable form other than perhaps inert gas asphyxiation. Electrocution is horrifying and should have been struck down years ago (which was one vote away at the Supreme Court back in the 80s). I think Justice Brennan had it right when he noted death by electrocution is "nothing less than the contemporary technological equivalent of burning people at the stake".

I think lethal injection has always sort of sugarcoated what is actually being done. I'm fairly sure that's the reason why the 3-drug protocol always included a paralytic. Firing squad is far more in-your-face, so to speak. I have no doubt many death penalty supporters have a cognitive dissonance about the practice, something that is more apparent when the methods become bloodier or are perceived to be more barbaric. The guillotine would be far more logical, but that's obviously a nonstarter.

Unfortunately, it is the South and the bloodlust there is still running very strong, accounting for nearly 90% of executions. I can see other states abolishing the death penalty, but the South is very difficult (apart from perhaps Louisiana).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The execution had been halted: https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-business-crime-executions-south-carolina-e460cd28fad87b099ca96cab6c07099e

[Associate Justice PiT]

Honestly, firing squads are more humane than most methods of execution. It's instantaneous and painless. I really can't believe the electric chair is still used, that's barbaric.

     The trick with the electric chair is that the voltage is much too low. If they cranked it way higher, the condemned would effectively boil inside and die almost instantly. It would look gruesome to everyone watching though, and that is the trick. People are less concerned with the method being humane and more concerned with it looking humane.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Honestly, firing squads are more humane than most methods of execution. It's instantaneous and painless. I really can't believe the electric chair is still used, that's barbaric.

     The trick with the electric chair is that the voltage is much too low. If they cranked it way higher, the condemned would effectively boil inside and die almost instantly. It would look gruesome to everyone watching though, and that is the trick. People are less concerned with the method being humane and more concerned with it looking humane.

That's also why the guillotine is no longer used despite it being probably the most painless execution method there is.

[Anti-Trump Truth Socialite JD Vance Enjoying Juror]

Crazy thought: What if we could avoid all of these problems by just not executing people?

It would save money, save legislative and judicial time, and keep us from having these stupid debates over the most "humane" way to kill someone. Plus you eliminate the risk of accidentally killing an innocent person.

I wonder if anyone has ever considered this before...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Crazy thought: What if we could avoid all of these problems by just not executing people?

It would save money, save legislative and judicial time, and keep us from having these stupid debates over the most "humane" way to kill someone. Plus you eliminate the risk of accidentally killing an innocent person.

I wonder if anyone has ever considered this before...

Probably a majority of the population of the US lives in no capital punishment states if you include de facto abolitionist ones like California at this point.

[It’s so Joever]

Honestly, firing squads are more humane than most methods of execution. It's instantaneous and painless. I really can't believe the electric chair is still used, that's barbaric.

     The trick with the electric chair is that the voltage is much too low. If they cranked it way higher, the condemned would effectively boil inside and die almost instantly. It would look gruesome to everyone watching though, and that is the trick. People are less concerned with the method being humane and more concerned with it looking humane.

That's also why the guillotine is no longer used despite it being probably the most painless execution method there is.

That’s why we should bring it back. Disincentivizes crime AND is more humane.

[emailking]

Again, how? The brain doesn't die because it's not getting blood anymore. It can take dozens of seconds to a few minutes to die. Nobody's come back from the guillotine and said they didn't feel anything.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Crazy thought: What if we could avoid all of these problems by just not executing people?

It would save money, save legislative and judicial time, and keep us from having these stupid debates over the most "humane" way to kill someone. Plus you eliminate the risk of accidentally killing an innocent person.

I wonder if anyone has ever considered this before...

Probably a majority of the population of the US lives in no capital punishment states if you include de facto abolitionist ones like California at this point.

So here's the map if you include states that moratoriums or de facto capital punishment bans in place.

The no capital punishment side "wins" this 316-222 EVs, so yeah it's a majority. If we count the states that have no effective death penalty but still have one on the books as a separate category:

208-222-108. So the states with capital punishment still have a plurality, but some of those states also aren't really using it and haven't in over a decade.

Also Ohio could technically be considered a red/green state as well, the reason I didn't count it as such is because unlike the other green states it has a pretty good chance of returning to carrying out executions, essentially Mike DeWine issued a moratorium on all executions due to the fact that the state can no longer reliably obtain lethal injection drugs and there's no other legal form of execution in Ohio. All the state would have to do is have a reliable source for lethal injection drugs again (probably difficult) or have the Legislature pass a new method of execution (much more likely, but they've had years to do so and haven't, plus establishing that new method and the equipment would take time...), however this is less of a hurdle than the other green states have which are unlikely to ever have executions again. If we count Ohio as green though...

208-204-126, so the red now has a plurality. And if we expand green to states that haven't had any executions in over ten years:

208-155-175. States with an active death penalty now are in "third place."

A case could also be made that Nevada should be green anyway without this standard, since Governor Sisolak's position on capital punishment seems to be to that it should never be used but also remain as a theoretically legal sentence and keep the death penalty on the books for some reason. Basically it's quite unlikely that Nevada ever carries out another execution. Once there's a D trifecta with an abolitionist Governor (probably whoever the next Democratic Governor since Sisolak is basically a conservadem), full repeal will probably happen since that's what legislative leaders want.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Explanations for the other green states besides Ohio:

California: Currently on moratorium due to an executive order from Newsom. Was on a de facto moratorium prior to that anyway due to a federal court ruling, and Newsom's moratorium froze all litigation against that. Since most state leaders are opposed and don't want it reinstated, it's unlikely that any such litigation will ever proceed or it'll be defended by the state. The only reason a flat out repeal hasn't occurred is because it was instated by a referendum and would require a referendum to repeal it. Attempts to do so have failed, but with the pattern of how closer it gets each time it's pretty clear that it'll be repealed before any moratorium is lifted. Also for these reasons it's rarely sought by prosecutors anymore.

Kentucky: On moratorium due to an executive order from Beshear's father which shockingly Bevin did not repeal...however this is probably due to the fact that doing so would open up tons of legal issues that Beshear's father cited for it in the first place and the state would now have to defend and justify the capital punishment statute in court. Theoretically this could happen under both a Republican Governor and Attorney General (likely happening after Beshear leaves office), but also pretty tricky to iron all the issues in court and legal roadblocks that would be thrown in. Also somewhat oddly the heavily Republican Legislature actually passed some rollbacks on the death penalty, possibly in preparation to avoid said issues but there's still way too many hurdles to overcome before any executions can take place.

Montana: Moratorium in place due to a state judge order. This could be overturned by the State Supreme Court but there has been not push in the past seven years to do so, and no push in the Legislature to address the issues that led to the moratorium. The current Governor and Legislature are of course very conservative, but this isn't really a priority and it's unlikely we'll see a renewed push.

North Carolina: The State Board of Medicine bans physicians from participating in executions. State law requires that a physician be present at any lethal injection. This makes carrying out lethal injection impossible. For this to change, the State Board of Medicine would have to change its position (unlikely) or the Legislature would have to implement a new method of execution, which is more likely but we've seen all the hurdles they'd have to clear to do so and for that reason there just hasn't been a push to do so in the past decade plus the ban has been in effect.

Oregon: Under moratorium due to an order from Governor Kitzhaber that Brown has kept. Even if a Republican were to win the Oregon Governorship at some point in the future it's unlikely they'd be able to clear all other associated road blocks and thus prosecutors rarely seek death sentences anymore. Seems likely that with a D trifecta a flat out repeal will just happen first anyway.

Pennsylvania: Governor Wolf set a moratorium in place. While a future Republican Governor could lift this, Pennsylvania has one of the most stringent death penalty statutes of any state that nominally that allows essentially limitless appeals from inmates. Only three executions have taken place in Pennsylvania since capital punishment was reinstated, and all three were "volunteers" who waived their right to appeal. For all of these reasons prosecutors have mostly dropped seeking death sentences, especially with controversy that continued court hearings and appeals causes emotional strain to the families of victims (this is exactly why the death penalty was dropped for Mumia Abu-Jamal at the request of the family of his victim.) So it's tough to see how it's coming back in any way.

[Sestak]

Again, how? The brain doesn't die because it's not getting blood anymore. It can take dozens of seconds to a few minutes to die. Nobody's come back from the guillotine and said they didn't feel anything.

We have reasonably ample evidence that lethal injection quite frequently causes excruciating pain for a time on the scale of minutes to hours; while there perhaps is no purely painless way to kill someone the few seconds between decapitation and the end of brain activity is surely preferable.

Of course, all of these are just more reasons the death penalty should not be an option in any case.