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Sunday, May 31, 2015

Death by Lethal Injection

Executions by lethal injection are currently on hold as the Supreme Court reviews the current process to assess whether it is constitutional, or f it might be considered cruel and unusual punishment.

Lethal injection in the United States has historically involved using a cocktail of three drugs. First a sedative is administered, followed by a paralytic, and then the potassium chloride that will stop the heart.

The idea is that the person to be executed would first be rendered unconscious (by a drug which in a large enough dose could also completely stop any breathing, causing death by itself), then paralyzed before their heart is stopped. Concerns have risen, however, that the very short-acting anesthesia might very well wear off while the person is still alive, leaving them aware of everything happening but unable to express any suffering. They cannot take a breath while paralyzed, and the potassium chloride causes a severe burning sensation when it goes into the veins.

The process may have other bumps along the way. After taking the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm, doctors cannot actively participate in an execution other than to pronounce the person dead afterwards. The people actually performing the acts involved in lethal injection, and those planning it, do not necessarily have the experience necessary to understand how it all works and make sure it goes off without a hitch. Apparently the same dose of medications are always used, regardless of the weight of the person to be executed, and just last year there was a case where the IV was not correctly inserted into the vein, but entered the tissue instead. This led to a death row inmate groaning and writhing on the gurney for 43 minutes before finally dying of a heart attack.

If the Supreme Court decides this process is unconstitutional, it does not mean the death penalty itself will be outlawed. Another way would simply have to be found to go about it. As it is, there is a single drug method of lethal injection that would avoid some of the problems of the three drug option. Then of course there is the electric chair, which is still an option for the implementation of the death penalty in many states. Some states have even discussed the possibility of bringing back firing squads.

If the death penalty itself is still deemed constitutional, the Supreme Court will not disallow it, only insist there be further efforts to find the most humane method possible. In my personal opinion, this would mean by lethal injection of a single drug. A large dose of one barbiturate, such as veterinarians use to euthanize family pets, would render the person unconscious (without question - no paralytic to mask awareness) before causing respiratory arrest and suppressing cardiac activity. Alternatively, a large dose of narcotic would prevent discomfort while stopping the person's respiratory drive.

An unpleasant topic, for sure, but an important one. There are currently more than 3,000 people on death row in the U.S. Death itself is the punishment the courts have found appropriate for these people, and causing them unnecessary suffering during the process is not the aim.

Saturday, May 30, 2015

Death Penalty

There are things that have me doing a lot of thinking lately. I've had the urge to put my thoughts down in some format, put them out there for discussion. So I said to myself, "Self, what about addressing them in that blog where you used to post about random subjects that fascinate you, the one you haven't done anything with in a very long time?" To which I responded, "That's not a bad idea, Self."

One of the topics that has been on my mind is the death penalty. My general feeling has always been that I was okay with the worst of the worst being sentenced to death, and I never had much reason to consider the subject any further. However, with recent events in the news, I've examined my feelings more closely. I wanted to try to unravel exactly why I feel the death penalty is appropriate in some situations and not in others. I'll attempt to articulate my thoughts here.

The crime in question would have to be an atrocious one if the death penalty is on the table in the first place. Why do I feel that the perpetrators of some heinous crimes should be put to death, while others shouldn't? The best way I can think of explaining it has to do with the person's true nature, what really resides in their heart of hearts.

For example, consider someone who wields a blade in his or her own hand and inflicts brutal and stomach-turning damage to another human being. This person shows no misgivings about his or her actions, and in fact probably revels in the savagery, either because he or she believes it to be justified, or because there is something just plain wrong in this person's brain chemistry that allows them to delight in cruelty.

In my personal opinion, I am okay with such a person receiving the death penalty. There is something fundamentally wrong with this person. They need to experience the consequences of their actions through punishment, and they need to be kept away from the rest of society to protect others from them. This could be achieved through imprisonment alone, but if the convicted person was sentenced to death, I would not find myself overly troubled by this. I would think the world might be better off without their influence on it, or in it.

On the other hand, I believe it is possible that an essentially good person can be swayed by corrupt and vile ideology. A decent person can become indoctrinated by malicious credo; this is especially likely to happen when one's religion is involved. Most of what people understand about their religion, if they have one, is taught to them by other people-humans with human failings. These others may include their own interpretations when they preach, putting a spin on the information they impart. But part of being faithful might mean not questioning the 'truths' as they are told to you. The most convincing arguments are those that threaten eternal damnation should you not wholeheartedly submit to them.

So say a more or less good person absorbs the rhetoric they hear, even though it may include the hateful and the ignorant. A person born amidst such a mindset, surrounded by it in day to to day life, living among a society in which a good chunk of people take it to heart, will likely internalize these teachings and may never be able or willing to separate themselves from it. But if the indoctrination happens later in life, the mindful, those able to reason with themselves, maintain the potential for realizing where their line of thought went wrong and to reject the ideology they once embraced.

The indoctrination often includes dehumanizing some group of people, even if it's as broad as anyone who believes differently. It teaches its disciples to think in terms of US versus THEM. THEY are now, inherently and without conscious thought, seen as less than human. This makes it easier to commit acts of atrocity against them. Someone might consider him or herself a good person who would never knowingly hurt someone-but when it comes to them, well they don't really count, do they?

Think of Nazi Germany. Was everyone involved a psychopath? Or were they just taken in by one, exposed to his poisonous rhetoric?

Our decent person who has assimilated the hateful dogma now commits a crime against other living beings. Instead of thrusting a blade into another person's chest, however, they transport a weapon to a scene and leave it there, initiating the attack itself from some distance away. The crime is just as heinous, the results as tragic. However, the human mind may have allowed this person to distance him or herself from the crime emotionally as well as physically, letting them continue on living unperturbed, feeling as though they were not as involved in the atrocity as our other criminal. The one who committed the act with their own hands at their victim's throats.

Both crimes are equally reprehensible, and both perpetrators need to face the consequences of their actions, but to my mind the person who was able to plunge the blade in with their own hand and feel nothing but justification, reveling in the barbarism, is a more fundamentally screwed up individual. Get that person out of here!

The other attacker. He needs to be punished for his crimes as well. However...

If he had internalized a philosophy that convinced him utterly that his actions were justified

and these teachings had turned his victims from human beings into something other, into simply a message or a cause

and he committed the act in such a way that allowed his mind to construct a barrier separating him emotionally from his actions and the damage he inflicted

and the fact that he had not been exposed to, or had not adopted, the depraved ideology until a time later in life after he had already demonstrated himself to otherwise be a good and decent person, allowing for the definite possibility for him to realize his error and honestly feel REMORSE for his actions...

I think it fitting for that person to receive a sentence of life in prison. I can believe that a fundamentally good person can take the wrong path and commit a heinous crime. I think that person needs to be punished. But if there is hope that he or she could shed the corrupting influence, reject it and feel true remorse, then spending a lifetime in prison allows them that opportunity. One of the objectives of prison is rehabilitation; in this case, not so that the prisoner can fit back in as a valuable and productive member of society after being released from prison, but to give them the chance to have that change of heart. If that change happens, think of the moral suffering that would engulf that person. Staying in prison and a lifetime of regret are punishment, and in this case, perhaps more appropriate than death.