Arkansas Blog

The challenge to lethal injections is that one of the three chemicals used actually masks pain, rather than allowing somebody to know that there is horrendous pain. This particular chemical was banned by veterinarians years ago for this reason. Bubba did not have that same cocktail, and I suspect that when the furor is settled, lethal injection for humans will be more like Bubba's.
John sure got the main point right. Humane killing is an oxymoron. And the pagan ritual that accompanies this most premeditated of murders, done by the government, should shame Americans....administered without uniform standards for the type of crime for which it is given. Most of the most heinous crimes in Arkanss were committed by folks allowed to plea bargain for life without parole.
I understand that their victims were not killed humanely, but I don't understand why our government wants to be a murderer or act like them.
There is an alternative which is to give them life sentences with no possibility of parole. Most of the guys on death row (at least those who are not severely mentally ill) prefer the death penalty to this alternative, considering it a much worse punishment.

Let us not forget that Jesus was accused, arrested, tried by his peers, convicted and lawfully executed.

if you believe that 'so have you done to the least of these, so you have done to me', then every time we execute a criminal, we execute Jesus.

And that's not even including innocent people who are put to death. The prosecuting attorney, jury and judge are all guilty of premeditated murder in that case, and if you do believe in the eye-for-an-eye dealth penalty, then they deserve it.

Killing is killing. If it's wrong, it's wrong. The first thing I learned as a child is that two wrongs don't make a right.

JB, Betsey, Roland, Archaeopteryx:

Amen x 4.

"It may be that we're re-evolving to the notion that killing as punishment without exercising unusual cruelty is a hopeless contradiction in terms."

Amen! How can killing someone NOT be considered cruel and unusual punishment? I've never understood that.

I will never understand how so many Bible thumpers seem to have no problem with the death penalty. It's not like 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' is some buried footnote.

Institutionalized killing in the name of justice is heinous, oxymoronic and degrades this country almost as much as the current warmongering idiot in the White House.

But we must ask ourselves which is more cruel and unusual? A quick lethal injection of bug juice for the guilty or the long lingering, hideously painful death at home of an innocent person who couldn't afford health insurance?

And will the convicted murder's family be saddled by lethal injection bills for years after his death like the family of someone who dies without medical insurance?

"I will never understand how so many Bible thumpers seem to have no problem with the death penalty. It's not like 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' is some buried footnote."

Good point, Suzie. Some of the people quoting (thumping) the Bible seem to select one reference over another. In this case, "Thou shalt not kill" is trumped by "An eye for an eye."

People sometimes misunderstand their religion. The 'eye for an eye' reference is from the Old Testament. Matthew 5:38 says "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."

"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice."
Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865), speech in Washington D.C., 1865

The death penalty is a moral issue that each of us must decide for ourselves and with our individual conscience, religion, spirituality and morality.

I personally believe that the death penalty is necessary and the right decision. I trust the judicial system and the conscience of the people selected to serve on those juries and make that tough decision. However, the debate about a humane or painless method of execution is irrelevant.

The decision is whether removing a killer or psychopath from the possibility of killing or injuring others by execution or by life imprisonment is the crux of the issue. Neither execution nor lifetime
incarceration is painless.

Is it right? I don't know, but I've made my decision. An executed killer will not kill again an inmate incarcerated for life might.

Sure is easy to take the righteous "moral high ground" in expressing these opinions when it is pretty much an academic exercise.

It becomes much more personal when your family member is brutally murdered with happy abandon by some wanton cretin - or the opposite when your family member is the one charged with a murder.

When the murderer gleefully describes in graphic detail how he enjoyed torturing your child, watching your child take his or her last dying breath, will you be steadfast in your opinion? Can you imagine yourself in that situation?

Try it right now.

Prison may sound bad to you, but to a lot of folks that I have encountered, its just part of life, no big deal.

The criminals that fear prison are not the murderers. A violent person thrives on violence.

Until I have really been in either situation, I will maintain my personal opinion - but I'm not going to be as cavalier as some of these postings sound.

The Bible does not support the death penalty, any more than it condemns abortion or suicide--even assisted suicide--yet "fundamentalists" have convinced themselves, via circuitous paths of logic that would make a Jesuit blush, that God commands the death of murderers and condemns those who practice abortion or suicide.

Suicide - "It's a sin--everybody knows that only God can decide when we die!" Oh? Let's see, the Bible records three suicides, Judas of course, King Saul (okay, being wounded he *asked* his bodyguard to kill him so the enemy could not claim credit), and Saul's bodyguard, who killed himself out of remorse for having killed his king and was accounted a hero by the Israelites. Nothing *against* suicide in any of these accounts. It might even be said to be, in each case, a "death with dignity".

Murderers - The first and best example is Cain. It wasn't just murder, it was fratricide--and for the worst reason, jealousy. Yet not only was Cain not killed for his crime, God put a curse on anyone anywhere who put a hand to him. Clearly, God does not favor the death penalty.

Abortion - They love to apply the term "murder", but again the Bible takes a pragmatic view--"If two men are fighting and strike a woman causing her to give birth (or miscarry), they are to pay a fine to the husband in an amount allowed by the court." Probably sheep or camels, in those days. Nothing about murder, nothing about a death penalty.

Just where do they get those overwrought ideas of theirs, anyway? "Do not kill" seems pretty straightforward to me.

Many of us individually claim to be Christians. When it comes to the death penalty, the only connection I see between Christianity and capital punishment is that which is depicted by a crucifix.

Don K is right in that a decision on the death penalty is a moral and personal one. Our society of collective individuals decides in a jury box, around the water cooler, in the voting booth to hire the people who prosecute and execute. The guy who administers the lethal blow isn't the only one with blood on his hands.

I don't doubt I would wish unthinkable torture on someone who killed my child. But to inflict it would only hurt my case of claiming to be a Christian. Life is hard and painful sometimes, but rarely so as being crucified.

I don't know the chapter and verse, but somewhere in the Bible Jesus says that anything we do to the least among us, we do to Him.

Yep, lethal injection has got to be easy going for everyone.

I'm with y'all that are against the death penalty. All it does is teach our children that it is Ok to kill if you think someone did something wrong.

Don't people think that people may possibly be redeemed in the future? What does it do to us to sanction the killing of people in cold blood?

"Sure is easy to take the righteous "moral high ground" in expressing these opinions when it is pretty much an academic exercise."

You're absolutely right; and I realize that my 'personal' course of action might be entirely different from the one I'd argue should be public policy. But I don't think it's incongruous to realize that how I might act if my child was horribly victimized is altogether different from how our society would (and should) act.

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