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Types of Execution
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Kudos for posting your own thread, Amanda! :)
I believe that in labeling something as unjust (as it seems everyone in the original thread agreed on) then there can be no justice involved.
To say that there is a more just way to do something unjust is just silly to me.
I believe that in labeling something as unjust (as it seems everyone in the original thread agreed on) then there can be no justice involved.
To say that there is a more just way to do something unjust is just silly to me.
Hey, in our class, someone brought up that apparently if you're on death row you get to pick what kind of death you'd get -- like, the Chair, lethal injection, hanging, firing squad, etc.What do you think the victim's family would feel about all this? Shouldn't it be their choice -- as they were the ones that suffered more?
-playing devil's advocate...lol-
In either of these, the electric chair or lethal injection, the outcome is the same. One seems more painful than the other, yes. So in response to Sarah, I think if a victim's family had a choice of how their loved one should be put to death, I am thinking that most of them would pick lethal injection (unless they really didn't like their loved one and wanted them to feel as much pain as possible before death). If a choice is given, it is allowed only because of how the family would react and feel about the situation. They can think that their loved one passed away peacefully or miserably. The loved one is gone either way.
Therefore, if a choice is given it is most likely because the family members would suffer more.
…I guess I just elaborated on what Sarah just said haha.
If the death penalty still continues to thrive I think the most painless and short death would be the most humane:lethal injection. However, research is showing (Miss Gilbert went over this in class)that the brain might not become completely paralyzed right away. This then leads to more controversy. However, death is going to be painless regardless. If I were about to be killed I would be in pain more mentally than physically.
I believe that lethal injection is much more humane than the electric chair. Depending on one's opinion of the death penalty, it may or may not be considered "just." The sheer pain that Prejean describes in this book make the electric chair seem like more of a torture device than a mean of execution. Perhaps lethal injection is more humane because there is no visible pain inflicted on the body. Only the victim knows how bad it hurts where as everyone can see the visible effects of the electric chair -- hair catching on fire, skin burning, etc.
Unlike Sarah and Ellen, I feel that the prisoner should hav the choice of how they wish o be executed. Of course the family has their opinion of which would be less painful to watch; but the bottom line is that it's the prisoner's decision. They're the one dying, so they should be the one to choose how to go. I find it unfair that the family would have the right to choose the fate of another person rather than the person choosing for themself.
Ahm... I think there was some misunderstanding here... I meant the family of the criminal's victim choosing the punishment of the criminal.Seriously, what do you guys think? Doesn't the criminal forfeit their right to choose their own fate the moment they commit their crime? If you believe that, the choice should belong to the family.
well, it seems to me that if one option was obviously less painful than another, that's the one the criminal would choose...unless he was some sort of masochistic freak...So I think it would save time for the government to just make the decision for him. I doubt anyone would choose hanging over lethal injection... In regards to the family remark, I think it should be up to either the government or the the criminal getting executed. The family shouldn't get a say. They can be in charge of the funeral and stuff. What if they were actually all really angry with the guy and didn't want him to have a pain-free execution? There are to many different familial situations to have a system like that...
I think (personally of course) that all types of the death penalty are unjust, so just generally. This is because not only is it founded in racism and prejudice, but it also crosses the boundary our country established in the Bill of Rights to protect all citizens - that being the right to protected from cruel and unusual punishment. In the book, Helen Prejean provides numerous examples of how the different forms of execution are cruel and unusual. I think that even if one form of execution is proven to cause very little pain, the emotional and psychological pain that accompagnies the looming death penalty needs to be included in the standard for establishing whether or not the punishment is cruel or unusual. Also as Mrs. Gilbert pointed out in class (and I had previously not known), there are studies showing how lethal injection, despite being thought of as painless, causes the victim pain because their brain is still receptive to pain. I don't know if we can ever find a humane way to kill someone, can we?
I don't know why the victim of the criminal's family would ever get to decide the death of the criminal. They would let their emotions take control of their decision, so they would choose the most painful punishment possible. In the book, Vernon is an example of a victim's family member who would let his emotions take over. He was so upset about Faith's death that he would have given anything to torture Willie. The system would be even more unjust if the victim's families chose the method of death. The criminal has a right to choose their own death. I understand the counterargument, that the victim did not get to choose they way they died, but the criminal is still a person. They deserve some rights and choice. Would it be better if there were only one way of executing someone?
As Sarah pointed out, if there was a different form of execution that was more humane than execution by the electric chair, death-row inmates would certainly choose it. Because most inmates choose to die by means of the electric chair, it only makes sense to say that it is the quickest and most painless way to die. That being said, lethal injections, hanging, or any other forms of execution are not any more just than the electric chair. However, even if the government was able to come up with a quick and completely pain-free way to die, the death penalty would not be justified. Murder is murder nomatter how the killing is done, or who it is done by. Just because someone is killed by the government in a humane way does not mean it is justifiable. How can it be justifiable to enforce a rule one does not follow?
I think, from the ways Prejean describes them, that the electric chair and lethal injection are the most injust exections out there. I base the injustice off of how much pain is inflicted on the death row in-mate. Everyone knows that pain is inflicted on electric chair people, but some people don't know that when a person is lethally injected, he/she can sometimes feel the pain as they are poisoned to death. Which, to me, is probably pretty excruciating. I believe the most injust execution (again, based off of how much pain is felt) would have to be the firing squad and the Guillotine. I say this because with the firing squad, you die instantly and don't feel any pain. And with the guillotine, even though your head gets chopped off, you probably don't feel any pain. Whihc is, in my opinion, the best, and thus, most just way to die :).
Dane, you make a good point when stating that "...with the guillotine, even though your head gets chopped off, you probably dont feel any pain" but dont you think the anticipation of waiting for a death like that to happen would be almost worse than waiting for another way to die, like lethal injection? I also do agree that the electric chair is one of the most cruel ways to execute someone. Prejean really convinced me in the beginning of the book when she gave all the facts on the electric chair: "On May 5, 1990, as the state of Flirda killed Jesse Tafero, flames shot six inches from the hood covering his head. The executioner interrupted the standard two-minute 2,00o-volt electrical cycle and officials later determined that a sponge on Tafero's head had caught fire." (Prejean, p.19). Starting off the book with this disgusting information really convinced me from the start that the death penalty is an inhumane way to kill someone.
Agreed, death row inmates should maintain the right to choose the method practiced on them regarding their own death. However, there is really no "humane" or "just" way to kill someone. In my eyes, murder is still murder. As Prejean has mentioned numerous times, why should the government reserve the right too choose who lives an who dies? Furthermore, with the electric chair, there is no guarantee that the first jolt will be the one that kills the prisoner. As Prejean stated in the beginning of the book, 17 year old Willie Francis walked away from the electric chair after his attempted execution. Also, there’s not much to say about being able to choose your poison. What’s the difference between hanging and electrocution? Both do not ensure a quick and painless death. The definition of hanging is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck."(Wikipedia). However, if ones neck does not snap on impact from hanging, they end up suffocating. Lethal injection is a series of three injections the first an anesthetic, then a saline flush to ensure the drug is introduced into the blood at a faster rate; and finally an injection of potassium chloride, stopping ones heart. The average time for lethal injection is 8.4 minutes. (scienceline). All methods of capital punishment are cruel and unusual punishment, especially since they are long, drawn out, painful process. I maintain that there is no such thing as a humane way of killing someone. Regardless of their past, they are still and always will be a living, breathing human-being.
To Dan and Kenzie regarding guillotines:Guillotine blades cut so quickly that there is little impact on the brain. Some argue that this means unconsciousness does not immediately follow... so... there's potentially lots of pain. LOTS of it.
That's interesting. I imagined that the blade would kill the person immediately.
I think it's an unjust punishment in general. Heather brings up a lot of good points, one being that hanging and electrocution don't ensure painless death. It seems that all the methods of killing would be painful.Is it just to inflict pain on others? Isn't that kind of what we're punishing them for? Just because the death row inmates are allowed to choose their way to die, doesn't make the punishment right. In the book, I would have liked to see Prejean talk to Willie and Sonnier about why they chose electrocution. That would've been really interesting to me.
I read somewhere that physiologically speaking, decapitation would result in such a rapid loss of blood pressure to the brain that unconsciousness would occur more rapidly than death, making decollation perhaps less painful. However, I also seem to recall reading about a French scientist beheaded in the French Revolution who asked his assistant to observe his execution. The scientist then blinked as many times as possible after the blade fell to determine how long a victim retains consciousness. Check Wikipedia, but I believe the count was fourteen to sixteen. And in all likelihood, it's probably just an urban legend anyway.Culturally, I do have to say that guillotines are rather interesting. Dickens gives a really interesting artistic vignette on them in A Tale of Two Cities, and the Third Reich implemented them at Hitler's behest, eventually becoming the means of death for not a few dissenting Germans, including a victim as young as eighteen. As such, guillotines have always seemed to me to be an eerily recent method of execution.
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So this far in Dead Man Walking Prejean focuses a lot on the injustices of execution by electric chair. I feel like most people agree that it is a cruel punishment, but what about other types of execution? Is it more just to execute people through lethal injection? Or does it not matter how they're being executed? (It's either just or unjust in general)