From "Christa Pike Regains Consciousness After Her Failed Execution/The death row inmate in Tennessee received two doses of a lethal injection drug last week but lived. She was taken from the execution chamber in an ambulance" (NYT).
So if the drug that was intended to kill her happened to cause enough brain damage to deprive her of "rational understanding," she gets to avoid further efforts to take her life?
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50 comments:
deprive her of "rational understanding,"
Locked-in syndrome as the new life in the prison of yourself, the ultimate isolation from society.
I’m trying to understand why she was put on a ventilator. She would have died without a ventilator, which I thought was the point.
Planned Parenthood... Perphood. Survivors are safely rare and far between.
What a silly, unserious and paradoxical country we've become. A proper American mess.
There's no single position at work. One side gets an advantage or the other side does depending on how the case goes.
They could have just shot her.
Democrats are just evil people who like to see people suffer and get murdered.
"I’m trying to understand why she was put on a ventilator. She would have died without a ventilator, which I thought was the point."
They had the power to execute her according to a particular protocol. It didn't work. They did not have the legal power to do other things to her, such as subject her to a painful extended period of not being able to breathe.
"They could have just shot her."
Yes, I saw that some people think that's a funny thing to say. If you seriously believe that, you are a child.
Decades and millions have been spent to make state executions a matter of practical impossibility, even as sentences are still being handed down.
It's another case of Progressives subverting the clearly-expressed will of the voters by end-running the laws and gaming the policies to destruction. It's become a farce, and a great example of how voters are handed a sh*t sandwich and expected to put up with it, because you know, sometimes they actually do.
Did she leave a living will? A dying, or almost dying will?
Whatever the correctional system's death board decides, her case gets kicked down to hospital's death board.
I guess she didn’t have a DNR?
“Prison Officials Unsure How To Execute Woman On Ventilator That Is Plugged Into The Wall”
- Babylon Bee
What about her feeding tube? Asking for the Schiavos.
Why don't we ask the Canadians or the Netherlands for tips? they have no problem at all killing healthy people and babies. Same day service for Canada! You have to wait six months to see the doctor.... unless you sign the "let the state kill me!" paper. Then it's next day at the latest. Fast and efficient. Not sure if it's painless, but as the state says, they've never heard any complaints from the person afterwards....
Or, why don't we just hang a sign around her neck sayiing "disabled Jew" and drop her off in Gaza? As all the left tells us, she would be in paradise! Surely a fine, upstanding people like Gazans would take good care of a disabled Jew!
Right?
Right?
Ok, so she might spend a week or two wishing Tennessee was competent, but considering what she did that would only be just.
At this point just execute people by immuration. Everybody including the bricklayers could point the dirty finger at the physics of dehydration for killing the accused. Sure it's horrifying and cruel, but at least the illusion of everyone's childish innocence is preserved.
Tell her she died, and is now in Hell.
The U.S. Supreme Court has forbidden the execution of someone who does not have a 'rational understanding' of why they’re being put to death.
That's could be for their own self-preservation.
I’m opposed to the death penalty, but if you insist why not a massive dose of morphine? Universally available, it produces a brief moment of peace followed immediately by unconsciousness and certain death. My hunch is that it’s the peace side-effect that prevents its use for this purpose.
Why does the law so often come to the most illogical conclusions which so often do the most damage? The answer is lack of courage. Weak men bring hard times.
“Tell her she died, and is now in Hell.”
Exquisite.
I wish people could not be taxed unless they could understand where the money goes.
Just keep doing it until they get it right.
“ They had the power to execute her according to a particular protocol. It didn't work. They did not have the legal power to do other things to her, such as subject her to a painful extended period of not being able to breathe.”
For God’s sake, just commute her sentence. Nobody wants to see more of this real-life horror movie.
"Ms. Pike’s medical condition is likely to determine whether Tennessee officials try to execute her again."
She's going to need Teddy Kennedy's neck brace and Harvey Weinstein's walker. Don't take any chances.
"For God’s sake, just commute her sentence."
She's lucky she's not in Georgia. An Atlanta commute is a death sentence.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has forbidden the execution of someone who does not have a 'rational understanding' of why they’re being put to death."
And that's in the Constitution somewhere?
Her conduct in prison has created reasons for commuting her sentence, but that should have happened before the execution. The judicial precedents are unambiguous --surviving a botched execution is not grounds for clemency.
Ann Althouse said...
"They could have just shot her."
Yes, I saw that some people think that's a funny thing to say. If you seriously believe that, you are a child.
Oooh. Ann comes out swinging.
You started this smoke show so here you go.
The only reason we couldn't just shoot her is because snooty mediocre law school graduates like you who couldn't make a living practicing law got together and made up a stupid process that was destined to eventually fail like this.
People like you are just not serious morally or ethically. You pretend to be smarter than everyone and make things purposely obtuse because you don't have the moral conviction to actually make these decisions.
You are the child. You have not had to actually be involved in life and death situations and you would run away screaming if you had to.
People like you are why societies fail. You should leave systems of law to serious people.
Conrad said...
"The U.S. Supreme Court has forbidden the execution of someone who does not have a 'rational understanding' of why they’re being put to death."
And that's in the Constitution somewhere?
The Supreme Court is not a serious institution.
They couldn't be bothered with reading the Constitution or First Principles.
Our institutions are a joke now.
"And that's in the Constitution somewhere?"
I've read/heard in numerous places that the Constitution is a living document. I believe that means that whatever the people saying that want to do is in there somewhere. Maybe in the penumbras?
She tortured her victim to death, and her victim knew her. Does it sound too much like justice for the thinner-skinned among us?
There's going to be an awful lot of money spent making sure she can be seen as 'not having a 'rational understanding' of why she's being put to death.' The deep-feeling, so-serious investigative journalists will start churning out the dramatic, heart-string pulling sympathy pieces soon.
Althouse: " "They could have just shot her."
Yes, I saw that some people think that's a funny thing to say. If you seriously believe that, you are a child. "
"and a little child shall lead them"
As if firearms haven't been used successfully for millions of deaths in the last century. Would it have been more messy than the injection, yes. More successful... absolutely.
"They could have just shot her."
Yes, I saw that some people think that's a funny thing to say. If you seriously believe that, you are a child. "
I'm genuinely puzzled by this comment. How is the suggestion that executions should be carried out by firing squad meant to be funny or childish? There was a good article at the Free Press (gift link) this week that argued, compellingly, I thought, that if the state is going to execute people it should be done by firing squad. It's far more honest, reliable, and humane than what we're doing now.
The idea of using the method employed by physician assisted suicide is an interesting idea for capital punishment. Sure makes more sense than trying to find a vein and the f'd up mess the executioner(s) made. Or the horror of the electric chair or firing squad.
Sometimes the SC doesn't think through its holdings as carefully as it should. It makes sense to require understanding at the time the crime was committed. It makes some sense to require understanding at the time of sentencing. But requiring understanding at the time the sentence is carried out cross the line into fetish.
She doesn't deserve to live. She is a vicious, inhumane murderer. Just shoot her and get it over with.
Like the left wants...just leave her to die like they do to infants that live through their abortions are made to do.
Or send her to Haiti
In defense of the Prof, I believe she means that the state does not have the power to shoot her under the current laws, so in that sense it's childish to think 'they could just shoot her.'
Certainly it is not childish to think that there could be a sustainable legal structure under which the defendant could be shot, either as a primary or backup method. Which is what I believe Achilles meant by saying 'they could have just shot her.' I don't believe Achilles literally thought a prison officer could just legally whip out a pistol and fire a coup de grace. CC, JSM
Go wring her neck lawproffy
You know you want Old Testament justice as a jewish mom
@Althouse, and here I thought law professors understood the concept of “stare decisis..”. During all of the centuries that hanging was the usual method of execution it was very rare for the, ah, object of the exercise to survive the drop. When it happened, whether due to an inept hangman or broken rope or whatever, the condemned individual was simply hanged again.
I fail to understand why “no heroic measures” does not automatically apply to condemned criminals.
Barbaric.
"I don't believe Achilles literally thought a prison officer could just legally whip out a pistol and fire a coup de grace. "
I believe that is exactly what Achilles thinks. He often advocates public executions and forcing sixth graders to witness them.
I really don't know why they don't just use Carbon Monoxide. It's painless. There's no struggle. The subject just goes to sleep.
On December 3, 2026, Nidal Hasan will be executed by firing squad.
When a baby survives an abortion, they have no problem throwing it in a garbage bin and letting it die of exposure.
My solution:
Give the condemned their last meal.
Place them in a room with sleeping pills, morphine, fentanyl, a bathtub, razor blades, and a toaster, a rope and a sturdy attachment point, etc.
Lock the door. Wait a month. The execution will be as humane or inhumane as the condemned desires.
Freder Frederson said...
"I don't believe Achilles literally thought a prison officer could just legally whip out a pistol and fire a coup de grace. "
I believe that is exactly what Achilles thinks. He often advocates public executions and forcing sixth graders to witness them.
You have to believe it because you are too stupid to engage with the point I actually made.
Just like Ann you people are morally juvenile and don’t belong in serious conversations.
This woman tortured her victim and kept trophies. We cannot hang her or shoot her because of morally retarded and juvenile voters who want to confuse the issue with their stupid thoughts because they are insecure about their obvious shortcomings.
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