Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Our "civilized" society

Oh, good plan.
On Thursday, the state of Ohio is scheduled to inject Dennis McGuire, 53, with two drugs: first, the sedative midazolam; then, the painkiller hydromorphone. When it is over, McGuire, who was convicted of the 1989 rape and murder of Joy Stewart, will be dead – which is Ohio’s goal. But the procedure is untried and untested; the drugs that the state will employ have never been used in a death chamber. And experts have warned in legal proceedings that if the process goes wrong, McGuire will not just peacefully drift away, but will be awake, struggling and failing to pull enough air into his lungs, until the drug overdose that will kill him takes hold.
Mr. McGuire, of course, is obviously a horrible human being, so naturally few people will care -- who is cared for less in this country than people on death row? (sadly you could probably still make a list). "Experimenting" with ways to kill people has an awful Josef Mengele quality to it. If this doesn't work, maybe we'll next try the Kim Jong Un method. [cross-posted at Firedoglake]

5 comments:

StonyPillow said...


As the painkiller is causing a heart attack, there may be involuntary seizures which would be aesthetically unpleasing. Hence the sedative.

Such a puzzle. The Fox Nation would restore public hangings. Maybe this hint of the possibility of pain is enough to satisfy their hunger. For now.

Anonymous said...

It never ceases to amaze me -- and not in a good way -- as to the number of people who claim to be Christian, or otherwise religious, but who have all the scruples of a lynch mob when it comes to the death penalty.

Even my right-wing/career military/pro death penalty dad once told me he couldn't understand the people who were mad that "lethal injection didn't make them suffer enough."

My own .000002 cents, but it seems to me that death penalty advocates claim they only want to execute "the worst of the worst," but that pretty rapidly devolves down to "anyone we can kill," which makes them...not real different from the condemned...

kingweasil said...

as yet, are there any political advocates for distant planet penal colonies?

Anonymous said...

Henry the VIII BABY!

Anonymous said...

And the execution went just as horribly wrong as expected - 13 minutes of torture as he gasped for breath.