Sunday, December 10, 2017

States seeking new methods for capital punishment

Details here.

This is just idiotic. I'm not a big fan of capital punishment but our obsession with finding new and more scientific ways of killing people has gotten out of hand. Lethal injection is simply barbarous. Any method of execution that can take hours should be dismissed out of hand. If your going to have capital punishment, then just do it and don't be so damned squeamish. Low tech works surprisingly well. A bullet to the back of the head is pretty definitive, and cheap. If you feel the need for something more cutting edge, the French method is also fairly fast and decisive. It might be a tad disturbing to witnesses, but hey they are signing up to see someone killed. Hell, even hanging works surprisingly well. The only reason it got a bad rep here in the US is because we have never had a trained professional class of executioners. Hanging requires some skill and training. But the British had it down to a science. Generally their executions were over within a minute of the hangman entering the condemned man's cell. (The gallows was secretly right next door, literally only steps away.)

2 comments:

Patrick Sheridan said...

Hanging is certainly the most humane method. Lethal injection strikes me as a cruel and unusual punishment.

Fr Anthony said...

If we have to have capital punishment, long-drop hanging British style is the most humane. The essential is to have the right length of drop depending on the inmate's weight and estimated strength of his neck muscles. The German guillotine (Fallbeil) is transportable and very reliable. If you're worried about the man who has to do the job, the firing squad seems the best, since American policement and prison officers know how to shoot and would have little compunction in being in a firing squad. Alternative? Some kind of Devil's Island, perhaps...