Tennessee Fucks Up

[bilby]

I think there should be a Constitutional amendment that after an execution attempt by authorities, the victim goes free.

That's not going to have any effect, since the victim is already dead.

Not necessarily; Murder is not the only capital crime.

Though I would not expect the victim to be incarcerated under many legal systems, regardless of the disposition of the perpetrator.

 

[Derec]

Usually true, but not in the case of Ms Pike.

Her victim has been dead since 1995.

 

[Derec]

Black people are about 7½ times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder in the U.S. than are whites,

Is this adjusted for crime rates or just based on overall population? Black murder rates are 5-6x higher than for whites, so it is expected that on a population level there will be a similarly higher rate of wrongful convictions too.

 

[laughing dog]

Usually true, but not in the case of Ms Pike.

Her victim has been dead since 1995.

So? Ms Pike is the victim of a botched execution.

 

[Bomb#20]

I think there should be a Constitutional amendment that after an execution attempt by authorities, the victim goes free.

That's not going to have any effect, since the victim is already dead.

Not necessarily; Murder is not the only capital crime.

Theoretically. Nobody on death row in the US is there for anything but murder, and nobody's been executed for anything but murder since 1964.

Though I would not expect the victim to be incarcerated under many legal systems, regardless of the disposition of the perpetrator.

Actually people in prison are more than twice as likely to be murdered in the US as the non-incarcerated.

 

[SLD]

You are much better at killing others with guns than with any other method or implement.

Maybe if we used a firing squad or public hanging people would feel differently about capital punishment.

With a firing squad perhaps they would get it right the 1st time?

Minor aside, because I find it interesting. In a firing squad, it's multiple guys with rifles but only one real bullet - the rest are blanks. It allows for the execution of the condemned without any of the men on the firing squad taking on the burden of knowing they killed someone. There's a possibility that any of them could have been the one with the lethal shot, but a higher possibility that each was not. It allows the assumed guilt to be mitigated somewhat.

No. There’s only one blank. And you can tell it’s a blank from the lack of recoil.

 

[SLD]

IMHO, we are long past the time when we should pretend that the death penalty is civilized and effective

Depends on whether you think the death penalty is intended as a punishment for the condemned, or as a service that removes a dangerous predator from society. We don't generally think it's uncivilized and ineffective to kill a tiger or a bear or any other large predator (or moose, AK) that has been injuring and killing people or livestock. It's not done to punish the predator, but to protect the rest.

Retributive justice is not unconstitutional. I doubt there’s any modern studies that show it deters. It’s the risk of getting caught mostly that acts as a deterrent. But getting your just desserts, well, That’s OK too. I doubt prison sentence deters theft either. But you deserve to rot and maybe die if you take a young girl’s life as Pike did. She tortured her and beat her to death. I don’t have much sympathy for her. In fact, she’s a fucking bitch.

Maybe we should go back to the Tuesday after the two Sundays rule the British had. You got two Sundays to pray after your trial or appeal, then Tuesday morning was necktie party.

 

[RVonse]

I think there should be a Constitutional amendment that after an execution attempt by authorities, the victim goes free.

Umm... I'm not really sold on turning the serial killer loose if the executioner fucks up. Seems kind of reckless and negligent to me.

Sorta like botching an execution. If the state cannot get executions right on one try, then maybe the state shouldn’t be executing people.

Well they probably shouldn't be using lethal injection to do it anyway. Or perhaps Tennessee should find a Canadian doctor to do the lethal execution since they do it all the time for ending the life of a patient in Canada. Our problem in the US is that our ethical doctors having the skill set to find a vein can not be hired because most of them follow the Hippocratic oath "doing no harm". That leaves unqualified people to do the act who are far from perfect at what they do.

 

[southernhybrid]

Black people are about 7½ times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder in the U.S. than are whites,

Is this adjusted for crime rates or just based on overall population? Black murder rates are 5-6x higher than for whites, so it is expected that on a population level there will be a similarly higher rate of wrongful convictions too.

No surprise you would make such a comment. Perhaps you should read more of the info in the link I posted it to show how unfairly the black men have been treated. This is about racism, and anyone who denies it has obviously racist tendencies.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/report...-whites-risk-even-greater-if-victim-was-white

The Registry’s review of murder exoneration data found that innocent Black defendants were also more likely to be more harshly punished than innocent white defendants. Among murder exonerees who were not sentenced to death or life imprisonment, Black defendants were sentenced to an average prison term of 35 years. White murder exonerees who were not sentenced to death or life imprisonment were sentenced to an average term of 28 years in prison.

The report also found a “pattern of harsh sentencing for murder convictions with white victims and lighter sentencing for those with Black victims.” This pattern, the Registry found, “is not restricted to death sentences. If they avoid the death penalty, innocent murder defendants in white-victim cases are also more likely to be sentenced to life in prison than those charged with killing Black victims.”

Black people wrongfully convicted of murder also spent longer in prisoner before being exonerated than their white counterparts. Of the 75 innocent death-row defendants who spent 30 years or longer in prison before being exonerated, 67% are Black. “The racial pattern is similar for all murder exonerees, regardless of sentence,” the report notes. “Of the 181 exonerees who spent 25 years or longer in prison before release, 68% are Black; among the ten who lost 40 or more years to prison, it’s 80%.”

Official misconduct was rampant in wrongful murder convictions, and here too Black defendants disproportionally bore the brunt. The report found that “official misconduct is considerably higher among murder exonerations with Black defendants than those with white defendants, 78% (500/638) compared to 64% (236/369).” The overall rate of misconduct was higher in capital cases: 78% as opposed to 73% in non-capital murder convictions. Here, too, there were significant racial disparities: “85% (63/74) of Black exonerees who were sentenced to death were victims of official misconduct, compared to 70% (32/46) of white death-row exonerees,” the researchers found.

The report contained a somber warning about cases in which innocence has remained undetected or, if brought to the court’s attention has been left uncorrected. “Most innocent defendants who are convicted of crimes are not exonerated,” the Registry reported. “Judging from the rate of false conviction among death sentences,… several thousand defendants have been falsely convicted of murder in America in the past 40 years …, more than half of them were Black.”

 

[ideologyhunter]

Maybe we should go back to the Tuesday after the two Sundays rule the British had. You got two Sundays to pray after your trial or appeal, then Tuesday morning was necktie party.

This wouldn't be popular in the UK. Those with long memories remember when Timothy Evans was hanged for murders committed by John Christie.

 

[SLD]

Maybe we should go back to the Tuesday after the two Sundays rule the British had. You got two Sundays to pray after your trial or appeal, then Tuesday morning was necktie party.

This wouldn't be popular in the UK. Those with long memories remember when Timothy Evans was hanged for murders committed by John Christie.

I do at least agree with automatic appeals. Interestingly, Christie’s final words were My nose itches.” Pierrepoint replied, “It won’t bother you for long.”

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Black people are about 7½ times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder in the U.S. than are whites,

Is this adjusted for crime rates or just based on overall population? Black murder rates are 5-6x higher than for whites, so it is expected that on a population level there will be a similarly higher rate of wrongful convictions too.

As a note, killing a white woman (regardless of who does it) leads to a much much higher chance of getting the death penalty. That isn't equal protection under the law. People should be punished, in general, the same as any other for the same type of crime. That is what the Constitution requires, and it is what our judicial system fails in providing.

This is really the number one reason to limit the death penalty to the most extreme of cases.

 

[scombrid]

I think there should be a Constitutional amendment that after an execution attempt by authorities, the victim goes free.

Umm... I'm not really sold on turning the serial killer loose if the executioner fucks up. Seems kind of reckless and negligent to me.

I agree with you here Laughing Dog goes too far. Although for the most part I also agree with those who want to abolish the death penalty. And just being against the death penalty does not or should not mean you are for murder or other bad capital type of crimes.

Abolishing the death penalty makes sense strictly by reviewing the probabilities. Because escape from prison is a much lower probability than our legal system making a bad verdict. It is also better to protect the innocent even if that means some guilty people go free. Then there is the paradox that Tennessee finds itself in today. Attempting to save the life of a botched executing so that they will try to execute her again. It is almost as though the government wants to waste tax payer money.

The libertarian view of punishment that makes the most sense to me. Forget about payment to society, punish the guilty by making them restore the victim and or their families. And if they don't want to pay or can't pay, then they have to sell off a kidney or part of their liver. Turns out that a good organ is worth a lot of money. That is still better than killing them (like we do today) and it gives the victim more justice IMO.

I was kind of with you until you asserted that forcing someone to sell a vital organ was the libertarian way.

I oppose the death penalty on the grounds that the government, we the people, cannot be trusted with that power, trusted to never execute an innocent person either by error, negligence, or malice. So I’m good with the logic that the only way to avoid killing g innocents is to not have the government be in the business of killing.

But forcing the selling of body parts as reparation? Libertarian? Come on.

 

[Bomb#20]

As a note, killing a white woman (regardless of who does it) leads to a much much higher chance of getting the death penalty. That isn't equal protection under the law. People should be punished, in general, the same as any other for the same type of crime. That is what the Constitution requires, and it is what our judicial system fails in providing.

This is really the number one reason to limit the death penalty to the most extreme of cases.

Not arguing for the death penalty here -- I'm against it -- but there's an obvious likely confounder in your argument: women are vastly less likely to be criminals than men are. Does your statistic remain when cases where the victim was another criminal are excluded from the data set? It's entirely to be expected for a legal system to treat killing other criminals as a less heinous offense than killing innocent people. It's the same reason the main argument against the death penalty is the possibility of executing the innocent.

 

[Tigers!]

As to the actual thread topic, if she has major brain damage, impending organ failure or needs hospice, just give her her freedom at that point. Her life is gone and she is not a danger to society under those or similar scenarios. She committed a murder when she was 18, some 32 years ago. What point is there to punish her more than taking the functionality from her life after 30+ years of prison?

And i remind myself that her victim had her life forcibly removed from her 30+ years ago. She never got to live more.

 

[Tigers!]

Live Updates: Christa Pike in Critical Condition After Botched Tennessee Execution

The inmate, Christa Pike, is “alive right now” after surviving an attempt to execute her by lethal injection, her lawyer said. He called on Gov. Bill Lee to reduce her sentence to life in prison.

www.nytimes.com

This is a major fuck up of an execution. Utterly botched. She survived two doses of Pentobarbital, probably because the IV team couldn’t find a vein and the drugs just went into her tissue. This is a first. Other executions have been botched but they0 never got this far. Enough was absorbed to make it painful and she passed out, but not enough to kill her. So she’s rushed to a hospital where doctors are still trying to save her. The gov has suspended all further executions pending a thorough review. But he has said nothing about sparing her a second time. They might try again soon enough.

On an aside, I note that her spiritual advisor was Buddhist. I wonder if she had professed Jesus the governor would have pardoned her.

Have you Yanks not learned yet?
You are much better at killing others with guns than with any other method or implement.

Gunfights don't tend to kill instantly either, let alone painlessly.

Except we are not talking about a gunfight here.

 

[Tigers!]

I’m skeptical. Seems to me that Albert Pierrepoint is the only competent executioner. Quick and easy. His tables could easily be done. If we’re going to kill these folks, just follow his method. Executions were set for 8:00 a.m. By 8:01, you were at the pearly gates.

If you required being executed you probably weren’t headed to the pearly gates.

*checks notebook*

Umm... this is a disputed claim.

Yep. IIRC, all you have to do is accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior on your death bed (or chair) and you can walk through those pearly gates.

Then wouldn’t it be wrong to execute a saved person who is worthy of heaven?

Why?
They are executed for what they did in the past not whether they are worthy of heaven.

 

[Tigers!]

Medical professionals are prohibited from participating. But I wonder if a retired phlebotomist might be willing to do the job if paid enough. Might get a retired nurse too, or even a retired anesthesiologist. Not sure if that would work. But there’s bound to be some in the state that think it’s a good idea to execute murderers. I also don’t understand why the states that have the death penalty don’t have an organization to both manufacture and with trained personnel administer the lethal cocktails.

Hire a junkie, they don't miss.

But that would be unclean, and might risk an infection...

Heaven forbid

 

[Tigers!]

IMHO, we are long past the time when we should pretend that the death penalty is civilized and effective

Depends on whether you think the death penalty is intended as a punishment for the condemned, or as a service that removes a dangerous predator from society.

Tex Watson, Gary Ridgeway, and Dennis Rader are just three heartless murderers who we've locked away for good. The thing about life without parole is that we will leave open the possibility that a convicted murderer is innocent.

Or a fool will release the criminal and they will go out and do it again.

 

[Tigers!]

Have you Yanks not learned yet?
You are much better at killing others with guns than with any other method or implement.

Maybe if we used a firing squad or public hanging people would feel differently about capital punishment.

With a firing squad perhaps they would get it right the 1st time?

Don't count on it.

"Mikal Deen Mahdi[a] (March 20, 1983 – April 11, 2025) was an American convicted spree killer who was executed for the murder of a police officer in South Carolina. Over a period of three days in July 2004, Mahdi, then a resident of Virginia, went on a multistate crime spree, committing carjacking, firearm robbery, and three murders ...​

​

An autopsy of Mahdi’s body revealed that of the three shots fired, only two impacted him, and neither of them hit his heart. Medical experts said that this is why Mahdi screamed when he was shot, and why he remained conscious for over a minute afterward. ..."​

Mikal Mahdi - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I wonder how long his 3 victims remained conscious after his attacks?