By Carey GillamThu Jul 27, 8:23 AM ET
As the mother of a convicted murderer, Linda Taylor feels the nationwide debate over the death penalty in both her conscience and her heart.
Less than six months ago, the Kansas City grandmother sat outside a prison cell and said good-bye to her 39-year-old son Michael, prepared to see him put to death with a dose of lethal drugs in Missouri's execution chamber.
"That was the worst time in our family's life. Waiting, praying," said Taylor. "The crime he did was horrendous. But why do we kill people ... to show that killing people is wrong?."
Boo-Hoo, you raised a murderer. No we don't have a death penalty to be an example to others, as most murderers and offenders of crimes that carry the death penalty are pathologic anyway. It won't deter them in the slightest seeing others play the leading role in "Dead Man Walking". Executions is this country are for the purpose of protecting society from people like your son from EVER EVER doing it again. The recidivism rate for executed offenders remains at a very satisfying "0". In other words the penal system is based on a simple concept. Criminals that have been convicted of crimes are incarcerated under less than pleasant conditions in the hopes that being divorced from free society will permit them to examine their behavior and return to society with a lesson learned- Don't break the Rules. The death penalty is reserved for :
1) Those crimes decided by society that irrevocably prohibit the offender from correcting his behavior, i.e. Mortal Sin in the civil arena.
2) Society protecting itself from pathological behavior
The offender that commits a capital offense is only mariginally less a hazard to society inside the penal system. He (or she) by definition can not be reformed and presents an ongoing and permanent hazard to his fellow inmates, corrections staff, clergy and medical personnel working in the system. Should the person ever escape the system he/she will again be at large in open society and revert to the same behavior.
A late reprieve spared Michael Taylor, who pleaded guilty to the 1989 rape and murder of a Kansas City school girl, and he remains alive on the state's death row.
In isolation at cost to the taxpayers and STILL an immediate hazard to his fellow man.
And though initially it seemed only a technical delay, all executions in Missouri are now blocked because of evidence that state executioners might be inadvertently causing inmates to feel undue pain when they are killed.
Moral equivocation at it's worst. This reversal of roles with the criminal now being presented as a victim has worn out with the public. What about the victim? What would Jessica Lunsford say about this, if she were able to tell us? Do you think the filthy scumbag that murdered her after repeatedly abusing her cared about her pain? No he enjoyed it thoroughly and he had his fun and brutally killed a child. How dare you posit that society as a whole is concerned about whether it hurts the criminal? Personally I would choose a method that causes the convict to experience at LEAST equal pain as that he caused to his victim with BONUS pain for their families still living remembering that FOREVER. I have personally seen what evil incarnate hiding behind an outward shell of humanity is capable of doing to humans. You wouldn't like it, the nightmares come back again and again, TRUST me and the additional assault on your own humanity having to notify next-of-kin.
The revelations are contributing to a broad reexamination of the death penalty across the country. Indeed, a series of recent court rulings in several states, along with new concerns raised by doctors and lawyers about lethal injection -- the most-used method of execution in the United States -- has raised the debate to a new intensity.
Given the developments, some legal scholars speculate that the Supreme Court may ultimately reimpose a moratorium on capital punishment as it did in 1972. That ended in 1976 and currently 38 states have death penalty statutes on the books.
"Some legal scholars" Unamed sources to puff up your argument with "speculation" about the Supreme court made up out of whole cloth. Don't mistake the shrillness of a few nut-jobs for intensity of the debate (by implication large numbers of debatees). We get your real motivation, that you are losing control of the activist bench. You showed us your cards with that seemngly innocuous statement. Why would anyone say hey "The courts should make a law"? Doesn't our government provide a representative form of doing that, you know through legislation, not by Writ of Certiorari. Liberals once again prove they really do know they can't get their ideas shoved down our throats EXCEPT by an activist court system perverting the will of We the People.
"We're in the middle of a slugfest," said New York University of Law School professor and capital punishment proponent Robert Blecker.
Simpy amazing, an actual professor that has rational thoughts, as opposed to selected quotes from the Communist Manifesto or Chairman Mao's Little Red Book.
TIDE TURNING?
Recent polls show a majority of Americans, about 65 percent, support capital punishment, a level relatively unchanged over the last few years, but significantly lower than the 80 percent support level in the mid-1990s.
Americans are increasingly favoring life without parole for murderers, polls are showing, and the number of people sentenced to death has dropped 55 percent from 1999.
"Sentiments are changing," said Death Penalty Information Center director Richard Dieter. "The evidence is very strong."
Polls are based on statistics. Their accuracy is directly in proportion to many factors, all of which can be manipulated to achieve their desired results. Simply put, you can show me polls by the gazillions. I'm not buying your argument that polls should be a basis of governing. We've tried it that with the predictable results, again and again. "Clinton Happens"
Death Penalty Information Center- Go take a look here, play find Waldo while you're at it and see exactly where they are coming from. It won't take long.
Professional mourners right out of the dark ages, getting paid to be sooo concerned for the victims, except the victim in their context is the perpetrator. Is it possible that Mr. Dieter is more concerned with hyping the alleged "intensity of debate" and "sentiments are changing" out of concern for his own enrichment, than true justice?
The advent of DNA testing that has proven innocent people have been wrongly convicted, along with evidence of inconsistent applications of the death penalty, are chief among the factors leading to fewer executions, according to Dieter.
DNA testing has equally provided prima facie evidence of guilt as well. That blade cuts both ways now doesn't it? Inconsistencies exist in the application of the death penalty as it's use is determined by the individual states as it should be. Lookup the term: Federalist....here's a hint it doesn't mean what you think it does.
But concerns about lethal injection are further feeding those doubts and forcing people who have considered lethal injection as an ethical, pain-free method of execution to evaluate anew how far public punishment should go.
The issue rose to the forefront last year when a British medical journal published research showing dozens of U.S. inmates had been given anesthetic at lower levels than required for surgery and that guidelines in several states were flawed. Without proper anesthesia, potassium chloride administered to stop the heart can cause excruciating pain.
"Concerns" by who? Directors of Death Penalty Information Centers or the families and friends of the real victims. KCl does indeeed burn, but it's just a preview of the heat they will feel a few seconds afterwards and that excruciating pain is for eternity. Why should anyone with a minimal sense of humanity CARE what the animals feel before they are sent off to the just rewards?
The inmates could have been unable to show their suffering, the study found, because of the paralyzing effect of another of the drugs commonly used in lethal injection executions, which typically take two to five minutes to kill the inmate.
"Some people (have been persuaded) that what appears to be a very painless death is as gruesome as the electric chair or the gas chamber," said David R. Dow, professor at the University of Houston Law Center.
Tahh Dahhh...Drag out a professor from the other side of the aisle, how convenient? One question though, wouldn't that statement be more credible coming from a professor of medicine?
COURT CONCERNS
There you go again, if your argument was valid it might say something like " (fill in the blank) State referendum Bans Capital Punishment" More scary hyperbole.
Lawyers for death row inmates are increasingly using the concerns about pain to argue that lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Such appeals have delayed executions in several states, including Arkansas, California and Florida.
And said lawyers are increasingly see their profits go up by litigating on prevaricating pollsters and law professors validating their phony arguments. The constitution doesn't ban cruel and unusual punishment. It's in the Bill of Rights, and taken out of context conveniently finding it's way into discourse. If the Constitutional Bill of Rights banned the death penalty as a form of inflicting cruel and unusual punishment, why does violations of certain Federal Statues expose guilty parties to the death penalty?
Timothy McVeigh could not be reached for comment.
The fears gained further standing when the U.S. Supreme Court on June 12 said death row inmates could challenge the constitutionality of lethal injection as a civil rights violation.
Whose fears? Or is that a new and improved form of citizen "The Fears Clan"....unsourced scary words...again......we've already ruled out the Supremes until a few more retirements take place. Nonetheless, careful parsing of the ruling is in order. Some of us can actually read WITH comprehension you know. The court ruled that challenges could be made on basis of civil rights. This being said the court could also rule that pigs could challenge barbecue pits on the basis of civil rights too. It's not a imprimatur that said challenges would be upheld.
Earlier this month, lethal injection fears led Virginia to use an electric chair to execute 27-year-old Brandon Hedrick because Hedrick feared injection might be a more painful way to die, according to his attorney.
As he cried about how to pay his country club fees next year, since his former attorney-client relationship came to an abrupt end.
Back in Missouri, U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan has ordered the state department of corrections to make a series of improvements to its execution protocol, including employing a board-certified anesthesiologist to ensure that the drugs used in lethal injections were properly prepared.
The action came after the doctor who had been overseeing Missouri executions admitted he was dyslexic, often mixing up numbers, and after Taylor's attorneys discovered records showing doses of anesthesia were half what they should have been for some executions, including the dose that awaited Taylor.
Well you might have a point there...perhaps we should go the fall-back position- a very sudden stop at the end of a rope. You could get Eagle Scouts to tie the knots for you. Besides, the very clever (in his own mind) judge makes a ruling that appears on face value reasonable. Except for one little poison pill in his ruling- requiring a board certified physician to prepare or participate in the execution creates an connundrum called the Hippocratic Oath. Judge Fernando Pilate in a slick move pushed the argument into a different venue for somebody else to challenge from an alternate direction.
In response to the judge's order, Missouri has said it cannot find an anesthesiologist willing to participate and plans to appeal. The American Medical Association this month reminded doctors that it views participation in executions to be a violation of medical ethics.
Told you so....
"This is unprecedented. We've never had executions blocked to this extent," said Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Hauswirth.
And we've never had the small, screechy numbers of professional hand-wringers being fawned over by the media and adopted by the loony left. Terrorists or murderers now are guaranteed that somebody, somewhere will advocate for them regardless of their brutality or lack of basic humanity. Put panties on the head of the swine that hack peoples heads off- IT'S TORTURE- What about the people that actually hack the heads-off- THEY HAVE GRIEVANCES and the jooos make them do it.
Taylor and his family hope his execution will be permanently stayed. But for some, concerns about a painful death for convicted murderers remain irrelevant.
*Raising hand in favor of sentence #2* I am so inhumane. If you are so concerned about this stick your head back in the sand (or wherever it was, before you pulled it out to open your piehole) and let me take care of it. I'll supply the bullet, gladly. The maggots will perform the interrment pro bono.
"So they suffer a little pain," said Gladys Wimberley of Winchester, Mo., who says she will not support a politician who opposes the death penalty. "There are a lot of us out here who feel that way. If you commit anything as heinous as a murder, then you should die too."
Tip of the Hat to Gladys, you tell em' ma'am.LC JackBoot IC/A-OBR
*Thanks Buddy*
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