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 Grey Templar wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Why don't they just shoot them in the head anyway? Isn't it a lot cheaper and efficient?

Even that doesn't guarantee death.

Use a 12 gauge shotgun with a deer slug at point blank range to the base of the skull.

Obliterates the central brain stem, instantaneous, and not going to fail.

And like anything purely mechanical we could automate it so nobody actually has to pull the trigger.

Alternately, we take a page out of Kim Jong Un's playbook and use high explosives.


There are plenty of simple and effective ways of killing someone without needing a PhD in organic chemistry and increasingly difficult to acquire chemicals.

A big knife will do the trick. Just some blood to clean up then. if you don't want to handle the blade, get an automated arm to stab the brainstem.

Lightening rod, nature lightening, and steel hand cuffs

You could even give the guilty party some common anesthetic to put them to sleep so they for sure don't feel a thing.

Case of beer of their choice

 Grey Templar wrote:
You could even give the guilty party some common anesthetic to put them to sleep so they for sure don't feel a thing.

Why would one want to? Why should one? Frankly, if a person commits a crime worthy of the death penalty, they deserve everything that happens to them. Pain, no pain, as long as they die for their crimes.

 Deadshot wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
You could even give the guilty party some common anesthetic to put them to sleep so they for sure don't feel a thing.

Why would one want to? Why should one? Frankly, if a person commits a crime worthy of the death penalty, they deserve everything that happens to them. Pain, no pain, as long as they die for their crimes.

I personally don't care if they suffer, and would be glad of saving the taxpayers expense of an Anesthesiologist, but if the whackos who want it to be "humane" demand it I'm willing to compromise.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
You could even give the guilty party some common anesthetic to put them to sleep so they for sure don't feel a thing.

Why would one want to? Why should one? Frankly, if a person commits a crime worthy of the death penalty, they deserve everything that happens to them. Pain, no pain, as long as they die for their crimes.

I personally don't care if they suffer, and would be glad of saving the taxpayers expense of an Anesthesiologist, but if the whackos who want it to be "humane" demand it I'm willing to compromise.

By "whackos", I presume you mean the founding fathers who put a prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment into our country's constitution?

 Ouze wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
You could even give the guilty party some common anesthetic to put them to sleep so they for sure don't feel a thing.

Why would one want to? Why should one? Frankly, if a person commits a crime worthy of the death penalty, they deserve everything that happens to them. Pain, no pain, as long as they die for their crimes.

I personally don't care if they suffer, and would be glad of saving the taxpayers expense of an Anesthesiologist, but if the whackos who want it to be "humane" demand it I'm willing to compromise.

By "whackos", I presume you mean the founding fathers who put a prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment into our country's constitution?

Let me ask you a hypothetical. Your 11 year old daughter was kidnapped, raped and savagely beaten within an inch of her life and then left to die, which she later did in hospital after 6 hours of agonising pain that morphine didn't help at all with. And I pray that this remains a hypothetical and no one ever suffers such a thing. But say it happened. The guy who kidnapped her is caught. There is a tape the sick fether made of it, he confesses it with a smile on his face. The...DNA, to be civil.. on your daughter is an exact match for him. There are 2 witnesses that can describe in detail how he beat your daughter while police were on the way. He is 100% guilty and proud of it, no doubt.

Which punishment would YOU give him?

1- Painless death by injection? Costing lots of taxpayers money.
Chainsaw in the rectum? Costing a gallon of gasoline to run it and a favour from your mate Barney to lend you the chainsaw, who waves it off, happy the bastard gets what he deserves?

One of the reasons that we have the rule of law in my country is specifically because people who are highly emotional sometimes do not make good decisions.

That's why cases are styled "The people vs x", and not "Me vs Hypothetical Guy". In the former, it's society's justice, in the latter, it's vigilante justice.

They should knock them out, and the drain them of blood

Johnnytorrance wrote:
They should knock them out, and the drain them of blood

Wow...uhh...I don't think this is True Blood or anything remotely close to that sort of reality.

Though I did hear a judge quipped about bringing back firing squads.

 WarOne wrote:

Johnnytorrance wrote:
They should knock them out, and the drain them of blood

Wow...uhh...I don't think this is True Blood or anything remotely close to that sort of reality.

Nah man... It's more like a weird, Kosher Soylent Green

 WarOne wrote:

Johnnytorrance wrote:
They should knock them out, and the drain them of blood

Wow...uhh...I don't think this is True Blood or anything remotely close to that sort of reality.

Though I did hear a judge quipped about bringing back firing squads.

I find this extremely funny

 Ouze wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
You could even give the guilty party some common anesthetic to put them to sleep so they for sure don't feel a thing.

Why would one want to? Why should one? Frankly, if a person commits a crime worthy of the death penalty, they deserve everything that happens to them. Pain, no pain, as long as they die for their crimes.

I personally don't care if they suffer, and would be glad of saving the taxpayers expense of an Anesthesiologist, but if the whackos who want it to be "humane" demand it I'm willing to compromise.

By "whackos", I presume you mean the founding fathers who put a prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment into our country's constitution?

Do note the "and" in that clarification.

A punishment could be either Cruel or Unusual. The law simply says it cannot be both.

Lethal injection isn't unusual, so thus it is allowed to be cruel per the letter of the law.

Likewise, if you found an "unusual" method of punishment it cannot also be "cruel".

Whoa. Hanging is allowed in the states of Washington and New Hampshire

I knew it was still on the books in a few places, like the Firing squad and Electric chair, as a backup to lethal injection.

Likely just because nobody bothered to get rid of it.

 Grey Templar wrote:
A punishment could be either Cruel or Unusual. The law simply says it cannot be both..

This is the second time you've expressed this opinion, but it was inaccurate then, and it's inaccurate now. The idea that it must be both is an interpretation of the constitution that does not match any jurisprudence known to me. There is no shortage of rulings overturned by the Supreme Court on the basis of being cruel or unusual, but not both.

For example, Harmelin v. Michigan ruled that a lifetime sentence for drug posession was unconstitutionally cruel, but lifetime setences are not unusual, and in Booth vs Maryland, it was ruled that allowing a victim impact statement in a capital case was unconstitutional because it would unusually prejudice the jury, but it's hardly cruel. And so on, and so forth.

How about in cases of unusually cruel or cruelly unusual?

 Deadshot wrote:
Which punishment would YOU give him?

1- Painless death by injection? Costing lots of taxpayers money.
Chainsaw in the rectum? Costing a gallon of gasoline to run it and a favour from your mate Barney to lend you the chainsaw, who waves it off, happy the bastard gets what he deserves?

Well considering that the latter would be murder, and would likely cause you to be arrested and locked up, costing the taxpayers money for your subsequent trial and sentencing, as well as the gallon of gasoline, and Barney's prosecution as an accomplice; I would go for the former. Obviously you're asking for the emotional reaction to your hypothetical, but as Ouze says, there's a reason that the parents of the deceased aren't put on the jury for the trial of their child's alleged murderer.

There's also the fact that the point of not using inhumane punishments is that we as a society are supposed to be better than that. To do as they do lowers ourselves to their level, and makes us no better than them.

And finally there's the fact that as d-usa has pointed out; the rate of wrongful conviction is greater than the rate of re-offence. If you were wrongfully convicted of someone's murder, you'd probably feel a hell of a lot worse about your situation knowing that as well as the fact that you were about to be wrongfully executed, they were going to be doing it through the application of a chainsaw to your rectum rather than you going painlessly.

This been posted yet?






The way of the future.

 Ouze wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
A punishment could be either Cruel or Unusual. The law simply says it cannot be both..

This is the second time you've expressed this opinion, but it was inaccurate then, and it's inaccurate now. The idea that it must be both is an interpretation of the constitution that does not match any jurisprudence known to me. There is no shortage of rulings overturned by the Supreme Court on the basis of being cruel or unusual, but not both.

For example, Harmelin v. Michigan ruled that a lifetime sentence for drug posession was unconstitutionally cruel, but lifetime setences are not unusual, and in Booth vs Maryland, it was ruled that allowing a victim impact statement in a capital case was unconstitutional because it would unusually prejudice the jury, but it's hardly cruel. And so on, and so forth.

By any reasonable definition, a life sentence for simple possession is unusually excessive(thus it fits the definition for both cruel and unusual)

An unusual application of a sentence counts as unusual.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
A punishment could be either Cruel or Unusual. The law simply says it cannot be both..

This is the second time you've expressed this opinion, but it was inaccurate then, and it's inaccurate now. The idea that it must be both is an interpretation of the constitution that does not match any jurisprudence known to me. There is no shortage of rulings overturned by the Supreme Court on the basis of being cruel or unusual, but not both.

For example, Harmelin v. Michigan ruled that a lifetime sentence for drug posession was unconstitutionally cruel, but lifetime setences are not unusual, and in Booth vs Maryland, it was ruled that allowing a victim impact statement in a capital case was unconstitutional because it would unusually prejudice the jury, but it's hardly cruel. And so on, and so forth.

By any reasonable definition, a life sentence for simple possession is unusually excessive(thus it fits the definition for both cruel and unusual)

An unusual application of a sentence counts as unusual.

But not cruel; or else we couldn't lawfully imprison anyone. To reiterate, punishment doesn't have to be cruel AND unusual to be unconstitutional. Either would be unlawful.

 Ouze wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
A punishment could be either Cruel or Unusual. The law simply says it cannot be both..

This is the second time you've expressed this opinion, but it was inaccurate then, and it's inaccurate now. The idea that it must be both is an interpretation of the constitution that does not match any jurisprudence known to me. There is no shortage of rulings overturned by the Supreme Court on the basis of being cruel or unusual, but not both.

For example, Harmelin v. Michigan ruled that a lifetime sentence for drug posession was unconstitutionally cruel, but lifetime setences are not unusual, and in Booth vs Maryland, it was ruled that allowing a victim impact statement in a capital case was unconstitutional because it would unusually prejudice the jury, but it's hardly cruel. And so on, and so forth.

By any reasonable definition, a life sentence for simple possession is unusually excessive(thus it fits the definition for both cruel and unusual)

An unusual application of a sentence counts as unusual.

But not cruel; or else we couldn't lawfully imprison anyone. To reiterate, punishment doesn't have to be cruel AND unusual to be unconstitutional. Either would be unlawful.

Considering the state of most private prisons nowadays, I'm pretty sure most would apply to both regardless.

Interestingly, I found a case while I was googling where an extrajudicial beating that the guards threw some prisoner was considered to be an 8th amendment violation. I mean, obviously guards shouldn't be allowed to just beat on prisoners, but I would have thought that amendment applied solely to actual punishments in the sense that they were handed down through the judicial system (this was Scalia's dissent, and I agree).