Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Capital Punishment in Ohio

CNN reports on the situation with Ohio's death penalty.
Ohio's governor granted temporary reprieves to two death row inmates just hours after a federal appeals court blocked the execution of one of them -- adding to the mounting confusion over the state's capital punishment system.

Earlier Monday, the state's attorney general's office asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Thursday's execution of Lawrence Reynolds Jr. to go forward as scheduled.

However, Gov. Ted Strickland announced he would delay Reynolds's execution until March, at the earliest. Another death row inmate, Darryl Durr, scheduled to be executed in coming weeks, also was granted a reprieve until at least April 2010.

The conflicting moves came after the botched execution attempt of Romell Broom last month, which raised serious questions about the state's lethal injection procedures.

"Additional time is needed to fully conduct a thorough and comprehensive review of an alternative or backup lethal injection protocol that is in accordance with Ohio law," Strickland said in his announcement.

That is complicated but at least the governor is showing some good sense. I guess no one's surprised that the State's Attorney General is trying to get executions carried out against Governor Strickland's wishes.

What do you think is the problem with the "lethal injection protocol?" I've never understood this one. I'd bet any street junkie could devise a system that works every time. Why can't the states?

Perhaps we need to add botched executions to the list of reasons to oppose capital punishment. The other major reasons seem to be the possibility of executing an innocent person, the exorbitant cost and the racial disparity.

For me the main reason has always been a desire to avoid the moral contradiction of telling the people "do not kill," and then killing them if they do. That's pre-meditated murder by the government.

Another thing that occurred to me is that Governor Strickland may be trying to move Ohio into the confederacy of enlightened states, states like New Jersey and California to name just two, places where the death penalty has been abolished either de jure or de facto. Then you have guys like the Attorney General who want to keep Ohio in that other group headed up by Texas. You know the one, it's got Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas and many others.

What's your opinion? Is Ohio progressing towards a better future? Would abolishing the death penalty be part of that progression?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

19 comments:

  1. California has the death penalty (lethal injection). They just haven't used it very much in recent years compared to other states.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Honestly I think we've thought too deeply about executions and instead created crueler beasts that we had attempted to exterminate.

    Things like firing squad and hanging are fantastically swift and humane when done properly, leaving little chance of a botch, and no pain and suffering to the convict.

    We need more humane executions, and they need to be carried out in a timely manner for the good of the people.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "For me the main reason has always been a desire to avoid the moral contradiction of telling the people "do not kill," and then killing them if they do. That's pre-meditated murder by the government."

    I find it truly amazing that a majority of the pro-life crowd is also pro-death penalty.

    Somehow, they 'justify' the killing by quoting some ancient Jewish text.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lumping Kansas in with Texas isn't really accurate. We haven't executed anyone since the 60s and we're not anywhere close now. Since reinstatement in 1994, not one death sentence has survived direct appeal. We have a relatively small row, too.

    Weer'd, if we really executed people as quickly as some suggest we should, we would be executing an awful lot of innocent people. Swift justice sounds great and all, but the reality of death penalty litigation is that getting the right result often takes a decade or more.

    ReplyDelete
  5. @mud_rake - I find it truly amazing that a majority of the pro-life crowd is also pro-death penalty.

    Yeah, I've never understood this logic.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "I find it truly amazing that a majority of the pro-life crowd is also pro-death penalty."

    Easy, we know there are different types of killing. I kill plants and animals to eat, I accidentally kill insects when I walk. I intentionally kill pest animals to protect my property.

    Killing animals and plants are distinguished when the animal is non-human.

    Now a police officer who kills an armed attacker, a soldier that kill on the battle field, a doctor who kills a patient though the challenge of an operation, vs. a Doctor who allows a patient who dies through negligence.

    We don't consider these the same as two gang members shooting each other in a turf war.

    neither do you.

    So quit being dishonest.

    ReplyDelete
  7. There are times where I think we should bring back drawing and quartering and public hangings in the town square.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I actually do find my position on capital punishment shifting from ambivalence to opposition.

    I do think hanging government officials for treason will always have its place, though.

    ReplyDelete
  9. SC has the death penalty.

    No rich person has ever received the death penalty in the USA. Until they do, everyone should be against it as unfair and unjust, regardless of how they feel about state-sanctioned executions.

    Richest man ever tried for murder was T Cullen Davis. Shot his 12-year-old stepdaughter at point-blank range and got off. I knew then, justice in the USA can be bought.

    (He also tried to order a hit on the judge, and was found not guilty--even though they had him ON TAPE ordering the hit.)

    ReplyDelete
  10. S., Thanks a lot for the heads up on Kansas. I will promptly move them into The Confederacy of the Enlightened. This is one of my newest theories, one I invented today. The Confederacy of the Enlightened, it has a certain ring to it, don't you think?

    ReplyDelete
  11. MikeB - I think your having a "Confederacy of the Enlightened" is a case of the blind leading the blind.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I wouldn't call Kansas enlightened, but we don't often get around to killing people. So there's one point for us.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I do think hanging government officials for treason will always have its place, though.

    We finally agree on something.

    ReplyDelete
  14. We finally agree on something.

    Aw, hell--you mean I'm going to have to change my mind ;-)?

    ReplyDelete
  15. When the humor of beowulf and phuckpolitics converges, we are surely upon the threshold of a new age. The age of Aquarius is not dead.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hey, Mikeb--here's a dilemma for you: where does a radical advocate of forcible citizen disarmament who is also strongly opposed to capital punishment come down on a law that would make possession of an "evil" AK-47 a hanging offense.

    According to the latest proposals contained in the National Policy on Small Arms and Light Weapons, no one will be allowed to own an AK-47 rifle, a G3 or “any automatic or semi-automatic self-loading military assault rifle of any other calibre”.

    Anyone found guilty of having one will be hanged.


    Sounds as if the people of Kenya need some firepower, along with the addresses of some government officials. Vote from the rooftops, freedom loving Kenyans.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Says Mikeb:

    What do you think is the problem with the "lethal injection protocol?" I've never understood this one. I'd bet any street junkie could devise a system that works every time. Why can't the states?

    I've never understood that, either. You'd think a massive Brompton Cocktail (in injectable form) would send them along to eternity with a smile on their faces. Hell, death row inmates, rather than appealing their sentences, might start petitioning the state to hurry the hell up.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hey Mud Rake if that was your mother that the piece of crap reynolds murdered you may feel different. He had no sympathy for a wonderful 67 yo women he brutalized. May he rot in hell. Srickland should be hung right next to him for making this family further suffer.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous, You're certainly right that it's easy for us to talk about it because the victim was not a loved one, but not everyone reacts the way you predict. There are even groups comprised of families of murder victims against the death penalty. What you're talking about is revenge, which in my opinion is the last reason for executing people.

    ReplyDelete