Discussion for article #225518
The right likes to throw around the word unconstitutional in the most absurd of circumstances (“You didn’t let my condemnation of gays go unchallenged and that’s an unconstitutional attack on my free speech!!”) demonstrating gross incompetence, but in cases where it’s ACTUALLY unconstitutional (like instances of cruel and unusual punishment which is explicitly unconstitutional) they are conspicuously silent.
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Thank you TPM for providing a picture of the killer sitting on a nice chair which she so clearly does not deserve. What? That’s the person killed by the Sates’s lawyer, never mind </snark but not really>
Please label photos with all tags necessary, not just a credit.
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Wouldn’t a reasonable person think that the ONE group that would stand up to the death penalty is “Pro-Life”? They need to change their name. Maybe Pro-Life for those that meet our standards.
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Speaking of ¨tinkering with the machinery of death¨…
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Harrowing transcript. It’s a sick business that puts a judge in a position of having to rule, on the fly and over the phone, about whether it’s better to stop the proceedings and attempt to revive a man who has been pumped full of poison so that the masochists of the state can start all over again.
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Can we play the frantic phone call of the mother and wife of the victims when she found out her baby and her husband were brutally murdered? Nope? Yeah, sorry, don’t give a damn that a killer died a horrible death. Karma’s a bitch.
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That’s a huge pet peeve of mine as well! I think they started including captions for like half a day a few weeks ago, but alas, it did not last long.
Given the time sensitive nature of things, by the time the judge was on the phone, too much time appears to have passed. I respect her effort, but the cow was out of the barn by that point.
If they weren’t sure if Wood had brain activity, they should have shown video of him to Bill Frist. He could have diagnosed it remotely.
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He was sentenced to death. He wasn’t sentenced to death and torture. Last time I checked we had a justice system and not a vengeance system.
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"Zick then said that a medical professional at the scene said that Wood had exhibited “an involuntary reaction or a snoring-type reaction,” but that he was unconscious.
“I am told that Mr. Wood is effectively brain dead and that this is the type of reaction that one gets if they were taken off of life support,” Zick said. “The brain stem is working but there’s no brain activity.”"
Just to let y’all know, as an MD, this is BS. This guy Zick was just blowing smoke. I doubt he was in pain - he was unconscious - but he was not “brain dead”, any more than any person unconscious under anesthesia is “brain dead”.
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This is literally the kind of life-death situation that requires all of the solomonic wisdom we hope and expect our supreme court justices to have. I think the press and the country should scrutinize the Supreme Courts actions at this event critically so that the judiciary and we as a nation can learn from it.
The only other situation of similar import in my memory was the effort by Justice Scalia to have President Bush installed after he lost the vote in Florida. That controversial decision shook the faith of the country in the Supreme Court.
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Plucky, I generally enjoy and agree with your comments, but on this you’re just plain wrong. This is not about the killer, per se, it’s about a justice system that is inhumane. If we have no standard by which to limit the manner in which executions are done, then we could perform any kind of death-by-torture we please. By the logic you displayed, perhaps we should flay people slowly and mercilessly until they bleed to death in excruciating pain?
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The cow was out of the barn as soon as the IV drip hit his blood stream.
Wow! That was some compelling reading. Somebody should do a play version like the off-Broadway play “Charlie Victor Romeo”.
That comment smacks of revenge, not justice.
You’re much better than that.
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So. Here’s my question to the “Constitution-protecting Teabaggers”
Why aren’t you screaming about Obama violating the 8th amendment?
There are people who are being subjected to cruel and inhuman punishment, and not a peep from you?
Mighty selective “protectors.”
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Well, lets be honest…the entire notion of death penalties is about revenge, not justice. It has been shown repeatedly that it is not a deterrent to crime, its only purpose is to exact revenge upon the criminal.
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What of the people on death row who have been later found to be innocent and released? What of those that were executed and later found to be innocent? Is karma just a bitch for them as well?
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