Discussion for article #223035
When a SCOTUS that only cares about one form of life (i.e. corporations) stops an execution because it might be cruel and unusual punishment, you have to think lethal injection has hit the wall as a Death Penalty method.
From a utilitarian point of view, the harm that capital punishment, by whatever means it is carried out, does to the image of the US in the world far outweighs any conceivable benefits. Such “benefits” are highly questionable anyway, since death penalty states do not have lower murder rates than non-death-penalty states (in fact, the opposite). So, it doesn’t seem to even have the deterrent effect that proponents claim. If it did, murderers in Texas or Missouri would all move to New York or Massachusetts and that doesn’t seem to be happening.
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America will not be civilized until the SCOTUS stops all executions, period.
Of course proponents of state sponsored murder will shriek for vengeance while ignoring the facts that numerous persons on death row have later been exonerated of their crimes, the penalty is highly slanted against those that can’t get the best justice money can buy, and the state executes a disproportionate number of minorities.
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