New at Reason

David Weigel | June 14, 2006

Jacob Sullum revisits the debate over lethal injection, and whether execution can be humane.

Comments

Kara|6.14.06 @ 8:46AM|#

I dont lose any sleep over it. I am a former burn patient.

Every day 60% of my body was scrubbed with a steel mesh brush. Every hour my respirator was turned off and water poured down my throat as I gasped for air.

Giving a person (any person) an iv is not torture. I dont care if you have to stick them a dozen times. Its still not inhumane.

|6.14.06 @ 8:50AM|#

The one problem with execution is that it involves the "yuck" factor. You might be in favor of the death penalty and that the criminal deserves it, as long as you don't get to hear the details, much less be involved in doing it

(As I applaud my cat's killing of mice, but flinch at finishing off the ones she leaves half dead - did I mention that in four months she caught 14 mice?)

I remember a prosecutor mentioning that his nightmare were people in the jury who were for the death penalty but whose stomach turned at the idea of actually sending someone to death, which resulted in unwarranted acquittals.

If people did not have stomachs, then we could discuss the death penalty from a logical standpoints...

|6.14.06 @ 9:30AM|#

If government were totally out of the "justice" business, there would be no jails, and the number of people eliminated (capital punishment) would go up, but not by much--as a percent of the overall population.

|6.14.06 @ 9:33AM|#

I eagerly await a post from crimethink, my fellow Catholic.

Kara|6.14.06 @ 9:54AM|#

We should remember that we the US is hardly the first to consider the issue. The French stopped using the guillotine after a certain amount of scientific evidence showed that yes your head could be still alive...at least for a little while. And after there were some complaints from the public (at least on one occasion) that the eyes looked around.

So another method was found to kill people

|6.14.06 @ 10:28AM|#

So another method was found to kill people

Uh, no. The guillotine was used up until capital punishment was abolished by the Mitterand government in 1981 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_France).

|6.14.06 @ 10:37AM|#

Kara

You are perhaps confusing the fact that France ended public executions due to the "hysterical" conduct of the crowd. The "head could be still alive" thing is a myth. If the head is severed cleanly (the purpose of the guillotine in the first place) death is pretty much instantaneous.

I see Seamus has already said that the guillotine was the method of execution until the time that France abolished capital punishment.

|6.14.06 @ 10:47AM|#

Isaac,

I don't think that's right. Physiologically, there is no reason why severing the head from the body would result in instant cessation of consciousness. Rather, this would occur as the brain uses up the available oxygen.

|6.14.06 @ 10:47AM|#

Of course, we have no first-hand accounts about whether or not guillotining is actually painless.

|6.14.06 @ 10:52AM|#

For what its worth, this is the famous account of the execution of an individual named Languille. Its only an anecdote, of course. From:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine

The following report was written by a Dr. Beaurieux, who experimented with the head of a condemned prisoner by the name of Languille, on June 28th, 1905:

"Here, then, is what I was able to note immediately after the decapitation: the eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds. This phenomenon has been remarked by all those finding themselves in the same conditions as myself for observing what happens after the severing of the neck...

"I waited for several seconds. The spasmodic movements ceased. [...] It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: 'Languille!' I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions � I insist advisedly on this peculiarity � but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts.

"Next Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. I was not, then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me. After several seconds, the eyelids closed again, slowly and evenly, and the head took on the same appearance as it had had before I called out.

"It was at that point that I called out again and, once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time. The there was a further closing of the eyelids, but now less complete. I attempted the effect of a third call; there was no further movement � and the eyes took on the glazed look which they have in the dead.

"I have just recounted to you with rigorous exactness what I was able to observe. The whole thing had lasted twenty-five to thirty seconds."

|6.14.06 @ 10:56AM|#

Patrick, you might be right. I confess I have no certain knowledge to back up my assertion.

|6.14.06 @ 10:57AM|#

Same as it ever was.

|6.14.06 @ 11:15AM|#

There's an undeniable intuitive appeal to the biblical injunction, "Whosoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."

Talk about creepy.

|6.14.06 @ 11:35AM|#

thoreau and crimethink,
It was Catholics who got most of us accepting/allowing that government should be in the "justice" business.
In the evolution of memes, that was a wrong turn.

|6.14.06 @ 11:51AM|#

"Opponents of the death penalty, for their part, may use questions about lethal injection as a delaying tactic, but they obviously can't believe an additional gram of thiopental is the difference between right and wrong."

That assumes that all DP opponents are weepy, hand-wringing liberals. Some of us oppose the DP because of the possibility of error, or distrust of the state to wield such power. Disappointing that Sullum would use such an inaccurate generalization.

However, if we have to execute, better to do so painlessly so the few innocent ones we execute by mistake suffer as little as possible.

"I can sympathize. I've always supported the death penalty, but my doubts are growing for several reasons...[t]he possibility of executing innocent people, which is the sort of mistake you can't correct"

A bit late to the table, JS, but congrats to on finally adopting a reason-based view on this.

Kara|6.14.06 @ 2:15PM|#

I realize that the guillotine continued into modern times. My point is that it is my understanding that the French Revolution stopped using that method to determine whether "living heads" were a fact or a fiction.

|6.14.06 @ 2:20PM|#

I think we can settle this whole "living head" debate - Bill Frist viewed a videotape of an execution by guillotine, and he said not only is the head still alive, but he expected it would get back up any second now....

|6.14.06 @ 2:41PM|#

Bill Frist viewed a videotape of an execution by guillotine, and he said not only is the head still alive, but he expected it would get back up any second now....

Oh, it's settled then, isn't it? I stand corrected. :o

Kara, I'm not sure if the folks doin' the killin' in the French Revolution were overly scrupulous about whether their victims were suffering. I think that for them the beauty of the guillotine was its efficiency rather than its humaneness.

|6.14.06 @ 5:30PM|#

thoreau,

Why do you await my post, and what does my Catholicity have to do with it?

If you're implying that my pro-capital-punishment stance is at odds with my faith, you're wrong; Christianity has supported the state's authority to execute criminals since its beginning ("Caesar does not wield the sword in vain," as St Paul put it).

True, recent popes have opined that the death penalty isn't really necessary anymore, but that is a political/legal issue, not one of faith or morals, and thus I am no more required to agree with it than I am to agree with the Pope's taste in wine.

Kara|6.14.06 @ 5:50PM|#

I dont think the issue of suffering was the point of evaluating the method.

I remember now reading about it in a book...but it was a long time ago.

I think it was more the "icky" factor as stated by someone else. The people in the crowd may have wanted the person dead, but they didnt want a head without a body looking at them afterwards!

Crimethink, I am Greek Orthodox and I have no problem with the penalty either. And as you stated it isnt an issue of dogma.

|6.14.06 @ 9:24PM|#

Kara,
I'm reading a book about the ancient Gauls.
They were head-hunters.

In your above, you stated bodies look.
Do you wish to restate?

How the hell did you burn yourself?