Flawed execution highlights flaws with state executions

I have never approved of capital punishment. There are at least three reasons why that punishment is just plain wrong. There are the possibilities of a wrongful execution, there is a potential for abuse as in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal  and there is also the argument that two wrongs don’t make a right. - សតិវ​ អតុ

Here is a good article that takes on the death penalty:

From F5:

by Bill Jenkins

It's a gruesome story. A man named Clayton Lockett and his accomplices took a young woman captive, wrapped her in duct tape, shot her twice then buried her alive. Last week Lockett was scheduled to be executed by the state of Oklahoma for his misdeeds. They killed him, but the act has had widespread repercussions.

Lockett was strapped down and administered the drug sodium thiopental, the first drug in the cocktail that was supposed to "humanely" kill him. Whether a vein collapsed as authorities claimed or he had an unusual reaction to the drug, he began to moan, move around and exhibit obvious signs of agony. After 20 minutes, the authorities pulled the curtain on the area. After 40 minutes, he had a massive heart attack and died.

The Lockett affair has reawakened the capital punishment debate, about method if not always about morality. Several states have suspended executions.

This is not the first hitch in the capital punishment practice. Doctors and other medical professionals have refused to take part in the process. The European manufacturer of the most widely used drug in the cocktail now will not sell it for that purpose.

Whether we like it or not, we are talking about the death penalty again. Many remain convinced that the practice is acceptable. Biblical vengeance. Societal retribution, necessary to protect the general population from mad dog killers.

Closer inspection shows the fallacies in some of these beliefs. Many studies have shown the death penalty to be ineffective in preventing crime. Death penalty states do not have lower crime rates than states without it. Interviews with killers have shown few considerations of consequences enter into the mind of the perpetrator. It just doesn't seem to be an effective deterrent. Some jurors, however, do report that it enters their minds and makes conviction a more difficult decision.

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