Bring Back the Guillotine?

[montanadave]

Many members are undoubtedly aware of the botched up execution in Oklahoma last week and how that incident has stimulated a renewed discussion of capital punishment (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Upd...eply-troubling).

So one writer, Sonny Bunch, proposes an innovative solution to the problems associated with trying to find a "quick and painless" way to execute death penalty inmates: how about the guillotine?

From the article (http://freebeacon.com/blog/botched-o...he-guillotine/):

"So how do we minimize suffering of the condemned? Our biggest problem as a society is that we have decided bloodlessness is a suitable stand-in for lack of suffering (and a way to protect the sensibilities of those who support the death penalty). Well, the pursuit of a bloodless execution seems to have backfired pretty badly here. And there’s evidence that previous lethal injection cocktails weren’t much better. Allow me to propose a rather radical alternative: the guillotine.

There are other, less dramatic, ways, of course. Hanging and firing squads would probably be quicker and more painless than lethal injection or the electric chair. But the guillotine really seems to solve everyone’s problems: It was designed to deliver an efficient, quick, and painless death. It performs that task admirably. I understand the irony of a reactionary such as myself embracing the Terror’s preferred method of execution, but one must give credit where it’s due.

If we’re going to do something—and a large number of Americans and American states are pretty committed to performing executions—we ought to do it right. And “right” in this case means a quick and painless death. I can’t really imagine any reasonable objections to a widespread adoption of the guillotine."

Makes sense to me. But even some who oppose the death penalty are drawing attention to this proposal, under the assumption that the public will be so mortified by the gruesomeness of an execution by guillotine that it will lead to abolishing the death penalty (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...tine/361569/):

"So let's bring back the guillotine—and once it forces us to confront the barbarity of needlessly killing people who pose no threat to us, let's abolish the death penalty. Countries without the death penalty get along just fine, and I don't think Americans will be able to stomach it once they look it squarely in the face."

Guillotine or no, one portion of Bunch's article almost perfectly summarizes my feelings about the death penalty:

"For what it’s worth: I believe the studies that show the death penalty does nothing to deter crime yet support it anyway, as I believe there are some crimes so heinous that there can be no forgiveness from society. This plays into my whole theory of the judicial system, which is that we should imprison fewer nonviolent offenders, rehabilitate those prisoners who can be rehabilitated, and severely punish the rest. I also think we should probably execute fewer people and heighten the standards of evidence required before an execution can be obtained, but that’s a post for another day."

[Hmac]

The problem I have with the death penalty is the distressing number of people that have been wrongly convicted. There have been 316 post-conviction DNA exonerations alone in the United States since 1989. Eighteen of them were on death row. Tens of thousands of identification and pursuit of suspected perpetrators that subsequently were proven to be the wrong person. Undoubtedly we have executed innocent people.

[Airhasz]

Guillotine for school, mall, workplace and other shooters who have left lots of witnesses where no mistake is possible. No appellate court necessary, just lop off head and move on.

[Sensei]

The problem I have with the death penalty is the distressing number of people that have been wrongly convicted. There have been 316 post-conviction DNA exonerations alone in the United States since 1989. Eighteen of them were on death row. Tens of thousands of identification and pursuit of suspected perpetrators that subsequently were proven to be the wrong person. Undoubtedly we have executed innocent people.

Trying to balance sensitivity vs. specificity in your judicial system has the same quirks as in medicine.

As for the particular case in OK, it's kinda like what Miracle Max said - go cheap and you get shitty miracles. Well, the state of OK used a doctor who was not familiar with placing femoral central lines or the anesthetics being used and they got a shitty execution.

First, only Board Certified anesthesiologist or emergency physicians who are credentialed to perform procedural sedation should be hired for this task. Also, trying to put a femoral central line without ultrasound guidance and placement confirmation in a struggling subject is rank amateur hour. If the subject is struggling, give them IM ketamine to sedate them. Then get your 2 peripheral lines or IO's; don't bother with a central line.

Listen folks, we manage to accidentally kill almost 100,000 of you every year with preventable errors. That should be more than enough practice to Kavorkian someone who is supposed to die.

[Abraham]

I LIKE the Guillotine idea.

Very efficient.

As there've been no post interview be-headings it's difficult to say conclusively that it's painless, but it probably is. If not completely painless, it's quite fast so the pain duration doesn't last...

Were it me to be executed and I had a choice, I'd select the Guillotine.

However, I'd want the slides to be lubed with Fireclean.

[MountainRaven]

Why the guillotine? Why not hanging? We've been doing it for millennia. It's sensible, inexpensive, painless (if it's done right, but you can say the same thing about the guillotine - it goes wrong and it's not so painless), and you don't completely rob the family of the opportunity of having an open casket funeral.

(IMHO: There is no place in a free society for prisons. If someone committed a crime they can either be rehabilitated or they can't, they either will re-offend or they won't. If you reasonably believe they won't, punish them corporeally and/or financially and let them go. And do it right away. If they will - or they do - then there's no sense wasting money trying to rehabilitate them or wasting money having them locked up: To the gallows they do go. And almost nobody should be hanged for their first offense.)

[Safetyhit]

Why the guillotine? Why not hanging? We've been doing it for millennia. It's sensible, inexpensive, painless (if it's done right, but you can say the same thing about the guillotine - it goes wrong and it's not so painless)...

How does a guillotine go wrong? The head is fixed in place and the heavy block with blade falls exactly where desired. Even a dull blade is going through with adequate attached weight, probably as fail safe as you can get.

[MountainRaven]

How does a guillotine go wrong? The head is fixed in place and the heavy block with blade falls exactly where desired. Even a dull blade is going through with adequate attached weight, probably as fail safe as you can get.

That didn't keep the French from jamming up the works by putting pebbles and sand in the blade's tracks - combined with dull blades - so that multiple drops had to be made. The issue of decapitations going wrong goes back as far back as decapitation, which is why it was always wise to tip your executioner in medieval Europe.

[Abraham]

All first offenses no punishment eh?

So I can rob a bank, kill your family and wow, the list of first offense crimes is boundless.

"There is no place in a free society for prisons."

I'm howling with laughter, that's completely cracked, but in a way I kinda like it. Sort of a shoot em or let go approach.

[TAZ]

The "botched" executions are just a symptom of a society that has no sense of justice and no balls. I could give a rats ass if some deuche bag feels some pain before going to burn in hell. The Hegelian principle is in full play here. The same beurocrats who went after the kinds of drugs and procedures being used are the same idiot who are now going to cry the cruel and unusual crap in an effort to do away with capital punishment. After than they will decide that life in prison is cruel and we should set a better example... blah blah blah.

The biggest thing that needs to be fixed with capital punishment is raising the evidence bar somehow to minimize wrongful executions. How it's done, so long as it's relatively quick doesn't make any difference to me. Hang em, decapitate them, run them through a wood chipper is really of no consequence. They didn't give a shit about the feelings of their victims so they don't deserve our sympathy.


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