Is There a Humane Way to Kill?

Although I do not relish meeting up with them, I've never found it necessary to kill a rattlesnake and I run into a lot of them.

Did the guy in OK "deserve" to be killed humanely? I really wonder. Read up on what he did. Whoops, but then read what the state of OK did?

What's the difference?

pure evil

TMJesse -- "The "death penalty" is barbaric,"

Im betting that if that 19 yr old girl he shot , then had his buddies bury ALIVE were your daughter, you wouldnt give one teensie rip one about how his exit didnt go so smoothly.

personal revenge is probably not the best way to go

Then why you keep industrialized slaughterhouses.

In 1995 Azim Khamisa’s only son, Tariq – a 20-year-old student – was shot and killed while delivering pizzas in San Diego. His killer, Tony Hicks, became the first 14-year-old to stand trial as an adult in the state of California. He received a 25-year prison sentence. Azim, alongside Tony’s grandfather and guardian, Ples Felix, now devotes much of his time to promoting the vision of the Tariq Khamisa Foudation – an organization committed to “stopping children from killing children”.

Azim Khamisa

When I got the phone call saying that Tariq was dead I kind of left my body, because the pain was too much to bear. It was like a nuclear bomb going off inside my heart. There was no solace to be found in my mind and so, as a Sufi Muslim, I turned to my faith. For the next few weeks I survived through prayer and was quickly given the blessing of forgiveness, reaching the conclusion there were victims at both ends of the gun.

Tariq’s killer had the face of a child. He was 14 years old and belonged to a street gang called the Black Mob. His gang name was Bone.

In my faith, on the fortieth day after a death you are encouraged to channel your grief into good compassionate deeds: deeds which provide high octane fuel for the soul’s forward journey. Forty days is not a long time to grieve for a child, but one of my motivations for starting the Tariq Khamisa Foundation was to create spiritual currency for my son, as well as to give myself a sense of purpose.

Simultaneously, I reached out to Ples Felix, the grandfather and guardian of Tony Hicks. The first time I met Ples I told him that I felt no animosity towards his grandson. Ples was quick to take the offered hand of forgiveness. We’re very different: I wear a pin-striped suit, and he has hair down to his waist. But from the moment we met we have been like brothers.

We share a common purpose. We believe that in every crime there is an opportunity to improve society by learning how to prevent that crime from happening again. Tariq was a victim of Tony, but Tony was a victim of American society – and society is a mirror image of each and every one of us. What gives me hope is the fact that when Ples and I give talks in school, you can see the metamorphosis as the kids are moved by our story.

Five years after the tragedy I met Tony. It was a very healing time. I found him very likeable – well mannered and remorseful. I told him that when he got out of prison there would be a job waiting for him at the Tariq Khamisa Foundation.

I would prefer the old 'hard time' kind of sentence....like the Chateau D'if......throw them in a dungeon and toss the key...in total isolation save for their own minds, which slowly go insane.

Death is too easy.

Hard to see what the problem with a firing squad could be--the quick and efficient lethality of guns isn't in dispute, by people who like 'em and people who don't.

As for the "botched" execution? F*#k that guy

Tariq was a victim of Tony, but Tony was a victim of American society – and society is a mirror image of each and every one of us.

No other civilized First World nation thinks so.

Cheap masking tape, just a lot more of it.

Stephanie Neiman was proud of her shiny new Chevy truck with the Tasmanian Devil sticker on it and a matching "Tazz" license plate.
Her parents had taught the teenager to stand up for "what was her right and for what she believed in."
Neiman was dropping off a friend at a Perry residence on June 3, 1999, the same evening Clayton Lockett and two accomplices decided to pull a home invasion robbery there. Neiman fought Lockett when he tried to take the keys to her truck.
The men beat her and used duct tape to bind her hands and cover her mouth. Even after being kidnapped and driven to a dusty country road, Neiman didn't back down when Lockett asked if she planned to contact police.
The men had also beaten and kidnapped Neiman's friend along with Bobby Bornt, who lived in the residence, and Bornt's 9-month-old baby.
"Right is right and wrong is wrong. Maybe that's what Clayton was so scared of, because Stephanie did stand up for her rights," her parents later wrote to jurors in an impact statement. "She did not blink an eye at him. We raised her to work hard for what she got."
Steve and Susie Neiman asked jurors to give Lockett the death penalty for taking the life of their only child, who had graduated from Perry High School two weeks before her death.
Tuesday, 15 years later, the state plans to carry out that penalty.
Lockett later told police "he decided to kill Stephanie because she would not agree to keep quiet," court records state.
Neiman was forced to watch as Lockett's accomplice, Shawn Mathis, spent 20 minutes digging a shallow grave in a ditch beside the road. Her friends saw Neiman standing in the ditch and heard a single shot.
Lockett returned to the truck because the gun had jammed. He later said he could hear Neiman pleading, "Oh God, please, please" as he fixed the shotgun.
The men could be heard "laughing about how tough Stephanie was" before Lockett shot Neiman a second time.
"He ordered Mathis to bury her, despite the fact that Mathis informed him Stephanie was still alive."
Bornt and Neiman's friend "were threatened that if they told anybody about these events, they too would be murdered," court records state.
"Every day we are left with horrific images of what the last hours of Stephanie's life was like," her parents' impact statement says.
"We were left with an empty home full of memories and the deafening silence of the lack of life within its walls. ... We feel that the only thing left to do is let Clayton Lockett serve out the sentence of death that a jury sentenced him to. Anything less is a travesty of justice."
Bornt wrote a letter Feb. 7 stating: "Clayton being put to death by lethal injection is almost too easy of a way to die after what he did to us. ... He will just be strapped to the table and will go to sleep and his heart will stop beating."
'A base instinct'
Madeline Cohen, an assistant federal public defender who has represented another inmate involved in the case, said she can understand why some people say defendants in murder cases should endure a painful death.
"Why should we give them a humane death when they didn't give their victim a humane death? I think that's a base instinct, but that is not what the Constitution provides. ... When we allow our government to take illegal and unconstitutional actions in our name, then all of our rights are jeopardized," she said.
Cohen has represented Charles Warner, scheduled to die April 29 for the rape and murder of his girlfriend's 11-month-old daughter, Adriana Waller, in 1997.
Attorneys representing Lockett and Warner have fought a legal battle on multiple fronts against the state's execution-secrecy law.
Defense attorneys argue the state should have to reveal the sources of its drugs and other details to ensure the inmates aren't subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.
"States have turned to secrecy in the face of drug shortages. It's a reaction to this combination of poorly experimental execution procedures and some frighteningly botched executions," Cohen said.
An Oklahoma County District Court judge ruled the state law allowing Oklahoma to withhold most information about execution drugs and procedures violates the state Constitution.
The state has appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court, but Lockett and Warner may be executed before the appeal is considered.
The state Court of Criminal Appeals has refused to grant a stay, saying it can only consider such requests from inmates challenging their convictions before the court.
Attorney General Scott Pruitt's office said in an email the state will fight to defend the secrecy law because pharmacies must be protected from "threats of violence and political pressure."
In a letter to defense attorneys April 1, the state announced it planned to use a new combination of drugs to execute the men: midazolam, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
Defense attorneys cite several cases in which inmates apparently experienced slow or painful deaths during executions.
"This drug regimen has never before been used to execute a prisoner, not only in Oklahoma, but anywhere in the United States," defense attorneys state in their request for a stay.
Cohen said protecting pharmacies should not be a reason for the state to "hide information" about the execution process.
"As far as the anti-death penalty activists, those people are trying to stop violence and killing," he said.
"They are mostly people of faith and conviction. The idea that they would threaten a pharmacist is hard to believe."
LaDonna Hollins, Lockett's stepmother, told an Oklahoma City television station last month her son deserved to be executed for his crimes but should not be made to suffer.
"I want to know what mixture of drugs are you going to use now. Is this instant? Is this going to cause horrible pain?" Hollins said.
"I know he's scared. He said he's not scared of the dying as much as the drugs administered."
Hollins told friends and relatives in a recent Facebook post: "The death penalty is to kill a man for his injustice ... by lethal injection not lethal suffocation."

The death penalty is wrong only because it's based on "morality". The only reason for the death penalty is simple, WE DON'T NEED THESE PEOPLE.

What do you do with pure evil? For whatever reasons some people are. They force themselves on others distributing a huge, incredible amount of physical and mental hurt, pain and resulting grief. And it's not just on their victims, but also the families, loved ones and friends.

One person had no remorse for the woman being killed and being buried alive. The state of Ok tried to kil the rat in a 'humane' manner, but it failed. I have no mercy for the rat.

CALIFORNIA | LOCAL

Repeal the death penalty

July 14, 2011 | George Skelton, Capitol Journal

Waste, fraud and abuse — also known as California's death penalty. It's a colossal waste of money for arguably the state's most inefficient program. California has spent an estimated $4 billion to administer capital punishment over the past 33 years and executed only 13 people. That's about $308 million per execution. It's a shameless fraud on the public. Californians have consistently supported the death penalty and been led to believe that it exists. It really doesn't.

CALIFORNIA | LOCAL

California chief justice urges reevaluating death penalty

December 24, 2011 | By Maura Dolan, Los Angeles Times

Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who heads the state's judicial branch and its highest court, said in an interview that the death penalty is no longer effective in California and suggested she would welcome a public debate on its merits and costs. During an interview in her chambers, as she prepared to close up shop for the holidays, the Republican appointee and former prosecutor made her first public statements about capital punishment a year after she took the helm of the state's judiciary and at a time when petitions are being gathered for an initiative to abolish the death penalty.

In 1978, the first time Jerry Brown was governor of California, he appointed me to a judgeship in the Superior Court of Orange County. It was a gutsy move on his part, a liberal Democrat naming a right-wing Republican to the bench. I served there until 1993, after which I sat on assignment on death cases throughout California.

During that time, I presided over 10 murder cases in which I sentenced the convicted men to die. As a result, I became known as "the hanging judge of Orange County," an appellation that, I will confess, I accepted with some pride.

Had I known then what I know now, I would have given Alcala and the others the alternative sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Had I done that, Robin's mother, Marianne, would have been spared the pain of 30 appeals and writs and retrial. She could have dealt then and there with the fact that her daughter's killer would be shut away, never again to see a day of freedom, and gone on to put her life together. And the people of California would have not have had to pay many millions of tax dollars in this meaningless and ultimately fruitless pursuit of death.

I watch today as Gov. Brown wrestles with the massive debt that is suffocating our state and hear him say he doesn't want to "play games." But I cringe when I learn that not playing games amounts to cuts to kindergarten, cuts to universities, cuts to people with special needs — and I hear no mention of the simple cut that would save hundreds of millions of dollars, countless man-hours, unimaginable court time and years of emotional torture for victim's family members waiting for that magical sense of "closure" they've been falsely promised with death sentences that will never be carried out.

There is actually, I've come to realize, no such thing as "closure" when a loved one is taken. What family members must find is reconciliation with the reality of their loss, and that can begin the minute the perpetrator is sent to a prison he will never leave. But to ask them to endure the years of being dragged through the courts in pursuit of the ultimate punishment is a cruel lie.

It's time to stop playing the killing game. Let's use the hundreds of millions of dollars we'll save to protect some of those essential services now threatened with death. Let's stop asking people like me to lie to those victim's family members.

Can you imagine society in general with many of these perps at large and doing whatever they will and want? Would that happen if there was no accountabiliity for their actions? Jess asking.....

Death Penalty is a deterrent to future crimes....at least as far as the recently executed is concerned

What might not be clear unless said, is that these sentiments are EXACTLY the kind of thoughts that murderers have. So, if you want to know how that sort of thinking and behavior is created, that's it.

These would be the same sentiments that you would find if you walked into a prison, and asked convicted criminals. Law of the street. Frontier Justice.

But hey, it's easier to just kill them. Then we don't have to deal with such distasteful questions.

Hanging also works just fine-

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

Life in prison is also a reliable deterrent. With the possibility of commutation if it is later proven he was falsely convicted, either through mistake, perjured testimony or prosecutorial misconduct.

you're applying a double standard.

you're applying a double standard.

Absolutely not. If they commit another crime send them back for a longer time.

He was sentenced to 21 years in prison, in a form of preventive detention that required a minimum of 10 years incarceration and the possibility of an extension of that incarceration for as long as he is deemed a danger to society. This is the maximum penalty in Norway; he will likely remain in prison for the remainder of his life

if you can't think of a way, using all the tools at our industrial society's disposal, to reliably, quickly, and relatively painlessly (say relative compared to how most of us will die, which will be exactly pleasant)

Maybe He wasn't looking down then.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Additionally, why don't the states use the "big shot of heroin" approach? I have the feeling it's not as straightfoward as it may seem.

and let us not get tired of doing what is right, for after a while we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't get discouraged and give up

6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
6:8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

his whole sentence of 21 years, he still won't get out? WTF?

During his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explicitly referenced the prohibitions against murder and adultery. In Matthew 19:16-19 Jesus repeated five of the Ten Commandments, followed by that commandment called "the second" (Matthew 22:34-40) after the first and great commandment.
And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
—Matthew 19:16-19

In his epistle to the Romans, Paul the apostle also mentioned five of the Ten Commandments and associated them with the neighbourly love commandment.
Romans 13:8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
—Romans 13:8-10 KJV

Jesus acknowledged their validity and instructed his disciples to go further, demanding a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees

The guy in question kidnapped and raped a girl, shot her twice - non fatally with a shotgun - then buried her alive. I'm not able to comprehend whatever sentiments a guy like that could have.

Just curious on why they (presumably the executioner?) clean the injection site? Hmmm.....

And just remember, if the death penalty is wrong because killing is wrong, then the government fining criminals is also wrong because stealing is wrong, and putting criminals in jail is wrong because kidnapping is wrong.

toss the heads off El Cap after guillotining?

USA (some states) kill people who kill people. You also have among the highest homicide (the highest?) rates in the world. A very violent society in many ways.

Maybe it's simply a matter of actually start thinking and draw conclusions? And act upon it.

And they came back to haunt us as Ozzies!

But no, the US is nowhere close to having "among the highest homicide rate" in the world, much less the highest.

How to get more of the US out of the third world situation into a developed situation is a challenge.

the US....has a murder rate not so different from her beloved Sweden.

How many Crips, Bloods or MS13 live in Switzerland?

It's also simply uncivilised.

Death penalty isn't a deterrent against violent crimes
It doesn't really fill any function from the standpoint of society

Is there death penalty regarding goods exchanged involving a blow job for profit ?

Those that argue of the "great karmic consequence" of killing another forget
that defending the child torturer/murderer carries with it it's own karmic consequence.

Those that argue of the "great karmic consequence" of killing another forget
that defending the child torturer/murderer carries with it it's own karmic consequence.

There is a world of difference between "defending" the actions of a child killer and "defending", or making sure, the alleged perpetrator has been given their Constitutionally guaranteed rights to due process. The Constituition protects the rights to bear arms as well as the right of due process, even for those accused of the most heinous acts. Can't cherry pick the Constitutional protections and rights we personally like and disregard the rest. It's not a document of personal convenience.
Susan

As noted above, the problem with capital punishment is is not the act itself but, the unnecessarily long process.
Defendants that plead guilty or have irrefutable evidence against them could be executed the day after the trial. This would save victims families the decades of prolonged litigation and suffering as well as negate the great cost incurred by our current system.

What do you think of the idea of letting every condemned person hire their own Doctor Death to help them on their way?

you can plagiarize me all you want

But convenience wins out.

They go around in the world killing all kinds of people, slaughtering them mercilessly in the their stupid wars by the millions without winking their eyes.

If you accept that it is being handed out as punishment. why does it need to be humane?

guarantees the capitalpunishmentee will not repeat his/her indiscretion.

I knew I wanted this before it happened. I knew my objective was state-assisted suicide and when it happens, it's in your face.

Its the martyr thing. The publicity seeking thing. The "see what you made me do" thing. The ego thing.

When we rid the world of those that would rape, torture, maim and kill innocents, we make it a better place to be.

those that would