George W. Bush's Supreme Court Clears the Way for Lethal Injection

The Supreme Court's decision today, that upholds Kentucky's use of lethal injections for executions which in turn clears the way for a number of states to proceed with scheduled executions. should come as no surprise considering President Bush ensured his legacy would live on post his presidency by appointing people to the Supreme Court sure to support his idea of what the "culture of life" should look like.

"The president believes that we need to welcome and create a culture that respects life in this country." -- Ari Fleisher speaking about President Bush

The New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission Report found capital punishment "inconsistent with evolving standards of decency" back in December of 2007. Recent executions, which use the three-drug lethal injection have taken much longer than usual, with strong indications that the prisoners suffered severe pain in the process. The argument is that if the first anesthetic does not take hold, the other two drugs can cause excruciating pain. One of the drugs paralyzes the person thus leaving him unable to express what is happening to him.

The Kentucky case involves two death row inmates who want the court to order a switch to a single barbiturate that causes no pain and can be given in a large enough dose to cause death as we do when we put animals to "sleep".

"We ... agree that petitioners have not carried their burden of showing that the risk of pain from maladministration of a concededly humane lethal injection protocol, and the failure to adopt untried and untested alternatives, constitute cruel and unusual punishment," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the risk of maladministration is not great enough to rule against this method. If this method is not "humane" enough for animals, how can it be humane enough for humans, regardless of the crime they committed? Aren't those in favor of this method committing a crime? After all, callous indifference to life is callous indifference to life whether your the one wearing the robes or the one wielding the ax.

How can anyone who professes to believe in a "culture of life" take a chance that someone may experience the worst kind of death possible without the ability to let anyone know? Or is that the point? We don't want to know.

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Lethal Injection, the Eighth Amendment and New Jersey

Today, New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine signed into law a bill that will replace the death penalty with life imprisonment without the chance of parole. The New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission Report found capital punishment "inconsistent with evolving standards of decency"."

"It's time New Jersey got out of the execution business. Capital punishment is costly, discriminatory, immoral and barbaric. We're a better state than one that puts people to death." -- Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo

Considering Lethal injection is the preferred method of execution in 36 out of the 37 states that still allow the death penalty, the statement "inconsistent with evolving standards of decency" is dead on...this drug cocktail of choice is not exactly a "humane" procedure.

Inasmuch as one of the lethal drugs injected paralyzes the condemned, the pain the prisoner experiences is undetectable to everyone except the person being executed...how convenient! People killed by lethal injection have been known to linger as long as two hours, an eternity when every minute probably feels like a millennium. Although, state sanctioned execution is so cloaked in secrecy that if not for a ruling in California, no one would know the little we know now about the barbaric conditions that many times exist when "we" end a life using this homicidal mixture .

Lethal injection, requires the injection of three chemicals, Sodium thiopental to anesthetize, Pancuronium bromide to paralyze, and finally Potassium chloride to devitalize. Why use three chemicals when one chemical would not only make this procedure more "merciful" but make it more efficient as well? Could it be we are projecting? We hope that by punishing and killing the evil person who committed such a heinous crime, we are also punishing and killing off that part of ourselves who given the right circumstances may be able to commit the same crime.

Hopefully, New Jersey's decision will signal the US Supreme Court - January 7, 2008 - to rule that lethal injection violates the Eighth Amendment which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

"The most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared." -- Albert Camus

"It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their kind." -- George Bernard Shaw

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