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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Sat Jun 7, 2014, 10:37 AM Jun 2014

GOP’s firing squad idiocy: The hypocrisy of “humane executions”

As a new proposal gets traction, it raises a fact no charade can obscure: killing people is bloody business!

ALESSANDRO CAMON


When Utah Republican congressman Paul Ray recently announced a proposal to bring back firing squads, it was a response to the infamous “botched” execution of Clayton Lockett in the state of Oklahoma. A few days later, the state of Tennessee approved the reinstatement of the electric chair in case it runs out of drugs for lethal injection (the drugs are made in Europe, where manufacturers refuse to sell them to anyone who would use them for that purpose).

Whether or not these alternatives get traction, they are important indicators of the political state of play in matters of capital punishment. Lockett’s 43-minute ordeal has already prompted the suspension of two other executions, and made lethal injection seem unsustainable.

Let’s backtrack to what might have been a historical turning point.

According to the official timeline, on the day of his execution Clayton Lockett struck a defiant note, refusing to submit to an X-ray until officers shot him with a stun gun (he also declined to see his lawyers, and turned down his last meal).

At 5:22 p.m., Lockett was restrained on the execution gurney. A phlebotomist proceeded to examine his body, searching for a suitable vein in which to inject the three drugs that were to put him to sleep, stop his breath and finally stop his heart. The examination took a long time, until the phlebotomist chose a vein in Lockett’s groin area (doctors I consulted surmise this was actually the femoral artery).

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/07/gops_firing_squad_idiocy_the_hypocrisy_of_humane_executions/
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