Was it right to execute Gary Gilmore?

Some of us remember Gary:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/mass/gilmore/index_1.html

First let's accept the premise that cap punishment is murder. Gary Gilmore was convicted of murder but had an IQ of 130, wanted to die, and fought his ass off for it. Is it not cruel and unusual punishment to keep a man like that alive for 50+ years?

let's call it euthanasia and fight our asses off to let him die!

Fundie and freeper heads exploding like jawbreakers in a microwave!:rofl:

I think it was a microwave, or maybe it was a toaster oven?

and claim murderers kill as a means of committing suicide (via the death penalty) :crazy:

I feel more sorry for the people who have to decide questions like that, than I do for Gary

"Let's kill Gary Gilmore for Christmas"

An omen of the coming psychopathy in America?

Wow, it had escaped my memory that he was executed on the day my son, my first child, was born.

No. Do not "allow" per se Gilmore to be executed by the State but give him the right and means, in this case, to take control of his own life/death. Allow him to administer his own mercy killing. Of course it's moot now for Gary.

Good question.

Would some say he needs psychiatric care--and that is equivalent to a death penalty anyway? Would some say it was cruel to even force him to decide?

Gilmore will go down in history as an ethical dilemma, a question mark.

At this time, I have altered my opinion and agree with it.

do you agree with the DP in general or just for Gilmore and Tookie?

Maybe we'll just say for those we're sure are guilty. There are ways to determine it beyond a reasonable doubt.

The ban on the death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment should have never been overturned. The court should not have had the option to sentence him to be killed.

Not that he didn't deserve to die. Just that the government, ie society, shouldn't have the right to kill.

As for Gary's wish to die, he could have carried it out himself without having to ask someone else to do it for him. You wonder what would have happened to the death penalty itself if he had allowed the appeals to go forth, forcing the courts again to rule on whether it was cruel and unusual. You wonder if Gilmore's final selfish act played a role in the deaths of even more people--no doubt many of them innocent.

If he deserved to die then why isn't it right to kill him? Shouldn't we help people get what they deserve? Not trying to be facetious, but there is a disconnect here...

Where do you see one? Killing is wrong. I read a couple of years ago about a woman who begged a man to kill her while having sex. He did. Was he justified? Government should not have the power to kill just because someone wants to die.

So let's say the woman who wanted to die while having sex deserved to die. Was the man justified?

for "deserve" in a negative connotation. Maybe the phrase "deserves to die" is meaningless (upon Googling "deserve to die" I found something which deserves a post of its own)

or maybe not, I don't know. Maybe it's more useful for you to make them up as we go along.

OK, I'll play. Yes, if anyone deserves something I'm more than happy to give it to them.

BTW, what about killing someone in self-defense?

And you're being purposely evasive, answering specific questions with general answers. To reiterate my point: Just because someone deserves to die and wants to die does not give someone the right to kill them.

Self-defense is a different situation. That's not a case where a person is calculating whether a person should be killed. That's a case where a person is responding to an immediate threat with enough force to stop the threat. It's not a relevant comparison. The intent isn't to kill, it's to live.

that means they should die. So they should die, but no one should kill them.

Your "deserves" is entirely empty, and it's the height of hypocrisy to say they deserve to die but not be willing to carry it out yourself.

I can understand why you're avoiding semantics; your argument is based on it.