Lightning's Last Ride
Sunday February 10, 2008
See also: Electric Chair Executions
In a 6-1 ruling, the Nebraska Supreme Court held Friday that electric chair execution "inflicts intense pain and agonizing suffering" and subsequently violates the state constitution. Nebraska is the only state to use the electric chair as its only means of execution, so legislators are currently attempting to draft an alternative form of execution. Given that existing lethal injection standards are under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, it is likely that Nebraska will innovate a new type of lethal injection--one based on single-drug execution, as used in veterinary euthanasia, rather than the triple-drug cocktail that has created such a substantial Eighth Amendment problem.
Other states that allow death row prisoners to choose the electric chair might continue to do so, but this is by no means certain; only three prisoners have chosen to be executed in the electric chair over the past five years, and the Nebraska ruling has made the electric chair an unnecessarily litigable technique. After the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals barred use of gas chamber executions in its own area of jurisdiction, for example, other regions of the country followed suit; the last gas chamber execution was performed in 1999.
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Other states that allow death row prisoners to choose the electric chair might continue to do so, but this is by no means certain; only three prisoners have chosen to be executed in the electric chair over the past five years, and the Nebraska ruling has made the electric chair an unnecessarily litigable technique. After the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals barred use of gas chamber executions in its own area of jurisdiction, for example, other regions of the country followed suit; the last gas chamber execution was performed in 1999.
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Comments
My heart really bleeds for those poor babys who committed crimes that “inflicted intense pain and agonizing suffering” on their victims.
Tom- I can’t get too excited by how a convict, who has gone through a least a decade of appeals through various State and federal courts to give any one of those courts the chance to toss out his conviction or death sentence, or to let him (usually males) die an easy, quiet, protected (death row inmates are housed apart from the general population, and so avoid the usual torments of prison) death in prison, escape, or get the prize, ‘a new trial’. At least here we try to be ‘humane’ about killing our murderers, whether it was the 19th century ‘enlightened’ professionals trying out the electric chair, or the modern chemists experimenting with various injectable drugs and chemicals. Our murderers generally are given a much easier death than they deserve, and far better than most of them gave to their victims.
We have so much trade with China (PRC)- we should send them our murderers for execution- they point a pistol at the back of their heads and put a bullet through their brains- cheap, efficient, and timely- the whole process from initial trial to execution is usually measured in weeks. They used to send the family a bill for the bullet- I don’t know if that is the current practice. Ask the government official who oversaw the poisoning of our dogs and cats last year, to scam money- oh, you can’t, though- the communists blew his brains out already- either for the original fraud, or for embarassing the chinese “peoples’” government- who knows? If we send all our “death row” inmates to china, they will be out of our hair, and we won’t have to agonize or wring our hands over killing them for very long. PRC trials, sentences, and executions usually take place within six months of the original arrest. Of course, the intent of challenges to the death penalty method are merely efforts to eliminate the death penalty itself through the courts, when these opponents cannot achieve their real goal through the legislatures of most of the States, or the Congress. Regards, John C.
I’ve been looking at that photo of the chair and it sure is creepy, although I am not sure why. But it could be a definite deterrent.
Do people get executed in electric chairs for crimes or death murders how does this work?