Letters to the Editor
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Well it's about time
Salon worked very hard to ignore Arnold's efforts at promoting prison reform in California. In fact Salon supported Gray Davis, whose dependence on campaign funding from the prison guard's union (his largest single donor) turned him into a vehement enemy of reform and helped worsen the terrible problems they're having right now.
Arnold might have made more progress on that if he'd gotten more support from the left. Instead he was forced to cave in and hire Susan Kennedy, who never met a prison guard she didn't let control state policy.
Salon covered the abuses at Abu Ghraib and demanded accountability, but remained silent on the abuses in California. The prison guards in California were fighting to remain legally unaccountable for prisoner abuse. That issue was never covered here when the subject of Arnold came up.
Does this article mean things are finally changing? I hope so.
One big problem we have in California is that the taxpayers can't really afford to keep EVERYONE in prison that the morally righteous politicians in the state legislature think ought to be there.
But it's not really something people are talking about yet.
I think there needs to be a discussion on just how much incarceration this society can endure and can afford.
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unimpressed
Bright, airy new quarters could eliminate this problem, ensuring direct sensory access to the inmate and the pain that results from incessant needle jabs and, ultimately, death by poisoning.
Am I supposed to consider needle jabs to be cruel and unusual punishment? Recently I had pneumonia and it took them dozens of tries to get the needle in so they could start the antibiotics. It was somewhat painful but hardly traumatizing. Surely you can come up with better arguments against the death penalty than "needle jabs are painful."
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???
" In the meantime, life in prison should be safe and humane, both for those who work there and for those who live there. If a new death chamber helps make that possible, so be it."
Is that some kind of joke?
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death by poisoning
The new death chamber won't solve one of the fundamental legal objections to the current execution regime. Trying to poison the criminal leads to all sorts objections about how they are suffering and not unconscious. Switching to heroine overdose as the method execution would solve these problems. At high does its definitely lethal. Plus, executing criminals with heroine might make the larger point that heroine is really dangerous.
My guess is that the politicians don't want prisoners to die with a smile on their face. I really don't care. Getting rid of these odious criminals faster by removing legal objections should be the primary concern.
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Irony anyone?
The last line in the article smacks of irony, and not so subtle irony at that.
I was born and raised in a non-executing state with prison crowding problems (and I continue to be shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that MOST of the prison population are minorities caught with marijuana or meth). I despise the death penalty, I always have. I have yet to see a state government attempt to address the core issues that lead to prison overcrowding. But it's easier to make a speech about being tough on crime rather than educating the public about what needs to be done to stop the crimes from happening in the first place.
It's hard work to be sure. But then we're all Americans, and apparently we can't be bothered to move our lard-asses from in front of the TV.
O-gins
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why is it so difficult?
Why is it so difficult to euthanize a human being when we do it successfully with animals every day? I don't believe it's ethical or that we should be doing it. However, the technology shouldn't be that hard. Ask the inmates who suicide rather than to face the "humane" lethal injection process.
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Witnessing An Execution Doesn't Make You An Expert In Capital Punishment
While I'm sure that Ms. Catania started writing this with the best of motives, I think the only thing she has proven is that witnessing an execution does not make one an expert in capital punishment.
First, the judicial ban on executions in California to which she refers began as the result of the California Supreme Court decision in People v. Anderson. That decision was handed down months before the United States Supreme Court invalidated the death penalty nationwide in Furman v. Georgia. It was immediately reinstituted by voters in California by constitutional amendment in November, 1972.
Second, if you're going to write about the costs of the death penalty, the Legislative Analyst's Office is probably not going to provide much help. Sure, they might be able to tell you whether some half-baked so-called "death chamber project" is fiscally responsible, but that's beside the point.
The fact is that it costs at least six times as much to execute an inmate than it does to keep him alive in prison for life. Arguments over death penalty "reform" legislation always ignore that point, in favor of the typically insipid arguments advanced in favor of and in opposition to execution.
Here's really all you need to know: While lethal injection was first proposed by a doctor from New York in 1888 as a cheaper alternative to hanging, it was not used here until after the Nazis "perfected" it as part of their T-4 Euthanasia Program.
Feel better now?
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Not just pain from the needle
Two articles from Scientific American's web site about the problems with Lethal Injection
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=20704AC3-E7F2-99DF-3C1F0FEFB917B387&sc=I100322
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=executed-in-us-may-be-awa
Some prisoners are alive and in pain, but immobilized as they suffocate, fully aware of what is happening. Some also feel like they're being burned alive while it happens.
To the person who said Why is it so difficult to euthanize a human being when we do it successfully with animals every day?
This is adressed in these articles. Part of the problem is that they don't adjust the chemical doses based on the weight/metabolism/age, etc... of the condemned. It is one dose fits all and that doesn't work properly.
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Bring back the Guillotine
No surer and quicker way to make sure those pesky inmates are dead... as long as you don't mind a little blood on your khaki dress slacks.
The problem with the death penalty is that is does not act as a deterrent - I think that should be pretty obvious by now. The only thing we do by making arguments for more "humane" treatment of those we have judged deserving of death is to make it easier on ourselves - not the schlep who committed some crime.
Bring back public executions if you want to continue this ridiculous punishment - don't hide behind sterile and so-called humane "procedures".