"By executing Brad Sigmon, South Carolina has also executed the possibility of redemption," said one critic. "Our state is declaring that no matter what you do to make up for your wrongdoing, we reserve the right to kill you."
I think the death penalty should be brutal and violent. If anything, it should be even more violent. Lethal injections are disgusting; the state dresses its murders up in the visage of medicine. They make a murder seem clean and clinical.
I think we should do the exact opposite. Make it as brutal as possible. You want the government to kill someone? Fine. We’ll make it a gorefest.
Here’s how we should do executions. First, it’s not carried out by state employees. It’s carried out by the victim’s closest relatives. As for method of execution? They’re going to do it with their bare hands. The condemned is strapped to a chair and injected with a cocktail of powerful pain killers. The victim’s family members are let in. They then have to beat the condemned to death with their bear hands, all while he is screaming and begging for his life. THAT is how executions should be performed. Quit trying to disguise state murder. You want the government to murder someone? Quit the pretense and make it honest. Maybe fewer people would support the death penalty if it consisted of brutally beating people to death instead of a faux-medical treatment.
Man, I’m not convinced that this would change much. Nearly twenty years ago, I’d listened to something about the death penalty, in which the sister of a murder victim was interviewed; she was told that there was incontrovertible evidence that the person on death row for her sister’s murder was in fact the wrong guy. She replied, “I don’t care, someone has to pay for my sister’s death.” Because we have the death penalty in place explicitly for the purpose of exacting revenge rather than serving justice, there will always be someone who relishes the opportunity to carry out the execution, just out of blind rage.
I think the death penalty should be brutal and violent. If anything, it should be even more violent. Lethal injections are disgusting; the state dresses its murders up in the visage of medicine. They make a murder seem clean and clinical.
I think we should do the exact opposite. Make it as brutal as possible. You want the government to kill someone? Fine. We’ll make it a gorefest.
Here’s how we should do executions. First, it’s not carried out by state employees. It’s carried out by the victim’s closest relatives. As for method of execution? They’re going to do it with their bare hands. The condemned is strapped to a chair and injected with a cocktail of powerful pain killers. The victim’s family members are let in. They then have to beat the condemned to death with their bear hands, all while he is screaming and begging for his life. THAT is how executions should be performed. Quit trying to disguise state murder. You want the government to murder someone? Quit the pretense and make it honest. Maybe fewer people would support the death penalty if it consisted of brutally beating people to death instead of a faux-medical treatment.
Man, I’m not convinced that this would change much. Nearly twenty years ago, I’d listened to something about the death penalty, in which the sister of a murder victim was interviewed; she was told that there was incontrovertible evidence that the person on death row for her sister’s murder was in fact the wrong guy. She replied, “I don’t care, someone has to pay for my sister’s death.” Because we have the death penalty in place explicitly for the purpose of exacting revenge rather than serving justice, there will always be someone who relishes the opportunity to carry out the execution, just out of blind rage.