What About A Firing Squad?

F

FLA2760

New member
Hi
Recently some death row inmates in Florida have challenged the constitutionality of lethal injection.
The average time on death row is 12 years with the appeals process. Due process is one thing; but when the time does come for the sentence to be carried out what are your thoughts on utilizing a firing squad? It has to be more cost effective than the chair or the needle. I have attached an article from AOL news on that involves a firing squad.
http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060214075909990001&ncid=NWS00010000000001
 
Why the Australian government would get involved in this case is beyond me. When in Rome....

When the outcome is the same ie. firing squad vs needle; I'm not sure if it really matters. The needle seems cleaner; and the whole act is rather barbaric. So; I might err on the side of matching the barbarism to the act. Make it a firing squad; or decapitation better yet. It's an ugly thing, why hide it with a sterile and peaceful process. The outcome is no different.
 
decapitation better yet.
Click to expand...

Decapitation is gross, supposedly it is possible to live for several seconds afterwards. That sort of makes sense because if you don't sever the brainstem it would be just like being paralyzed from the neck down, only you now have a short time to live due to a diminishing blood supply.
 
My only qualms about the firing squad is that it is, by it's very nature, imprecise. That is, unless you have skilled, professional marksmen doing the shooting. Since it is possible that all of the shooters may slightly miss the mark inflicting non-instantaneously fatal wounds that would therefore involve some amount of pain (not that the shootee is going to survive it anyway), it is probable that the courts would declare that to be an unconstitutional method in violation of the "cruel and unusual punishment" portion of the 8th Amendment.

Personally, I think it would be just as effective and even cheaper if we were to do the "9mm Migraine" thing instead. For that matter, I'd think it would be even more effective, as the range would be practically point blank right into the medulla oblongata -- instant death. It seems more humane to me.
 
Most states in the past that tried or used firing squads,, ended up going to jurry rigged system to remove the "human" from the system, kind of like they do in Maylay and Indoniesan, M-60 remotely fired
 
Punishing drug (non-victim) crimes with the death penalty.

I support the death penalty without hesitation under two conditions:

1 - the crime resulted in or was intended to result in death or permanent serious injury to a VICTIM.

2 - there is 100% proof of guilt in each case.

I very much want the death penalty to be an option for punishment. But if there's a law left on the books that gives it out for a crime without a victim, then I have no choice but to cast my vote against it.
 
"My only qualms about the firing squad is that it is, by it's very nature, imprecise. That is, unless you have skilled, professional marksmen doing the shooting."

I have no idea how Indonesia runs a firing squad, but in the last firing squad execution in the US (that I know of, anyway--Gary Gilmore's) they had volunteer prison guards or police officers doing the shooting. I believe they were seated with rifles rested and behind a wall with a slit so they would remain anonymous. It was nearly point-blank range, and nobody missed.

Tim
 
That having been said, I'm not sure it even has to be "humane". If you kill, torture, kidnap, rape, an innocent victim, you have just made a loud statement meaning that you reject the right of a human being to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.
 
The only problem I see in the firing squad is that it's nature makes it a little impractical for public executions in the typical urban environment. And I'm in favor of public execution. But I have no doubt this 'problem' could be remedied.
 
Do to them what they did to their victim. A more hideous crime calls for more hideous punishment. If a guy rapes a girl then cuts her throat... violate him with a broomstick and cut his throat. Eye for an eye. :D :D
 
I'm not going to get into my opinion of when a crime is bad enough that the death penalty should or shouldn't be given...

But when it is given, I think the prisoner shouldn't have a say in the method of execution, nor anyone else. Either make one method "standard", or take a handful of approved methods and let a dice/computer/etc choose at random.

That way, nobody can say a judge was overly cruel in the method he chose, and the prisoner is denied priviledges of choice and preference to the last (afterall, prisons aren't supposed to be havens of freely made decision, right?).

Of course... Since we do let death row convicts pick a last meal as a courtesy, it *could* be argued that a criminal should have the right to decide how he goes (again, as a courtesy)... The question with that is whether or not the convict deserves any courtesies... Which generally should depend on how bad the crime was...

But I said I wouldn't get into that.

Wolfe.
 
If you do a crime in a state with the death penalty for that crime I have no sympathy or understanding for you or the reasons the death penalty is cruel etc. You knew you could get the death penalty prior to committing the crime and the time to whine and cry about it isn't after you've committed and been convicted of a crime worthy of the death penalty. It's a pretty easy concept, if you don't want to die from lethal injection don't commit a cry that the punishment could be lethal injection.
 
as quoted from www.deathpenaltyinfo.org


"Firing squad still remains a method of execution in Utah and Idaho, although each allow lethal injection as an alternative method and only Utah allows the inmate to choose this method. The most recent execution by this method was that of John Albert Taylor. By his own choosing, Taylor was executed by firing squad in Utah on January 26, 1996.
For execution by this method, the inmate is typically bound to a chair with leather straps across his waist and head, in front of an oval-shaped canvas wall. The chair is surrounded by sandbags to absorb the inmate's blood. A black hood is pulled over the inmate's head. A doctor locates the inmate's heart with a stethoscope and pins a circular white cloth target over it. Standing in an enclosure 20 feet away, five shooters are armed with .30 caliber rifles loaded with single rounds. One of the shooters is given blank rounds. Each of the shooters aims his rifle through a slot in the canvas and fires at the inmate. (Weisberg, 1991)
The prisoner dies as a result of blood loss caused by rupture of the heart or a large blood vessel, or tearing of the lungs. The person shot loses consciousness when shock causes a fall in the supply of blood to the brain. If the shooters miss the heart, by accident or intention, the prisoner bleeds to death slowly."

one more reason to love Idaho:cool:
 
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