I know this statement is going to piss off many of the idiotic ‘bleeding hearts’ in this country, especially those belonging to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) but why not kill these criminals with one clean blow on top of their heads with a ball-peen hammer? These convicts are on death row for murder, more than likely multiple murders. The people they killed certainly didn’t want to die. And the families they destroyed didn’t want their loved-ones killed, so why all the compassion for these scum? Why put them to sleep before giving them the final injection, the one that does the trick?
I know, I know, some states have the electric chair, others have the firing squad, others the lethal injection, and still others don’t have the death penalty at all. I say the ball-peen hammer should be used as a back-up form of capital punishment, and the victim’s closest relative should be given the honor of the first blow to the head… TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Lacking enough of the anesthetic essential to the cocktail of lethal drugs administered during executions, several US states are being forced to postpone the procedure until early next year.
At the heart of the drug supply problem is Hospira, the only pharmaceutical company that produces the anesthetic sodium thiopental.
“We are working to get it back on the market and we anticipate we will by 2011,” Hospira spokesman told AFP.
The US Food and Drug Administration does not approve the drug’s use in lethal injections and Hospira does not sell it for that purpose, though prison officials make significant use of sodium thiopental in executions.
“This is an anesthetic agent that is used by hospital and it is not indicated for capital punishment,” Rosenberg added. “We do not make it for that, we don’t support its use in that procedure.”
He noted that Hospira does not disclose sales of the drug because it is not a big seller for the company.
Death row inmates are injected intravenously with three drugs once strapped in the death chamber: first they are put to sleep with sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide then paralyzes their muscles and stops their breathing, and finally, potassium chloride stops their heart.
Two states — Ohio in the Midwest and Washington in the Northwest — have opted to carry out executions by injecting only sodium thiopental, but at very high and deadly doses.
The supply dry-up nationwide has prompted Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear to announce he would only sign one of the three execution orders pending on his desk.
“The Kentucky Department of Corrections has a sufficient amount of sodium thiopental for one execution and that amount expires on October 1, 2010,” he added in a statement.
Gregory Wilson, who has been on death row for 22 years, will thus be executed on September 16 with the state’s last dose of the drug.
But his fellow inmates Ralph Baze and Robert Foley, who like Wilson have also exhausted all their appeals, will be granted an additional, if somewhat accidental, reprieve.
In Oklahoma, authorities only have enough sodium thiopental for one execution although two are scheduled — for October 14 and 15.
A federal judge stayed the execution of Jeffrey Matthews in mid-August on the day he was due to be put to death because the state planned to use a different anesthetic in what his lawyers labeled “nothing more than experimental.”
“The Oklahoma attorney general’s office has asked the court to lift the stay on that case because we weren’t able to obtain the drug on time to carry out the execution on the previous protocol,” spokesman Jerry Massie said.
“So we’ll waiting for a hearing” to determine whether to postpone one of the executions, he added.
Rosenberg said Hospira does not know which states have used up their supplies of sodium thiopental because a lot of the firm’s products are sold through distributors.
A dozen US states regularly perform the death penalty. Texas and Ohio are the most active, with 16 and six executions respectively this year.
In Texas, officials say the lethal injections will go forward.
“We have two executions currently scheduled and we do have a sufficient amount of supply for those executions,” said Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Lyons said she could not confirm whether Texas had enough of the drugs to perform any future executions this year.
Ohio also made similar claims, though it is said to be running short on its supply of sodium thiopental, which it uses more than any other state.
“We are declining to provide specific information on this issue in the interest of security,” said Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction spokeswoman Julie Walburn.
Whadda freakin’ hell, TGO…
Has all the extremist hate out there infected you? I know it really does have a force that can reach into a person’s soul and sweep them with it. Wow, you’re starting to sound like Trencherbone and other bloggers in his genre.
It is sad that the all those terrorists that have taken hostages, which are viewed as criminals in their “Holy War,” do not have the decency to at least execute them using the electric chair, or a firing squad, or by lethal injection. Even Dr. Ernesto Guevara, after becoming Che Guevara, the assassin revolutionary that is so despised by the same people he freed from Batista’s regime in Cuba, had the human decency to use a firing squad to dispose of his enemies; people that had committed crimes against the state.
The cultures that can be-head another human being with their bare hands show how little they have achieved in terms of human civilization and how barbaric all of humanity must have been long ago and now you want us to transgress to the days that humans acted as less than animals?
And just what does the prosecuting judge say to the victim’s closest relative as he hands them that ball-peen hammer? “I am giving you the honor of bashing his head to bits because I know how great it will make you feel.”
A great human being that once lived and is known as Mahatma Gandhi wrote, “A nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its criminals and to the protection by man from the cruelty of man.”
TGO, I know that you have a desire to be heard and a desire to say what you feel but the world we live in does not need to hear how to kill each other. Agree or disagree with me but what this world we live in today really needs to hear, is how to love each other – we already know how to kill each other.
Get that infection treated before it’s too late.
GhostRider, it is obvious that you and I do not share the same beliefs when it comes to dealing with ruthless assassins, which is what the scum on death row are. As the article stated, the man who was about to be put to death was on death row for 22 years! While on death row, he and the many others like him are being housed, fed, given medical attention, provided with television, computers with internet service, books and magazines. They can exercise, play basketball, football, cards, checkers… You get the picture. This is the “penalty” they are given for brutally murdering innocent victims. And naturally, they have the biggest gift of all – life! While on the other hand you have destroyed lives and shattered families; some justice!!!
As far as Che Guevara is concerned, there was nothing decent about him. The people he personally murdered as well as those he had murdered before a firing squad were not criminals or killers such as he was. They were individuals who despised communism and had the foresight to see through him and the other vermin; Fidel Castro.
What the prosecuting judge says to the victim’s closest relative as he or she hands them the ball-peen hammer is immaterial. It is the opportunity to look the person who killed your loved-one(s) and destroyed your life in the eye, say what you want to say, and put an end to their life that’s important.
As far as I’m concerned, Gandhi was full of shit.
No question that love is better than hate and peace better than war. But that’s not what’s being debated here. What’s being debated is the treatment of criminals, which in the United States has gone way over the top in favor of the criminal. The pendulum has swung way too far in the wrong direction. As far as I’m concerned, once a person takes an innocent’s person’s life and is convicted in a court of law for having done so, and is given an opportunity to appeal the case (once) he or she has been given all the justice deserved. This business of keeping these convicted criminals in prison for decades until they die of old age or worrying about giving them the appropriate drug so they don’t suffer during death is bullshit and just speaks to how weak and politically correct our society has become.