Latest in Florida GOP absurdity: So tired of being humane.

[SirNitram]

Link

A bill filed Tuesday by Rep. Brad Drake, R-Eucheeanna, would allow for executions by firing squad. HB 325 would eliminate Florida's standard method of execution, lethal injection, and allow for executions only by electrocution or firing squad.

He said he filed the bill after overhearing a conversation in his district this past month while U.S. Supreme Court deliberated over the fate of Manuel Valle, convicted in the 1978 murder of a Coral Gables police officer. Valle's lawyers filed numerous appeals, the last few of which centered around the use of a drug used in lethal injections.

In a Waffle House in DeFuniak Springs, Drake said he heard a constituent say, "'You know, they ought to just put them in the electric chair or line them up in front of a firing squad.'" After a conversation with the person, Drake, 36, said he decided to file the bill.

"There shouldn't be anything controversial about a .45-caliber bullet. If it were up to me we would just throw them off the Sunshine Skyway bridge and be done with it," Drake said.

Under the bill, electrocution would be the standard method of executions, but the bill would allow inmates to opt for an execution by firing squad.

Squad members would be chosen by the warden of the prison housing the death row inmate. The bill does not specify whether members of the public may volunteer or may be chosen for the firing squad by the warden, but it does allow for Department of Corrections employees to opt out of taking a part in any execution. It also does not proscribe the number of people to be involved in the firing squad.

"I think the secretary of the Department of Corrections under the arm of the executive branch of government has the intelligence to assign the appropriate people," Drake said.

There have been problems in the past with electrocutions. In the late 1990s Florida's electric chair, known as "Old Sparky," left one death row inmate convicted of a triple-homicide alive for moments after the electrocution, and sparked a fire on another inmate's face during the execution. Drake does not share those concerns.

"In the words of Humphrey Bogart [sic], 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.' I am so tired of being humane to inhumane people," he said.

The last firing squad execution in the United States took place in 2010 in Utah. That state eliminated its firing squad option in 2004, but it was not retroactive, so prisoners sentenced before then may still choose to be executed that way. Oklahoma is the only state with an active firing squad option on the books. Drake's bill is similarly not retroactive, so only inmates sentenced to death after its effective date would be able to choose an execution by firing squad.

On the other side of the spectrum in the Florida House is Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel-Vasilinda, D-Tallahassee, who filed HB 4051 last month to eliminate the death penalty completely in the state. She hopes to eliminate costs related to death penalty cases and apply that money to hiring more police officers and law enforcement, and is wary of the lawsuits Drake's bill could spark.

"It seems to be little bit regressive, frankly," she said. Rehwinkel-Vasilinda, 51, did hold out hope that the bill could help "clarify" the issue of the death penalty.

He's just so put upon having to hold himself to a moral standard above those who we sentence to death. Florida: An ongoing comedy of errors.. Local and national(Thank you swing state).

[Col. Crackpot]

Link

A bill filed Tuesday by Rep. Brad Drake, R-Eucheeanna, would allow for executions by firing squad. HB 325 would eliminate Florida's standard method of execution, lethal injection, and allow for executions only by electrocution or firing squad.

He said he filed the bill after overhearing a conversation in his district this past month while U.S. Supreme Court deliberated over the fate of Manuel Valle, convicted in the 1978 murder of a Coral Gables police officer. Valle's lawyers filed numerous appeals, the last few of which centered around the use of a drug used in lethal injections.

In a Waffle House in DeFuniak Springs, Drake said he heard a constituent say, "'You know, they ought to just put them in the electric chair or line them up in front of a firing squad.'" After a conversation with the person, Drake, 36, said he decided to file the bill.

"There shouldn't be anything controversial about a .45-caliber bullet. If it were up to me we would just throw them off the Sunshine Skyway bridge and be done with it," Drake said.

Under the bill, electrocution would be the standard method of executions, but the bill would allow inmates to opt for an execution by firing squad.

Squad members would be chosen by the warden of the prison housing the death row inmate. The bill does not specify whether members of the public may volunteer or may be chosen for the firing squad by the warden, but it does allow for Department of Corrections employees to opt out of taking a part in any execution. It also does not proscribe the number of people to be involved in the firing squad.

"I think the secretary of the Department of Corrections under the arm of the executive branch of government has the intelligence to assign the appropriate people," Drake said.

There have been problems in the past with electrocutions. In the late 1990s Florida's electric chair, known as "Old Sparky," left one death row inmate convicted of a triple-homicide alive for moments after the electrocution, and sparked a fire on another inmate's face during the execution. Drake does not share those concerns.

"In the words of Humphrey Bogart [sic], 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.' I am so tired of being humane to inhumane people," he said.

The last firing squad execution in the United States took place in 2010 in Utah. That state eliminated its firing squad option in 2004, but it was not retroactive, so prisoners sentenced before then may still choose to be executed that way. Oklahoma is the only state with an active firing squad option on the books. Drake's bill is similarly not retroactive, so only inmates sentenced to death after its effective date would be able to choose an execution by firing squad.

On the other side of the spectrum in the Florida House is Rep. Michelle Rehwinkel-Vasilinda, D-Tallahassee, who filed HB 4051 last month to eliminate the death penalty completely in the state. She hopes to eliminate costs related to death penalty cases and apply that money to hiring more police officers and law enforcement, and is wary of the lawsuits Drake's bill could spark.

"It seems to be little bit regressive, frankly," she said. Rehwinkel-Vasilinda, 51, did hold out hope that the bill could help "clarify" the issue of the death penalty.

He's just so put upon having to hold himself to a moral standard above those who we sentence to death. Florida: An ongoing comedy of errors.. Local and national(Thank you swing state).

Nitram I'm far more disturbed by the fact that someone in the state took the time to give the electric chair a nickname... Old Sparky? Are you shitting me? Did they name it after someone's Cocker Spaniel for christsakes?

[MarshalPurnell]

The irony of course is that the humane nature of lethal injection has been called into question thanks to the specific cocktail of drugs involved, which runs a paralytic that would prevent the condemned from making his distress known if the anesthetic does not work. Death by firing squad may actually be more humane and is certainly more dignified than lethal injection. Of course, that's not anywhere near the point of this exercise for the lawmaker in question.

[K. A. Pital]

Bullets kill less efficiently than an injection of morphine which just makes you sleepy sleep. Of course, morphine is not what they use, so perhaps one should re-evaluate the composition of the chemicals but why shift back to bullets?

Where's the dignity in getting shot? Being a tradition left from warmaking it does not make it "humane" or "dignified". I'm amazed how anything related to war like firearms tearing human flesh apart is now "dignified". Oh human culture, how warped thou art...

[Col. Crackpot]

Bullets kill less efficiently than an injection of morphine which just makes you sleepy sleep. Of course, morphine is not what they use, so perhaps one should re-evaluate the composition of the chemicals but why shift back to bullets?

Where's the dignity in getting shot? Being a tradition left from warmaking it does not make it "humane" or "dignified". I'm amazed how anything related to war like firearms tearing human flesh apart is now "dignified". Oh human culture, how warped thou art...

What if we call the rifle used Mr Killboom McHickorystick it would make it allright. No?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Nitram I'm far more disturbed by the fact that someone in the state took the time to give the electric chair a nickname... Old Sparky? Are you shitting me? Did they name it after someone's Cocker Spaniel for christsakes?

How are you just learning of this now? 'Ol Sparky' has been a nickname for electric chairs for almost as long as they've existed.

[MarshalPurnell]

Bullets kill less efficiently than an injection of morphine which just makes you sleepy sleep. Of course, morphine is not what they use, so perhaps one should re-evaluate the composition of the chemicals but why shift back to bullets?

Where's the dignity in getting shot? Being a tradition left from warmaking it does not make it "humane" or "dignified". I'm amazed how anything related to war like firearms tearing human flesh apart is now "dignified". Oh human culture, how warped thou art...

A killing dose of morphine would probably be far cheaper and more rational and much easier to deliver than the present cocktail of drugs, and would certainly insure the condemned did not suffer. For whatever reason it has never been used and I expect the reason is remarkably stupid. That said, strapping someone on a gurney and poking a needle in his arm is a highly detached, impersonal, clinical way of killing someone. It is rather more like how one would put down an animal than how a human being should end his life. If you are going to execute people maintaining some solemnity about it with ritual preserves the humanity of the condemned and helps sanctify the process as a regrettable occasion where the full weight of the state descends upon someone. It is entirely sentimental and revolves around aesthetics, but neither sentiment nor aesthetics are unimportant in human affairs.

[Korto]

Frankly, if someone would just sew this guy's fucking lips SHUT people might see that giving someone an option of death by shooting is not equal to mandatory torture.

If it were up to me we would just throw them off the Sunshine Skyway bridge and be done with it," Drake said

In the words of Humphrey Bogart [sic], 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.' I am so tired of being humane to inhumane people

Really? Your mother lets you out of the house with that level of verbal diarrhea?

The irony of course is that the humane nature of lethal injection has been called into question thanks to the specific cocktail of drugs involved, which runs a paralytic that would prevent the condemned from making his distress known if the anesthetic does not work.

A lot of the way the West executes people seems more concerned with avoiding distress to the executioner, then the executed. I don't agree with the idea. I feel if you're putting anyone to death, or any other creature, you should understand what you're doing.

[Col. Crackpot]

Nitram I'm far more disturbed by the fact that someone in the state took the time to give the electric chair a nickname... Old Sparky? Are you shitting me? Did they name it after someone's Cocker Spaniel for christsakes?

How are you just learning of this now? 'Ol Sparky' has been a nickname for electric chairs for almost as long as they've existed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Sparky

you are correct... chalk it up to me living in a non death penalty state. Doesn't make it any less creepy and wrong to give a cute happy nickname to an execution device.

[K. A. Pital]

A killing dose of morphine would probably be far cheaper and more rational and much easier to deliver than the present cocktail of drugs, and would certainly insure the condemned did not suffer. For whatever reason it has never been used and I expect the reason is remarkably stupid. That said, strapping someone on a gurney and poking a needle in his arm is a highly detached, impersonal, clinical way of killing someone.

To make it personal, let's introduce bayonet stabbings through the heart or better yet, pole-axe beheadings! The whole point of the modern execution mechanism was to make it impersonal.

It is rather more like how one would put down an animal than how a human being should end his life.

Humans chopped off human heads with axes. Check. Humans chopped off animal heads with axes. Check.
Humans shot humans. Check. Humans shot animals. Check.
Humans chemically killed humans. Check. Humans chemically killed animals. Check.

No difference, except in your eyes. Aesthetics of firearms murder is highly questionable.

[Simon_Jester]

Nitram I'm far more disturbed by the fact that someone in the state took the time to give the electric chair a nickname... Old Sparky? Are you shitting me? Did they name it after someone's Cocker Spaniel for christsakes?

That is not a new nickname. Apparatus of execution often get nicknames- the Tyburn "Tree," for instance, in a case of (literal) gallows humor.

Bullets kill less efficiently than an injection of morphine which just makes you sleepy sleep. Of course, morphine is not what they use, so perhaps one should re-evaluate the composition of the chemicals but why shift back to bullets?

Since I know people who would rather be executed by firing squad than by lethal injection, I'm going to withhold judgment.

Personally, I can see what those people mean- if you ask me whether I'd rather be blindfolded, ripped up by a fusillade of rifle fire and then finished off with a pistol to the head if the volley doesn't kill me instantly, versus being strapped down and shot full of lethal drugs... honestly, I don't know which I'd opt for.

It's a normative judgment, mind you, but I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as you present it.

Frankly, if someone would just sew this guy's fucking lips SHUT people might see that giving someone an option of death by shooting is not equal to mandatory torture.

If it were up to me we would just throw them off the Sunshine Skyway bridge and be done with it," Drake said

In the words of Humphrey Bogart [sic], 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.' I am so tired of being humane to inhumane people

Really? Your mother lets you out of the house with that level of verbal diarrhea?

The irony of course is that the humane nature of lethal injection has been called into question thanks to the specific cocktail of drugs involved, which runs a paralytic that would prevent the condemned from making his distress known if the anesthetic does not work.

A lot of the way the West executes people seems more concerned with avoiding distress to the executioner, then the executed. I don't agree with the idea. I feel if you're putting anyone to death, or any other creature, you should understand what you're doing.

All seconded.

[Broomstick]

Nitram I'm far more disturbed by the fact that someone in the state took the time to give the electric chair a nickname... Old Sparky? Are you shitting me? Did they name it after someone's Cocker Spaniel for christsakes?

"Old Sparky" is also the nickname for an electric chair in Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, New York, Texas, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Most of those states don't use them any more. Illinois has even abolished the death penalty entirely now.

[Broomstick]

A killing dose of morphine would probably be far cheaper and more rational and much easier to deliver than the present cocktail of drugs, and would certainly insure the condemned did not suffer. For whatever reason it has never been used and I expect the reason is remarkably stupid.

I'm guessing it's a fear the condemned might get high on the way to the Great Beyond. There's always been an undercurrent of "make them suffer!" associated with executions.

[mr friendly guy]

Some druggies might become resistant to opiods. Using a non druggie example, some palliative patients are given high amounts of morphine, still display occasional distress, requiring even higher doses, and they continue to live for days.

The solution with morphine is to simply jack up the dose, however that leads to asking what is a standard dose per body weight for some people.

Of course, we could use barbituates, which is the drug of choice for some countries which legalise euthanasia. IIRC barbituates have a narrow difference between the therapeutic dose and lethal dose, making it easier to do the job.

[Alkaloid]

There's always been an undercurrent of "make them suffer!" associated with executions.

I have heard somewhere that the guy who came up with the cocktail they use at one point more or less said it was meant to make their death painful, but I'm not sure where it was written.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Some druggies might become resistant to opiods. Using a non druggie example, some palliative patients are given high amounts of morphine, still display occasional distress, requiring even higher doses, and they continue to live for days.

The solution with morphine is to simply jack up the dose, however that leads to asking what is a standard dose per body weight for some people.

Of course, we could use barbituates, which is the drug of choice for some countries which legalise euthanasia. IIRC barbituates have a narrow difference between the therapeutic dose and lethal dose, making it easier to do the job.

Another solution is pure nitrogen gas. Your brain detects CO2 concentrations in the blood, not O2 when you are starved of oxygen. With Nitrogen, they are still getting rid of CO2, and will simply end up feeling light headed before they die.

[CrateriaA]

Another solution is pure nitrogen gas. Your brain detects CO2 concentrations in the blood, not O2 when you are starved of oxygen. With Nitrogen, they are still getting rid of CO2, and will simply end up feeling light headed before they die.

But Alyrium! We need nitrogen for our races when the cars use nitro boosts! Those filthy criminals deserve a bullet to the head and we Americans need nitrogen for our cars! /sarcasm

I never knew about the idea of nitrogen being used. Although it still is a nicer way than being electrocuted or shot, it adds a macabre feel to it- you feel kinda funny right before you're dead.

[BrooklynRedLeg]

Yea, this is why I have dim hopes for the future of my State as its full of jackasses like Drake that infest both parties.

[Shroom Man 777]

You could use carbon monoxide, like those guys who put hoses on the exhaust pipes of their cars and go sleepy sleep.

I don't see the inherent dignity of being shot in the face by a line of gunmen. I'd more rather get dosed up with some sleepy drugs.

Maybe you can combine the two, and have the man get shot by a firing squad armed with dartguns?

[CrateriaA]

You could use carbon monoxide, like those guys who put hoses on the exhaust pipes of their cars and go sleepy sleep.

Use CO2? When a person dies, don't they give off CO2? So combine that with the CO2 that comes from the car and...

Shroom, you're starting to look like a Captain Planet villain in these kinds of stuff. You'll contribute to global warming!

[The Yosemite Bear]

well I have a tendancy to come up with things that even vastly pro-death penalty types consider going too far...

[Simon_Jester]

I'd probably take sleepy drugs over a firing squad- if it doesn't involve being strapped to a gurney, wheeled into a room, and left to lie there while someone hunts for a vein/inserts needle/waits for drug to take effect. Or if it doesn't involve being alone with my thoughts while I take several minutes to asphyxiate. Both of those prospects... well, I don't really think I'd prefer to die that way, even painlessly, because I suspect I'm quite capable of working up a panicky "I'm going to DIE" while restrained, or while sitting in a lethal chamber knowing they're pumping odorless gas into the room that will slowly kill me.

The argument about "dignity," I think, revolves around the ability of the condemned to participate in their own death- basically the same argument that gets brought up in assisted suicide cases.

In terminal patients, it's argued that it's more "dignified" to die in a time and manner of your choosing, while physically squaring your shoulders and accepting your fate, than to die by inches hooked up to a bunch of tubes in a bed, kept alive long after your mental faculties fall apart. Thus (it is argued), better to let them push a button or take a bunch of pills or sign a waiver saying "remove the tubes" than to just keep what's left of their brain and body alive for however many days, weeks, or months it takes for irreversible breakdown to set in.

In executions, the argument is that there is the option of "dignity" in that you can cooperate rather than screaming and fighting and panicking, and that the circumstances of a firing squad prevent much psychological torment since you go fairly rapidly from "I'm physically OK" to "I'm blown to bits and dead." Physical pain, presumably, is there in spades- but dignity is about the mind, not the body. Whereas if you spend a protracted period tied down waiting for someone to shoot you full of poison, it's going to be nearly impossible to avoid panic, or to take any active part in your own death that suggests acceptance or, well, dignity.

Whether you believe the argument... well, I'm ambiguous about it. I don't know what to think.

[The Yosemite Bear]

well since they want blood, bring back the bread and circuses- and let BoA sponsor the executions, of course if they survive 25 bouts we have to let them go....

really dead men walking, have some OJ, oh btw it's loaded with radioactive heavy metal death in 24 hours....

can be used for medical testing for bettering the health and safety of humanity....

[Oni Koneko Damien]

You could use carbon monoxide, like those guys who put hoses on the exhaust pipes of their cars and go sleepy sleep.

Use CO2? When a person dies, don't they give off CO2? So combine that with the CO2 that comes from the car and...

Shroom, you're starting to look like a Captain Planet villain in these kinds of stuff. You'll contribute to global warming!

*nudgenudge*

Carbon Monoxide (CO) =/= Carbon Dioxide (CO2)

Cars give off the former, humans give off the latter.

[CrateriaA]

You could use carbon monoxide, like those guys who put hoses on the exhaust pipes of their cars and go sleepy sleep.

Use CO2? When a person dies, don't they give off CO2? So combine that with the CO2 that comes from the car and...

Shroom, you're starting to look like a Captain Planet villain in these kinds of stuff. You'll contribute to global warming!

*nudgenudge*

Carbon Monoxide (CO) =/= Carbon Dioxide (CO2)

Cars give off the former, humans give off the latter.

I think I had too much carbon monoxide. My brain died a little.

But even so, never a good combination. I stand by my decisions.