The Death Penalty Essay Research Paper Each — страница 2

states already using lethal injection Florida Corrections Commission surveyed 17 of these states. The majority of these states said that they switched to “the needle”, lethal injection because it is the most humane form of capital punishment. Florida took polls showing the death penalty was strongly supported. Texas, the first to use lethal injection in 1982, and other states has had this form of capital punishment tested in court time and time again and it has always come out as being valid and humane to the victim. Is Capital Punishment humane? Which methods, if any, are humane? The Prolonged suffering of an individual is not humane. “Pain is subjective to what a person considers painful and how much pain is consider humane. Botched executions, where the offender lingers

on before death, does not offer opportunities for us to assess the experience.” (Executions in America pg.47) When the execution goes according to plan, the person doesn’t live to tell about the experience and the effects of it. Execution can be a vary long and brutal process, when something goes wrong. Long ago, in the United States, hanging was he most widely used method of execution. The person’s spine was supposed to snap. During the 18th Century and earlier, hanging were often botched. If the prisoner failed to die from the drop then they would slowly suffocate. If the prisoner was too heavy then the fall could rip the head from the body. The electric chair replaced hanging. The goal of electrocution is the paralysis of the heart and respiratory system. This happens

through the burning of the internal organs. Willie Francis was a prisoner who experienced only a few seconds of electrocution and survived. This was a result of a malfunction of the machinery. He said that the experience was quite painful and that ” My mouth tasted like cold peanut butter. I felt a burning in my head and my left leg, and I jumped against the straps. I saw little blue and pink and green speckles.” A year later he was executed again. As you can see from these examples, the executed often undergoes horrific physical and even emotional abuse. Can you imagine living through electrocution and going through the process one, two, or three more times! Although we first think of the effects on the executed, we don’t always think of the effects on other people. There

are people directly and indirectly involved. For example, Jurors, prison officials, the families of the condemned, and even the families of victims witness or are tied to it some other way. Botched executions can be the result of mistakes by the executioners, equipment problems or struggling by the prisoner. In order to perform lethal injection a prisoner with a history of “intravenous” drug use, the executioner may have to surgically locate a deeper vein. “Even a small error in dosage or administration can leave a prisoner conscious but paralyzed while dying, a sentient witness of his or her own, slow, lingering asohyxiation.” The executioner has to live with the fact that there were the cause of the agonizing death of another human being. A man lying face up on a

hospital gurney is subjected to what looks like a routine medical procedure. The only difference is that the goal is to kill instead of heal.” In 1951, Eliso Mares was put to death by a firing squad. The prison staff likes Mares and so they aimed away from his heart Mares bled to death and it was a slow lingering process. Again, the executioners were at fault. In 1985, Alpha Otis Stephen’s was shocked with three 1,900 volt of electricity. When Stephen’s was shocked the first time, he struggled for breath for eight long minutes. he was shocked again but witnesses spotted him continuing to gasp for air. After 23 more breaths he was shocked one last time. Fred Leuchter, a major designer of the electrocution machinery, gave his opinion on the cons of the electric chair: “If

you overload an individual’s body with current… You’ll cook the meat on his body. It’s like the meat on an overcooked chicken. If you grab the arm, the flesh will fall right off in your hands.. That doesn’t mean that he felt anything. It simply means that it’s cosmetically not the thing to do. Presumably the state will return the remains to the victim’s family for burial. Returning somebody who has been cooked would be in poor taste. This would affect the victim’s family. Even if they chose not to watch the execution, the remains can be just as emotionally harmful. In the example that I started earlier, you can gather that is would not be pleasant to see your son or daughter executed numerous times or shocked a number of times. As you can see from the above