Wednesday, July 23, 2014

“I just know it was not efficient... It took a long time.”

"The execution of a convicted murderer in Arizona lasted for nearly two hours on Wednesday, as witnesses said he gasped and snorted for much of that time before eventually dying."
State officials disputed these accounts, contending that Wood was never in pain and that he was only snoring. 
“I’m telling you he was snoring,” Stephanie Grisham, spokeswoman for the Arizona attorney general’s office, said in an e-mail to The Washington Post. “There was no gasping or snorting. Nothing. He looked like he was asleep. This was my first execution and I have no reason to minimize this.” (link to the story)
Undated file photograph of Joseph Wood
Update: Lawyers demand outside probe of two-hour Arizona execution

21 comments:

bagoh20 said...

Didn't anyone have a pillow? Thousands of people manage to kill themselves or others every year, often without even trying, and we can't do it with doctors, drugs and a prison full of murderers on site as consultants. Thousands of books, movies and TV shows have been informing us all over our entire lives on the subject with in-depth explanations of the methodology. It's probably one of the few things that almost everyone actually knows how to do - kill someone.

Only the government could be so inept it couldn't do this right.

Is anything going well lately under the control of the state? Is anything being done efficiently, legally, economically, or even semi-competently? Don't answer that - it was rhetorical.

The state is pretty good at screwing over the honest, taxpaying schlubs who follows the rules. It has a real gift for that.

bagoh20 said...

If you are a convicted serial killer and you behave yourself in jail, they should reward you by putting you in charge of executions. You need to hire qualified people if you want a job done right.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I made an attempt at a joke.

But it may have backfired.

link

I couldn't resist.

I understand if you guys want to castigate me for it.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

you may have to be a baseball aficionado to get that.

chickelit said...

In French, "jeter" means to throw away.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Hmmm.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I guess there is really no "humane" way of doing the deed.

Chip Ahoy said...

Cognate jettison.

Tonight I learned the word "gibbet"
An early English guillotine used in Halifax which in turn is in Hull.

And the very strange laws regarding the death penalty, mostly having to do with stealing a type of rough wool that was stretched outside to dry thus easy objects of theft threatening the prosperity of the whole area of some four towns, so the laws regarding petty theft were quite strict. And very odd besides due to the goods devolving to the Lordship if the theft cannot be proven explicitly, it could be collusion between thief and second possessor. So the claimant might be found guilty as well, of conniving in theftbote, a real word. A Hundred people were beheaded by a this crude guillotine between 1286 and 1650, a span of 364 years, so 1 person each 3 and a half years, and that is an awful lot of head chopping.

The machine is a simple axe blade fixed to an upright as a regular guillotine.

WHAM

A replica stands on the original site on Gibbet Street.

And I also learned the phrase by John Taylor, the water poet, who wrote in The Beggar's Litany "From Hell, Hull, and Halifax, Good Lord, deliver us!" On account of those strange and terrible laws.

Dad Bones said...

I'm guessing that a lot of the people watching him die suffered more than he did.

Icepick said...

Bring back hangings, firing squads and Madame Guillotine. Three tried and true methods of getting it done quickly, if that is the intent.

ricpic said...

Balance his suffering against the suffering of his victim and you get a wash.

deborah said...

I don't get how they can't have quickly euthanized him. When it's time to have a dog put down, I have the vet give a knock-out injection so the dog won't be awake when he's given the heart-stopping med. How difficult is this?

deborah said...

Agreed, DB.

deborah said...

If I have it right, horse thieving in the Old West was a hanging offence. Depending on where it occurred, it could leave the victims stranded in a desolate area.

sakredkow said...

I'm not particularly concerned with this guy's personal fate, but it is one more good reason why nobody should be in the death penalty business. It's barbaric in any case, even China's now discussing getting rid of capital punishment.

You can blame this situation on incompetent government but private businesses make incompetent decisions and act incompetent often enough as well.

Life without parole.

ricpic said...

In the Bible there's a passage (and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember it exactly) that MERCY TO THE WICKED IS PUNISHMENT OF THE INNOCENT. I don't expect lefty phx to ever get that equation but in a nutshell it is the case for the death penalty, or if you prefer it is the case for JUSTICE.

sakredkow said...

And then there are those who want the death penalty for people who don't like the death penalty...

ampersand said...

Yeah Life without Parole. that'll punish em.

rcocean said...

Just give them a 45 slug in the heart. Should be quick and painless. And inexpensive.

rcocean said...

I always find DP opponents freaky. All the underdogs in the world, and they choose to defend rapists/torturers who've been convicted of 1st degree murder. Weird.

I think their time could be better spent. But then with Liberals its all about the Posing, and toeing the party line, not actually helping anyone.

rcocean said...

Some who killed and tortured to death two people - one of them a child - took 2 hours to die, but probably wasn't aware of it.

Waah, waah, how terrible!

Meanwhile how many kids died in Gaza? Oh well, hey's what's on Oprah?