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Lethal injection controversy remains pointless
Gray Matters
Matt Watson
Issue date: 4/18/08 Section: Opinion
Matt Watson is the opinion editor of The Reflector. He can be contacted at opinion@reflector.msstate.edu.
There has been controversy recently over the constitutionality of lethal injection. A debate that has waged for years and that is ultimately pointless received national attention this week in a Supreme Court case brought on by a Kentucky death row inmate.
The Supreme Court upheld lethal injection as an appropriate form of capital punishment Wednesday, to the dismay of death row inmates' lawyers and a number of others who oppose the death penalty.
The question at hand deals specifically with whether or not lethal injection causes severe pain. Although subjects are rendered unconscious by the injection, it is argued the level of unconsciousness is not high enough not to feel excruciating pain.
The largely conservative Supreme Court justices ruled that "simply because an execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of 'objectively intolerable risk of harm' that qualifies as cruel and unusual."
The justices' opinion makes sense but will likely come under scrutiny. They will be criticized, not because they declared lethal injection wasn't inhumane, but because they have essentially furthered the death penalty. That is the real reason, and we should be aware of it for several other reasons.
Yes, lethal injection probably hurts. That's death for you. If you believe, as I do, that the death penalty is essentially moral, it doesn't matter whether lethal injection hurts or not. After all, capital punishment is punishment, the ultimate form of punishment. The idea is that a criminal gets what he deserves.
However, if you believe the death penalty is essentially immoral, I would argue that the extent to which lethal injection is humane should not be your matter of concern, as all forms of capital punishment would be inhumane anyway, whether they are painful or not. Under this mindset, one would logically ask, "How can any form of killing a human be humane."
There has been controversy recently over the constitutionality of lethal injection. A debate that has waged for years and that is ultimately pointless received national attention this week in a Supreme Court case brought on by a Kentucky death row inmate.
The Supreme Court upheld lethal injection as an appropriate form of capital punishment Wednesday, to the dismay of death row inmates' lawyers and a number of others who oppose the death penalty.
The question at hand deals specifically with whether or not lethal injection causes severe pain. Although subjects are rendered unconscious by the injection, it is argued the level of unconsciousness is not high enough not to feel excruciating pain.
The largely conservative Supreme Court justices ruled that "simply because an execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of 'objectively intolerable risk of harm' that qualifies as cruel and unusual."
The justices' opinion makes sense but will likely come under scrutiny. They will be criticized, not because they declared lethal injection wasn't inhumane, but because they have essentially furthered the death penalty. That is the real reason, and we should be aware of it for several other reasons.
Yes, lethal injection probably hurts. That's death for you. If you believe, as I do, that the death penalty is essentially moral, it doesn't matter whether lethal injection hurts or not. After all, capital punishment is punishment, the ultimate form of punishment. The idea is that a criminal gets what he deserves.
However, if you believe the death penalty is essentially immoral, I would argue that the extent to which lethal injection is humane should not be your matter of concern, as all forms of capital punishment would be inhumane anyway, whether they are painful or not. Under this mindset, one would logically ask, "How can any form of killing a human be humane."
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