Lethal morality

Last Wednesday a condemned convict, Angel Diaz, was executed by way of lethal injection. The needles were inserted too deep, passing through his veins and into the flesh below. The chemical "cocktail" was injected into his tissue rather than his bloodstream--thereby dragging out his death an additional 12 minutes.

Although the medical examiner refused to comment whether Mr. Diaz died a painful death, a couple of professors said that was likely--and that it would feel as if "your arms were on fire."

I don't like human suffering. Personally, I see nothing wrong with NOT using the cocktail: perhaps just use a massive dose of sedative. According to a BBC report, the reason they don't do that is because it's too close to medical-induced deaths (i.e. in hospitals) and is deemed not stringent enough to be an execution.

As we listened to the BBC report at first I was bothered. I am for capital punishment but am also against needless suffering. A pro-capital punishment professor was being interviewed on the BBC; and right as I was thinking about this, he was criticized by the interviewer for his views. So he talked about the case of a man who had recently been executed.

This man, the professor said, was a homosexual who was jealous when he found out his partner had a girlfriend. He strangled her with a belt until the belt broke, beat her face with a claw hammer, raped her and then killed her with a knife.

Surely, that is worth a few minutes of accidently induced suffering.