Rachel Maddow on Botched Execution in Arizona

Contrary to what you may have heard, Rachel Maddow is separate and apart from most pundits and talking heads. As much as I might enjoy some of the others, and can grudgingly see why some that I don't like have a following, Maddow stands alone. She focuses on stories no one else is talking about, or at least comes at them from another angle. She gives history and context on the subject she is talking about. And she usually makes you forget you're essentially listening to a professor's lecture. You don't get bored, and you always learn something.

Over the past year or so, Maddow has been tracking death penalty cases, particularly those with botched executions. She's focused on the problems with the state finding elusive lethal injection drugs, and openly wondered about the wisdom of capital punishment, if we can't abide by the Constitution's command against cruel and unusable punishment. Or, should we even be killing people at all?

So, when this Arizona botched execution story broke, it was actually pretty amazing that The Rachel Maddow Show was able to jump right in with a very thorough story on the subject. You don't have to be a liberal to get something out of this.
 

Yet Another Execution Goes Horribly Wrong

Image from source, Think Progress

We keep having these botched executions, and I know, it's difficult to care. I mean (barring the wrongly accused), anyone on death row is generally an awful person. And I've heard some say, "they deserve what they get." This is the United States of America, however, and we're not supposed to be all "eye for an eye" on criminal justices. There's a thing called the Constitution, and a line about cruel and unusual punishment.

So, what's the reason for all of the problems with something that ought to be fairly easy to do? Well, companies that make some drugs don't want them used for the purposes of causing death. And other drugs? Untested, and who ya gonna test 'em on? Well, looks like, the condemned. And it's not going so well.

[Excerpt]

Arizona’s Execution Attempt Goes Horribly Wrong As Man Remains Alive Nearly 2 Hours After Injection
 
Using an unusual concoction of drugs this afternoon, Arizona attempted to execute a man on death row. One hour after he was supposed to have been lethally injected, however, Joseph Rudolph Wood was still alive, “gasping and snoring.” Wood’s lawyers filed an emergency request to stay the execution and give the man life-saving help, but it was too late: After two hours, he died. . .

Read more at: Think Progress

Texas Bans Last Meal Requests for Death Row Inmates

Even Jesus got a last meal.

Is it my imagination, or does it seem that politicians--Republicans in particular--are just getting meaner and meaner? Seemingly meanness just for the sake of it. Let the sick die! Execute more people! Boo a gay soldier! Everything they've been doing seems to be geared toward sticking it to somebody. The latest news is out of Texas, where prisoners about to be executed will no longer be served the last meal of their choice. Which just sounds pointless and mean to me.


Now, in the story excerpted below, you'll find lists of extravagant meals, and I would agree to putting an end to that silliness. But good grief, how hard is it to put a rule list together? Limit it to a meal, a typical meal you might get at a restaurant. Make it standard portion sizes, limit the number of courses. Easy peasy. But it is more Republican to just shut it down all together. It's like in school where one kid acts up, and the teacher punishes the whole class.


[Excerpt]


Special Last Meals: Texas Prisons End Special Last Meals For Inmates Facing Execution 

Texas inmates who are set to be executed will no longer get their choice of last meals, a change prison officials made Thursday after a prominent state senator became miffed over an expansive request from a man condemned for a notorious dragging death. . .

Read more at: Huffington Post

Lawrence O'Donnell on Capital Punishment

This post is particularly for my conservative friend from the Las Vegas Badger, who pointed out that people were only protesting one execution on Wednesday, and not the other one going on in Texas. My reply was that the guy in Texas was a) guilty of one of the most heinous crimes in recent history, and b) his guilt was not in dispute. In Georgia, the man who was executed had quite a lot of supporters questioning his guilt, and there was very little evidence that put the gun in his hand. But Lawrence O'Donnell had a different take. It isn't 100% my opinion (as I'm a quasi-capital punishment supporter. . .I guess), but it is an excellent counterpoint to the Badger's point.

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Creepy: Rick Perry Draws Applause for Execution Record

I don't consider myself a namby-pamby liberal. For instance, I don't have much of a problem with guns.* I don't like pressing "1" for English.**  And I don't have much of a problem with capital punishment.*** All that said, I don't think I'd burst out into applause upon hearing that Rick Perry is the executin'-est Governor in the country.



* I also have little problem with reasonable gun control, and am creeped out by gun fetishists. You know, the need to be legally able to take your gun everywhere, like bars. ** While I find picking English annoying if it isn't the default, I also wouldn't make a big deal about it. *** Rick Perry, like George W. Bush before him, has seemingly had little if any compassion or empathy for those on death row, to the point of crassness. Perry has also refused to even consider commutation, even when it looked possible that a person might not be guilty. I personally would rather see a guilty person go free than an innocent person executed.