The U.S. state of Georgia has delayed the execution of a convicted killer after the 'utterly terrified' man tried to commit suicide.And naturally, his lawyers have leapt on this with alacrity, claiming that trying to kill yourself is clear evidence that you don’t deserve to die…or something:
… Rhode's attorney Brian Kammer said executing him violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.Awww, my heart bleeds for h…
'He's utterly terrified and just hopeless,' said Kammer.
'He was very morose, frightened and subdued.
'This was a product of him just being in terror, of losing hope altogether.'
Oh, wait. No, it bleeds for them:
Rhode was convicted in 2000 of the killings of Steven Moss, 37, his 11-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter during a burglary of their home.I guess they were pretty terrified and hopeless in their final moments too…
31 comments:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11395285
watch this, consider the death penalty and remind me why had to face a trial for something i did not, would not and could not do that if found guilty would have ended my life. the process in itself finding my innocence nearly killed me and certaily scared me for life.
the death penalty is moraly wrong, founded in revenge and does little or nothing to prevent crime. it cost more than locking up crimminals proven to have commited crime for life, meaning life
Do you find yourself mumbling 'erm'...at the precise moment a rock solid, anti capital punishment state of mind could never be envisaged to falter?
the guy in your post, if guilty, and it appears is guilty, as hell, should not be put down.
no one should
humans who take the life of another can only moraly do this if there is no other way to defend themselves otherwise it is just sanctioned murder
"otherwise it is just sanctioned murder"
There is an an easy way to avoid the death penalty, don't choose to kill three people including two children whilst carrying out another crime.
We have far too many laws and I'm sure that is true in the States too but some should exist and for those the punishment should fit the crime. If you choose to jump off a cliff, you die. If you choose commit the crimes this chap did, you die.
I have no sympathy for people like our poor frightened murderer. None whatsoever.
i have no sympathy for him iether but murder is murder, while in prison he can't do it again
If he's dead he can't do it again, prison murders happen all the time in the states.
Also from the first Mail link, 2nd/3rd para:
Brandon Joseph Rhode, 31, tried to slit his wrists and throat just hours before he was due to be put to death by lethal injection.
Now his lawyers are arguing that his attempt proves he is incompetent.
Well, yes. Since he actually failed to die after (trying to) slit his throat and wrists (remember kids, it's down, not across) there is little chance of any other conclusion.
Anonymous... right now it's innocent people who get murdered by the killers we're letting out after their short jail sentence is spent, and there are lots more innocent people murdered by repeat killers than there are miscarriages of justice of innocents framed as killers.
So in effect, you're not doing away with the death penalty by not applying it to the killers -- but you're enabling those killers to apply the death penalty their victims, repeatedly.
And then, there is of course the philosophical question of: if you're going to get unlucky and get killed, maybe the executioner is a humaner choice than an ax murderer?
Anonymous said...
the death penalty is moraly wrong, founded in revenge and does little or nothing to prevent crime.
So what?
As far as I am concerned, the death penalty is to get dangerous scum off the streets.
You do not shoot a rabid dog to teach the poodle down the road to behave its self and stop shitting on your cabbages.
AS to crime prevention. Considering MOST people executed are not what you may describe as "first time offenders", then OF COURSE it prevents crime.
The one frying his eyeballs out in that wired up chair in the corner is unlikely to go robbing any shops again, is he?
The wisdom in the Teutonic proverb was totally lost in translation but your sense of vengeance would have made the other Furor proud.
WHAT other Furor?
It is a state of mind. NOT a person.
fuck it then kill him, ney stone him along with adulterus women and let all have a go at cutting up shoplifters, only repeate offenders mind.
Criminals must be caught and stopped but one, just one innocent person put to death however humanely will be on your concience, not mine.
the fact that we can't determine wether someone is safely rehabilitated enough to release back into society is no excuse for state authorised murder.
Join the armed forces if you want to kill, apply to be a executioner if you think you could do it. did any of you who commented on my comment watch the clip on the BBC? I don't think so......
Join the armed forces if you want to kill, apply to be a executioner if you think you could do it.
I was and am armed forces, be it now reserves, and I applied to be executioner twice yearly whilst in G.B.
Criminals must be caught and stopped but one, just one innocent person put to death however humanely will be on your concience, not mine.
So you can fuck off and bury your head in the sand then cant you? Because I am TOTALLY willing to accept that risk.
You speak as if their victims were some how equally as guilty.
I have some bad news for you sunshine, THEY WERE INNOCENT!
Are YOU prepared to have the life of an innocent on YOUR conscience, that was killed by some arsehole YOU had refused to put down?
And "humane"?
If beating someones skull in with a tyre iron was the method used by the arsehole, then THAT is how THEY should be dealt with.
FUCK humane. They get what they give.
As always I oppose capital punishment, not because I'm a soft touch for the scum like Rhode facing the chair/rope/chamber. No, I'm not going to lose much sleep over him. It's because I simply do not trust the state with that kind of power. Ultimately it's putting the power of life and death into the hands of pricks like Cameramong and his predecessors. Fucking hell, people, states are entities that leave data files on millions in the back of taxis, that screw up the taxes for millions of others, that hire thugs in uniform that bounce diminutive and innocent women off cell floors and, worst of all, that pass laws giving themselves enormous powers in the interests of protecting citizens only to then use them against those same citizens. Doesn't that suggest that it doesn't give the remotest shit about its citizens?
The British state gave itself RIPA to protect you, and promptly abused it in order to spy on parents and dog owners. It gave itself the various Anti-Terrorist Acts to protect you, and abused those too, unless terrorist was a misspelling of photographer. It gave itself the Proceeds of Crime Act to tackle criminals and abused that too, first by destroying the lives and livelihoods of some trawlermen guilty of exceeding EU quotas and secondly by extending asset seizure powers to every public sector mob from councils to the fucking Post Office who fancied being able to kick a door in. It passed enabling Acts like the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act and the Civil Contingencies Act to give itself even more powers and to permit law to be re-written on the fly by Ministers - and just you fucking wait till the bastards start getting their teeth into those. It promised a referendum on the Lisbon EU Constitreaty and reneged at the first opportunity. Not content with one-sided extradition arrangements with the US it signed up to the European Arrest Warrant, thereby allowing foreign police to send British officers to carry out arrests for them for offences that aren't even crimes in the UK and fast-track extraditing them to remand in foreign jails for months or years. And just recently it signed up to the European Investigation Order, extending the influence and power of foreign police on British soil even further and fuck the rights of the citizens. Doesn't that suggest that it is happy routinely to lie and break faith with its citizens?
With all this in mind, with all the lies and broken promises and ever increasing power of the state to change the rules of the game and make them up as it suits its agenda, do you really trust the death penalty to remain reserved only for the most abhorrent murders? Are you completely sure that the PM after the one after the one after this one is going to want that power extended? Would you bet on them never getting as far as sedition, having first redefined sedition in the widest terms? Would you bet your life?
If you do you're far braver than I. I was once certain that the death penalty was a necessary sentencing power but after 13 years of Neue Arbeit I've come to believe that we might as well form orderly queues against the nearest wall, because every other legal power gets abused and the Cobbleition are showing themselves to be little different. I'd much rather take my chances with the Rhodes of this world, thanks all the same.
"I am TOTALLY willing to accept that risk."
You may be, FT, but if it happens to be my law-abiding neck you've been told place the rope around I'm certainly not.
Getting back on the specifics of our host's post I should add that I really don't get the Yanks sometimes. Having adopted the death penalty and decided to waste the guy what's the big deal if he tops himself a couple of days early? He's no less dead by his own hand so unless the ritual of the execution is part of the feeling that justice has been served it makes no sense to me at all. If I had to design death row - and needless to say I'd turn the job down - I'd make sure every cell is fitted with a 12' ceiling with all manner of hooks, pipe and projections that the occupant could get a makeshift rope around.
Angry Exile has some great points well put. If the low life disgusting prick in Julia’s post had succeeded in committing suicide, his choice and I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over him or if a journalist, a single drop of ink.
Furor, if, a big if, you ever were in an armed force I hope you were dishonourably discharge with mental problems because if I was putting an armed force together they would have the attitude of peacekeeper first authorised to use deadly force only as a last resort when faced with a deadly force. I certainly wouldn’t want you watching my back while I went to rescue our fallen. And you must be fucking old if you've been applying to be an executioner in the UK. I'd fucking chew you up if you came after me with a stick, for sure! Don’t test me I have been trained to kill and don’t actually like the fact it was something that was forced on me from a young age. Perhaps one reason I am committed to removing myself from violent situations wherever possible as an adult.
I have no sympathy for the criminal that is at the centre of this post but cannot, will not ever reconcile killing a person who has already been prevented from doing harm to anyone other than themselves.
Anonymous@23 September 2010 12:29 said...
fuck it then kill him, ney stone him along with adulterus women and let all have a go at cutting up shoplifters, only repeate offenders mind.
Criminals must be caught and stopped but one, just one innocent person put to death however humanely will be on your concience, not mine.
Now Anon, you cannot have it both ways. If they're a repeat offender, then they clearly aren't innocent.
Anonymous said...
And you must be fucking old if you've been applying to be an executioner in the UK.
Also who said I was applying for the job as BRITAINS executioner?
Many ex colonies used the British executioner until much later than Britain, ( in West Indies, and Singapore, for example, and had their own long after that. 1981 for South Africa, for example.
Anonymous said...
Furor, if, a big if, you ever were in an armed force"
Ahhh. one of the "I have had a boring life and done fuck all, so every one else must be a liar" crew!
because if I was putting an armed force together they would have the attitude of peacekeeper first authorised to use deadly force only as a last resort when faced with a deadly force.
It is an ARMED force. They face deadly force by fucking DEFINITION, you prat.
And ever stopped to ask yourself WHY they will not let you "put one together"?
In the unlikely event of capital punishment making a return to these shores, I would support the Furor's application for State Executioner. There is comfort in the knowledge that one's final moments are in the hands of someone without prejudice.
The Furor has aired his dislike of British subjects on various sites and claims to hate us all equally.
I hate EVERYONE equally, that are not German.
Can't stand Germans. ;-)
@ Angry Exile
I like one now and again but they give me gas.
"watch this, consider the death penalty.."
I didn't see any arguments against it in that. Just pure emotion.
"the death penalty is moraly wrong, founded in revenge..."
As FT points out, it's not 'revenge' to remove from society someone who doeesn't conform to its standards, and likely never will...
"...at the precise moment a rock solid, anti capital punishment state of mind could never be envisaged to falter?"
Have there been miscarriages in the past? Yes. Do we let it stop us from imprisoning people for life (or what 'life' means now)? No.
"There is an an easy way to avoid the death penalty, don't choose to kill three people including two children whilst carrying out another crime."
Indeed. Probably helps to avoid the prosecutor seeking the penalty if you don't rifle through the dying man's pockets too..
"If he's dead he can't do it again, prison murders happen all the time in the states."
Yes, that's something the opponents don't consider, isn't it?
"So in effect, you're not doing away with the death penalty by not applying it to the killers -- but you're enabling those killers to apply the death penalty their victims, repeatedly."
Precisely.
"I'd much rather take my chances with the Rhodes of this world, thanks all the same."
If I had the right to self-defence, I might agree. But I'm reminded of that old adage, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away...
"I'd make sure every cell is fitted with a 12' ceiling with all manner of hooks, pipe and projections that the occupant could get a makeshift rope around."
And a nice hemp rope on the pillow, with a bow and a tag saying 'Compliments of the establishment'?
I like the way you think! ;)
"In the unlikely event of capital punishment making a return to these shores..."
We have to leave the EU first, not that that wouldn't be the icing on the cake...
"If I had the right to self-defence, I might agree. "
But you do have that right. It's English Common Law. British citizens have been systematically deprived of the best means and are now left to choose from either makeshift weapons, legal ones that must be locked away or to choose to break the law quietly and keep a weapon handy in the knowledge that for the moment it's not likely to come to light. But you've never lost the Common Law right to defend your person. Even the CPS website concedes that point, and I can think of at least one instance where a homeowner killed an intruder with a shotgun and was acquitted. Granted, it would have been better if it hadn't gone to trial at all but at least the jury had more sense than the CPS and could correctly identify who the bloody victim really was - the poor sod who happened also to be a legal gun owner.
But even without that, even if the law said I had no right to defend myself at all and I must wait and hope for the police to arrive in time, I'd still rather take my chances with the Rhodes of this world than grant the legal power to kill me to a state which has proven over and over again that it lies and breaks promises and can never be trusted. To give the state the power to kill citizens it holds powerless is genuinely frightening. You're betting your life on the state never abusing that power when it's shown time and again how comfortable it is with abusing other laws to suit its whims and agendas. Think it would be just murder, and then only the worst murders? Really? But how often do people demand that rapists are strung up? How long will it take before politicians bow to the will of the people - with all due reluctance, natch - and start killing them and sending the savings towards some public sector pension pot? And, Julia, how often are people falsely accused of rape?
Even that's not as bad as the very real danger of a total demagogic fucknuts being elected who redefines sedition in broad terms and make it a hanging offence. Bet that could never happen? Yeah, I expect the Weimar Republic thought so too, and certainly they retained it for murder. Perhaps we could ask someone how that worked out, but obviously not Sophie Scholl because when she spoke out against the war the state cut her head off.
Give the bastards even a fraction of an inch now and eventually one of them will take a yard, and possibly your life.
Oops, forgot to mention that there are very few Rhodes and for each of us the odds are very good, but there are many, many, many of the state's drones and so the odds are very poor for all of us.
Angry Exile said...
Can't stand Germans. ;-)
I have a list, in my head, of those I would shoot on site my self.
That my countrymen are my prefered people does not blind me to their faults.
We have criminals as well, and green party members, and anti smokers, and damn communists.....
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