Embarrassed as a Californian

[tbrown 26]

Really embarrassed that we don't even have our shit together enough to execute the fucker who raped, tortured and murdered a seventeen year old girl. Not even with Arnold as our Governator.

Before I go any further, I should say that I'm against the death penalty in principle, not because I feel sorry for the guys on death row (though I DO feel sorry for the innocent ones who shouldn't be there, much less even in prison...), but because I don't trust government or the whole process.

This isn't a California State Court that has done this, it's the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals - again. Classic case of a bunch of judges trying to legislate a social agenda. Okay, lethal injection might cause tremendous pain for a few minutes. It's surprisingly difficult to kill a human being, even an asshole. But over the centuries, we have tried to make it humane, which is why we've gone from burning at the stake, to hanging, to dropping a hanging victim enough to break their nec, to the electric chair, and now to lethal injection. Beats breaking on the wheel or drawing & quartering any day.....

But what these fuckers on the 9th Circuit have done is to insist that we have doctors overseeing and/or administering the execution, full well knowing that doctors can't and won't do it.

Even though I'm opposed to the death penalty, I believe it's something that has to be legislated, or else voted out by a popular referendum. Not dictated to the states by some far left Federal court. I hope the State of California appeals this decision to to the US Supreme Court, because if they don't, it's going to prevent something like 35 states from carrying out their capital punishment laws. And in such a cut & dried and brutal case as this (I have a 17 year old daughter of my own to think of), I cannot understand why Gov. Schwarzenneger doesn't state publicly that California will appeal the decision - or tell his Attny Genl to do so.

I'd like to see the death penalty go for a long list of reasons - but not like this.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

There's a reason that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the MOST OVERTURNED COURT IN THE FEDERAL COURT SYSTEM. It's because of exactly what you pointed out: they are far-left nutjob activist assholes. They legislate from the bench, pure and simple. (For those following along, that is a NO NO.)

But leftists -- who LOVE the court's decisions -- can stare the activism right in the face and claim it is just not there.

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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Um, anyway, who the fuck ever said that it's forbidden to have a condemned prisoner feel a bit of pain as he is put to death?

For one thing, I don't give a shit if a murderer feels pain at his death.

For another, "cruel and unusual" does NOT, to me, mean "NO PAIN WHATSOEVER MAY BE EXPERIENCED BY THIS PERSON." That's just impossible to read into the amendment. LIFE is pain. A few needle pinches are not "cruel" by any stretch. They're also not "unusual." And they have to be BOTH to be prohibited, anyway.

One thing I don't understand is, why not just put these murderers on a chair, strap them down, and then give them carbon monoxide to breathe until they die? They'll simply fall asleep, and eventually die while comatose. If you want to be a pansy-ass leftist about it, how about we give them NITROUS oxide just to be all nice? Gimme a fuckin' break, already.

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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[Stumpy 284]

It is kind of odd that when condemned prisoners are ill, they have to be made better before you kill 'em!

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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It is kind of odd that when condemned prisoners are ill, they have to be made better before you kill 'em!

Ugh. Dilemma.

I suppose it's because you can't go allowing someone's illness to be your means of "executing" him, because you have a legislated means of doing the official execution, and letting the dude's appendix burst is not "official." (Though for some people, it's too good a way to die.)

I just really don't understand why they don't, if they're so worried about the feelings of convicted murderers, just give them the Happy Gas to kill them.

Who the fuck could object to that?! I've been sitting in the dentist's chair flying high on what I was sure was a dangerously over-allocated amount of N20 and I remember thinking, "Holy shit, what if this is enough to make me DIE? Oh well, if I die, I die. I don't wanna let the dentist know I'm a little concerned, 'cause then she might crank it back!

I literally thought I had an even chance of just slipping away and dying of N20 overdose, and I didn't fuckin' care.

See how easy it could be for us to live in a murderer-free world?
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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[MC208B 0]

It's the 9th CIRCUS ct. of appeals PJ

Personally, I think the killers should be dispatched in the same manner they killed their victims. Right away also, fuck 20 years of fuckin appeals.

[kelpdiver 2]

I hate to disturb your circle jerk re: the 9th Circuit, but the judge in question (Jeremy Fogel) isn't a member. He's U. S. District Court, Northern District of California.

And it's not like the guy is getting his execution cancelled. It will happen. A few more months is tolerable next to the 20 years.

I think this judge is opposed to the death penalty. He set up a nice condition list to make it impossible to happen, and of course it was all done at the last hour. It's not just California, btw.

From the SF Chron:
A separate challenge in federal court in Missouri has at least temporarily halted lethal injections in that state. The U.S. Supreme Court recently blocked a Florida execution to consider how inmates should be allowed to challenge lethal injection methods. In New Jersey, a state court barred lethal injections in 2004 because of questions about the state's procedures.

Either all this will lead us to a new method, as lethal injection replaced the gas chambers, or the Supremes will make a determination as to how guaranteed painless an execution must be.

[jenfly00 0]

Is that possible????

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"O brave new world that has such people in it".

[Nightingale 0]

I find it interesting that the state could not find a single person with a medical license to assist.

[Dougiefresh 0]

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I find it interesting that the state could not find a single person with a medical license to assist.

There's this little thing called the Hippocratic Oath. Kind of an important thing to doctors, I imagine.

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. --Douglas Adams

[warpedskydiver 0]

if a Judge cannot uphold the LAW he should get the fuck off the bench and go be an asshole somewhere else!

[Andy9o8 2]

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if a Judge cannot uphold the LAW he should get the fuck off the bench and go be an asshole somewhere else!

Well, that's a pretty senseless comment. Might go over OK in a bar where everyone's piss drunk and ready to cheer at any old slogan, but it's not an argument for anything but screaming out loud.

Some medical evidence found that the current drug cocktail injection procedure might induce several minutes of excruciating pain before unconsciousness or death. That's basically torturing a person to death. Now aside from the question of whether the sonofabitch might morally have that coming (let's not go off on that tangent right now), if that would actually happen, most judges (even conservative ones) would say that a death essentially by torture is unconstitutionally cruel & unusual.

All this judge did was give the State a choice from 2 options:
1. Have a doctor on hand to make sure the execution was kept as painless as possible,
OR
2. Not have any medically qualified person on hand, and just inject the prisoner with so massive an overdove of barbiturate that it would first render him unconscious and then kill him.

Critics say that the judge "knew" that No. 1 would never work; but remember, California was given TWO options, not just one. (Critics seem to ignore or not realize this: TWO options, not just the one that got screwed up.) All that California needed to was to make this choice within the time limit before the death warrant expired.

California chose Option No. 1. They could have realized that Option No. 2 might be problematic and chosen No. 2, but they didn't. But then they waited until the just shortly before the scheduled execution to confirm their doctors' willingness to participate, BUT THEY NEVER PLANNED TO GO TO PLAN B IF THE DOCTORS BALKED. So when the doctors did balk, which the State could and should easily have anticipated, California was left with no more time before the death warrant expired to go to Option No. 2.

Now that's not the judge's fault; it's the State's fault.

[kelpdiver 2]

The state then proposed to execute Morales with a massive dose of the barbiturate sodium pentothal, which officials said would render him unconscious quickly and kill him within 30 to 45 minutes.

But Tuesday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel imposed further conditions to minimize the risk of a botched and painful execution: The drug would have to be administered by a licensed professional and injected directly into Morales' vein, rather than flow through an intravenous tube from outside the death chamber, meaning that the person giving the injection would have to be in the chamber with Morales.
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no, I think he made sure it couldn't happen.

[Andy9o8 2]

Nope. He gave them options. They chose.

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U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said in a 15-page ruling that San Quentin State Prison officials may either administer fatal levels of sedatives exclusively or have an anesthesiologist present to ensure that Morales is unconscious before they deliver the standard mix of sedatives, paralytic agents and heart-stopping chemicals.

Judge Fogel noted that in six of the past 13 executions something went wrong

State corrections officials have until Thursday to decide whether to accept Fogel's proposal of using sedatives, or until today [Tuesday] to select an anesthesiologist.

[kelpdiver 2]

you're posting an earlier story.
when they couldn't make option 1 work, they moved to option 2. And he changed the game.

bottom line, under his court, no one is getting executed until he makes a decision on the method of execution per the 8th.

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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[Some medical evidence found that the current drug cocktail injection procedure might induce several minutes of excruciating pain before unconsciousness or death. That's basically torturing a person to death. Now aside from the question of whether the sonofabitch might morally have that coming (let's not go off on that tangent right now), if that would actually happen, most judges (even conservative ones) would say that a death essentially by torture is unconstitutionally cruel & unusual.

So fuck all this lethal-injection crap, and let's go for INSTANT DEATH which cannot possibly cause "excruciating pain." Bring back firing squads! Why were they ever abandoned? When something like 10 or 20 high caliber rifle bullets hit you in the span of a second, you don't suffer. Hell, I think they even give you a cigarette to smoke while they put you down! That's right kinder than a murderer even deserves.

One can try to make a case that standing there waiting to be shot to death is "cruel." But apart from the fact that a condemned person should not be able to claim that knowledge of the fact that he's going to be executed constitutes "cruelty," if this were the uniform way in which a state conducted executions, it would not be "unusual" (especially given that it has been used historically), so since it doesn't meet the "AND test," it's not unconstitutional.

Thanks for your clarification -- I had not yet availed myself of the "full story."

It sounds like we should fault the state of California for simply being disingenuous about whether they truly do engage the death penalty or not. It seems they scuttled their own plan to carry out this guy's sentence.

It'd be like a guy who doesn't want to get married saying up and down right until the day that he was to marry that he did indeed want to, and then all the while he knew that he had not booked the preacher, the hall or the limo.

California's got some real good "leaders" there. If those assholes want to be against the death penalty, then fuckin' SAY so -- don't say you're gonna do it and then deliberately sabotage it from happening.


When I had a colonoscopy, they injected me with some white milky stuff in my hand, and in about five or ten seconds, I was totally unconscious. No pain except the needle stick and a little "burning" sensation where the fluid goes in.

Someone please tell me why the fuck they can't use THAT STUFF to knock out a prisoner, and then for all the murderer can feel, they could chop off his fuckin' toes and let him bleed to death that way and he'd never feel shit as far as pain. Totally humane. Or how about we keep it simple: give him that stuff they gave me, and then add about a gallon more.

Problem fuckin' solved, you idiot California people!

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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Quote

The state then proposed to execute Morales with a massive dose of the barbiturate sodium pentothal, which officials said would render him unconscious quickly and kill him within 30 to 45 minutes.

But Tuesday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel imposed further conditions to minimize the risk of a botched and painful execution: The drug would have to be administered by a licensed professional and injected directly into Morales' vein, rather than flow through an intravenous tube from outside the death chamber, meaning that the person giving the injection would have to be in the chamber with Morales.
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no, I think he made sure it couldn't happen.

Something stinks here:

From where, exactly, is it that a judge is supposed to get his power to tell exactly how an execution is to be performed? Would that not be a legislative duty?!

The judge could either say that he feels the law is right or it's wrong, but this fucker is WRITING THE LAW.

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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[kelpdiver 2]

no, he's doing his job, more or less. I think he's imposing his own will, but ultimately that's what happens in any court.

A judge would decide if a punishment exceed the cruel and unusual boundaries. If one felt the current procedure was over the line, he could suggest immediate remedies so it could go forward, else it would have to wait for his ruling having reviewed it at the more normal pace, not on a 2 day deadline.

If he rules that it is a violation of the 8th, then the state(s) must come up with an acceptable method, not necessarily one he suggests. Just not the one he eliminated.

Or appeal and let the bigger courts settle it once and for all.

[billvon 3,071]

>The judge could either say that he feels the law is right or it's wrong,
>but this fucker is WRITING THE LAW.

Yep. Sorta like the Supreme Court did when they said that blacks could marry whites, or that blacks could go to the same schools as whites did. Damn activist judges!

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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>The judge could either say that he feels the law is right or it's wrong,
>but this fucker is WRITING THE LAW.

Yep. Sorta like the Supreme Court did when they said that blacks could marry whites, or that blacks could go to the same schools as whites did. Damn activist judges!

I think there is a distinct difference between finding something in the law, finding something is not in the law, and what this guy did, which is to proscribe behavior, akin to making the law that governs executions and how they are to be performed, even though writing law is not in his purview.

I sure wish Lawrocket were here to straighten this out.

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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[billvon 3,071]

> finding something is not in the law,

There was no law that said blacks had to go to school with whites. They MADE law in that case. There was no law that said that whites could marry blacks, and many people giving reasons why it should not happen - indeed, a great many local laws prevented it. The Supreme Court reversed all that. It defied local law and made new law.

>which is to proscribe behavior . . .

Pretty much all laws do that.

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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> finding something is not in the law,

There was no law that said blacks had to go to school with whites.

The issue was that blacks wanted to go to school and have the same educational opportunities and resources as whites, but they were not being allowed to, was it not?

No one had to make law to say it was permissible for blacks to go to school with whites -- they had to find that it was NOT lawful to PROHIBIT them from so doing.

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The Supreme Court reversed all that. It defied local law and made new law.

>which is to proscribe behavior . . .

Pretty much all laws do that.

Laws do that. Laws are written by legislatures, not by judges. This is the basic heart of my argument, here, Bill: that the judge overstepped his powers and made law rather than applying law.

And the USSC is not supposed to MAKE law, either. It is supposed to interpret whether legislature-made laws are constitutional and enforceable or not.

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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[billvon 3,071]

>No one had to make law to say it was permissible for blacks to go to school with whites . . .

Google "desegregation" and then see if you still think no one had to make a law to desegregate schools.

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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>No one had to make law to say it was permissible for blacks to go to school with whites . . .

Google "desegregation" and then see if you still think no one had to make a law to desegregate schools.

They may have done it so that they had a law they could say they were enforcing, but I'd like you to show me where in the constitution any rights guaranteed to Americans were done so only to white Americans.

There was no basis in laws that are constitutional by which to deny any rights to blacks.

Thus there was no actual need to pass laws that gave them the right to marry whites or to go to school with them.

Either way, did the USSC write a law? Did Congress write a law? How was the actual issue decided? Did the USSC simply strike down segregation laws? That's not the same as "making law."

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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[lawrocket 3]

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And it's not like the guy is getting his execution cancelled. It will happen. A few more months is tolerable next to the 20 years.

I predict the gut won't be executed. His death warrant expired. The state has to go back to the original trial judge to get the warrant reissued. CHarles McGrath, the judge, asked Schwartzenegger for clemency for the bastard.

It's a nice end-around that was done. You know, if the judge would just hold it unconstitutional we could deal with the issue. Instead of doing that, it seems that they'd rather gut the process to make it unworkable, and this is not good for any side.

My wife is hotter than your wife.