Christa Pike, who survived two doses of a lethal injection drug last week during a botched execution in Tennessee, is conscious and speaking, her lawyers said in a statement on Tuesday.
Ms. Pike continues to receive critical medical care at a Nashville hospital, the lawyers said. The prognosis remains unclear, they said, but they expect a long recovery.
“Christa is a survivor and will take recovery one day at a time,” the lawyers said.
Ms. Pike, 50, is believed to be the first person to have survived doses of a lethal injection drug. She has been hospitalized since the execution attempt on Sept. 30, after it became clear to witnesses that she was still breathing after two doses of pentobarbital, the drug used in lethal injection executions.
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Where’s all the pro life evangelicals to say that God doesn’t want her to die?
Probably saying she made a deal with the devil to live or smth
I unironically believe we should bring back firing squads, if we’re keeping executions at all.
Lethal injection is so fickle and extremely painful/terrifying for the victim (look to doctor reports on the three drugs used – youre basically paralyzed but in constant agony the whole time, but because youre paralyzed it looks really peaceful)
Firing squad, but it should be staffed by a random section of pro capital punishment voters.
“You want people to die for their crimes? Cool, you do it then"
Probably would just use ai no?
You mean robots?
I’m vehemently against death penalties, but if we wanted to make it “humane”, which is a gross misuse of the word, we’d just use nitrogen. There’s genuinely no reason for anything else besides intentional suffering and money
The problem with nitrogen is it’s comfortable for the executioner and scalable. Historically that combination doesn’t go well
Well this shit is clearly also not working. Hey here’s an idea, let’s not allow the state to execute citizens!
Yeah, carbon monoxide is already a popular home remedy for a shitty life so why not?
Ugh, like a chemical bronze bull… yeah it’s freaking horrifying.
I looked up this bronze bull of yours, and it’s nasty.
(For others who didn’t know, apparently this ancient Greek tyrant put people inside a hollow bronze bull, closed the lid, and lit a fire underneath, so that while the person inside cooks to death their screams bellow out of the Bull’s mouth)
Yeah I felt pretty gross even mentioning it, but basically the “genius” of the device was making the suffering more palatable to those on the outside of it, so it reminded me of the mentality behind injections today.
According to anecdote and/or legend, the inventor was the first victim.
Yeesh. :(
Firing squads ain’t exactly instant, either.
Yeah but at least it doesn’t look peaceful, which is appropriate for the barbaric act that every kind of capital punishment is.
The electric chair doesn’t look peaceful. Now, for sure, we should not be using it (or implementing capital punishment at all). But it’s also one of the most haunting methods. The electricity can cause fires or tremors even after death.
Yeah it takes maybe a full second to die.
Tall that to the Chicago trauma team lol
Guillotine! It may not be pretty, but it is quite literally designed to stop human error. So far i have not heard of anyone surviving getting their head cleanly removed from the shoulders.
i can very much see firing squads go wrong - leading to a drawn out, painful death.
This is some fucked up morbid shit.
Absolute insanity.
We need to end the barbaric practice of capital punishment.
But important detail:
I live in one of the “formally suspended” states (Oregon). Capital punishment is entrenched in the state constitution, but state officials have done their darn best to get around that. The governor commutes all death sentences to life imprisonment. The execution chamber and death row were both dismantled, and the state has no way to procure the drugs needed for lethal injection, the only approved method of execution. A “temporary” moratorium has been in effect for over a decade.
There hasn’t been an execution in Oregon in almost 30 years.
There’s the North and there’s the South.
We don’t get along and we are not the same.
We have fought wars between us. The South lost, but was let off too easy, and continued their ignorant, hateful slavery ways in their culture this whole time.
People not from the US need to understand that while the US is one country, the different states being United is highly conditional. Even different parts internally of each state.
Europeans don’t understand that American states are probably closer to different European countries, and that’s not even including the multiethnic diversity aspect of the USA.
Nah man, US states are nowhere near as diverse as European countries. They are more diverse than German landers, or UK countries, but nowhere near as diverse as entire countries (eg Belgium vs the Netherlands).
That’s fair.
And while it remains on the books in California, there hasn’t been an execution there in over 20 years.
The federal government and military really ought to swap positions there. I’m opposed to the death penalty in general, but we’ve got a lot of soldiers who commit war crimes and need punished for it
Where I live, the death penalty in the Philippines is abolished for almost three decades, yet some people I met – especially middle- and lower-class people – insist on having it and corporal punishment reinstated, believing society would be supposedly much safer like Saudi Arabia (which does carry out forced amputation and beheading, but still is not really an effective deterrent), but ignoring completely that their everyday problems such as petty thievery are ultimately caused by class struggle and unequal distribution of wealth and resources.
That although there were no execution of prisoners during the Duterte regime, nonetheless thousands have been executed for minor drug-related offenses with not even seeing a courtroom, by either hired gunmen or by law-enforcement officials in disguise.
They’re beheading the wrong people.
This map is wrong. There is no way you can claim Russia isn’t executing citizens…
I think it needs to be upped a few pegs.
Navalny and Prigozhin immediately come to mind.
I’m not a huge fan of the barbaric practice of making parents pay through taxes for their child’s murderer to eat and live out their days watching TV and lifting weights.
I’m not happy about my taxes being used to murder innocent people they were convinced definitely did a crime, and a human life is worth more than cash.
But it isn’t. Of it was we would be behaving differently and not ignoring all the “bad” things companies do to people around the world to make money. But we mostly but on blinders and don’t care.
Fortunately, you wouldn’t be paying for it. You pay taxes and the state decides what to do with the money. And imprisoning the few people on death row is just a drop in the bucket of what they have available.
Here’s some numbers. There’s about 50 executions in the US per year. If the annual cost of imprisoning someone is 100.000$, that’s 5 million per year. Per person in the US (say 340mio), that’s about 1.5cts. Granted, now that these people aren’t dying anymore, there’ll be more people to take care of. If they live 50 extra years, that’s 75cts each person in the US pays to keep them in the prison.
It’s cheaper than death row and the death penalty though, so nice try. Why not just admit you want to kill them?
“Surely once my vengeance is sated, I’ll finally be at peace!” Said many a tragic hero who only made everything worse.
Uhhh… Beg pardon?
Sorry, I wasn’t clear at all lol. I was adding to your point, when you said “Why not just admit you want to kill them?”
I was basically trying to say this desire for revenge on criminals only begets more suffering and violence. It doesn’t bring lasting peace.
You are not into this entire buddhism thing?
No, I am not.
For the most part, I agree with you. But for the people out there who are serial murderers, serial rapists, serial child molesters, people who have done horrible, terrible things, we know for sure they did it, there’s no doubt about it, they admit to doing it, they swear they’ll do it again as soon as they get the chance…
Yeah, kill those mother fuckers. It’s a waste of time trying to rehabilitate them, a waste of money keeping them in a cage, and a danger to society to let them out. What else are you supposed to do with a problem like that?
Generally it’s more expensive to execute someone due to all the appeals and other processes you have to go through.
There is no one so cartoonishly evil that it’s unsafe to even keep them in prison.
There is no one so cartoonishly evil that it’s unsafe to even keep them in prison.
Billionaires tho…
There’s an exception to every rule: Richard Ramirez is pretty fucking cartoony. Those vatos that caught him should have ended his ass on the streets.
But that’s fundamentally a flawed argument. It’s more expensive becuase death penalty cases have more rights. Specifically in the US what is called “actual innocence” is not grounds for an appeal to a life sentence but is for a death penalty.
Ideally we would extend that everyone, not save a few bucks and justify continued incarceration of innocent people by noting “hey it’s not a death sentence.”
Imagine the scenario of an innocent person who can’t appeal becuase the trail was fair but would have been freed if they had been sentenced to death, but becuase of the judge or jury’s mercy, they are imprisoned for life.
That has happened here.
Not think a great argument for abolishing the death penalty since it fundamentally is just saying “it is way too expensive to let any prisoners appeal based on being innocent. We could save so much money if didn’t let anyone do that.”
Keep in mind that it’s not only that though. Yes, death row cases get a good deal more automatic appeals just to verify guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But also consider that when the punishment is death, the government doesn’t want an inmate doing that on their own terms. They get extra security and a bunch of other extra precautions so they’ll only die on the government’s terms to fulfill their sentence. Regular inmates should absolutely have better legal protections though.
Are people sentenced to death entitled to a different amount of appeals than those sentences for life?
My gut feeling is that access to lawyers matters more than the number of procedural steps available.
Death row inmates seem to have much better ability to be represented by pro bono attorneys’ who will go to the mat on every single hail Mary motion.
There is no one so cartoonishly evil that it’s unsafe to even keep them in prison.
Most of us have not seen true evil up close. Most of us cannot even imagine it. We just believe we can, absolutely certain in the arrogance of our own ignorance that we already know everything we would ever need to know about it.
But in reality, we look away from even the brief glimpses of evil we do see, choosing instead some variation on the just world theory to make it sit better. An example of this might be finding a way to blame a victim of bullying or abuse for some level of unwise personal choice that makes it mostly their own fault – in our own sight – and thus keeps us from having to deal directly with the wrongdoer in any way.
That’s just a very mild example, but it’s all around us. We humans don’t want to see evil. It’s a direct threat to our innate sense of security and stability – and why stochastic terrorism is on the to-do list of every budding autocrat. We “missing stair” evildoers ALL the goddamn time, in every culture, in every country, law enforcement and laymen alike. Most of us are not even equipped to look at evil, much less determine its true nature or potential for harm to others.
And that’s kind of where I clock this opinion: well meaning, hits the right virtue buttons, but basically uninformed in terms of personal experience.
I won’t go into what I have seen personally. I’ll just say I genuinely wish there were no such thing as “so cartoonishly evil that it’s unsafe to even keep them in prison.” You’re very privileged in so many ways just to be able to think that, and I hope you never understand just how lucky you are in that regard.
idk have you seen Dr Morocco in Transformers Rescue Bots?? /s
multiple republican states and even the federal government are trying to make being transgender a sex offense and then push laws to kill all sex offenders. Do you understand what this says about the power capital punishment gives. Do you get how easily any “legitimate reason” can be abused
we know for sure they did it
This is more difficult than it sounds. I’ll admit it’s much better than a few decades ago, but still… What if we’re wrong and we execute an innocent person? It’s not like this is unheard of, and the whole problem is fully avoidable by simply not killing people.
All other considerations aside, it’s just not worth it for such a permanent outcome.
For the most part, I agree with you.
You don’t agree at all.
we know for sure they did it
It’s very disturbing what this caveat implies.
Agreed. Knowing for sure that they carried out the physical act should be the bare minimum to even consider the death penalty (assuming we can’t just get rid of it).
And when years later evidence comes out exonerating someone who was executed, how much are you willing to pay the surviving relatives?
Yeah except ALL the people who are executed because JUSTICE and later it turns out WHOOPS they were innocent all along. We thought for sure we got the right person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wrongful_convictions_in_the_United_States
Pobody’s Nerfect, am I right?
What else are you supposed to do with a problem like that?
Do we have that problem? I went out today, seemed fine.
I don’t think the prisons are bursting at the seams with serial killers, it’s mostly pot-smokers.
Another issue I don’t see discussed like, ever, is which option actually is more humane? We tend to assume death is the absolute worst thing we can do to someone, so anything other than death is at least second in line… but personally, I disagree. “Life in prison” has no rehabilitative goal, we’re just keeping them pinned in horrible living conditions with no objective other than to keep them living in horrible conditions. …which is torture. 24/7, until they eventually die anyway, which is still a death sentence, just one that dragged out over decades of torture.
So, we’re choosing between:
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Die.
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Torture, torture, torture, torture, torture, torture, torture, die.
…between the two, if I was the one whose fate was being decided here, I’d rather just skip the torture and die. But that’s ofc the arm-chair perspective of not being stuck in that situation: on any given day those self-preservation instincts kick in and we drag our own suffering out just for the sake of staying alive, cuz that’s just how we’re wired; but thinking of it here and now more objectively, yea fuck that, just kill me.
So the other factor to consider is whether inmates are even in a state of mind sound enough for them to make that decision for themselves, so even letting them choose on an individual basis is a bit fucked. Maybe we need to have them make that decision prior to sentencing, and place it in a sealed envelope or something; and if they checked the ‘just kill me’ box, but are now panicking after a guilty verdict: sorry duder, you’re panicking, we’re sticking with what you chose before sentencing.
Anywho, there’s no humane option in that dichotomy, but thinking of it as prolonged torture vs what is essentially a mercy killing paints a very different angle to the usual death vs imprisonment talking points.
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You are pretty barbaric.
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That’s gotta feel weird. Waking up after being executed.
Twice 😳
Will she get a Fox News interview to talk about how sexy she thought Jesus was while she was dead?
I’m so dissapointed all I got was the impossibly bright glowing orb in my NDE
Heck of a way to find you that you’re immortal.
Can you imagine, getting executed and then waking up in a hospital days later.
“You’re finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, weren’t you?”
Ironically that opening sequence culminates in everyone on the wagon being brought to their planned execution.
“Aww, shit. Here we go again!”
And then being told, “That’s doesn’t count. We get a do-over. You still have to go back to jail.”
I feel like regardless of where you stand on the issue of capital punishment, everyone should agree that if the drugs got administered and it didn’t work that’s a double jeopardy kind of situation. But alas.
You’d be surprised. I saw people online arguing they should have just kept trying until she was dead, regardless of the suffering inflicted. A surprising number of people are 100% on board with the State literally torturing someone to death if they think it’s “deserved”.
That seems like a good argument for not being able to attempt the execution again, but by default the offender in such a case should still remain in prison for life.
It’s there a law that states if you survive it, you get to live?
Yeah, there’ll eventually be a Silent Hill that starts just like this.
Ngl that sounds dope af. I’d play that
So… Is this like a movie scenario where she gets to go free?
I mean death penalty opinions aside, does it make sense to give medical care to someone you’re trying to kill? What a weird world we live in.
I mean if they can technically say “Hey she was probably dead for a second.” Then she served her sentence, right?
Considering she spent 30 years on death row prior, which isn’t the punishment she was sentenced to, I think a case could be made. Morally speaking of course, legally it’s Tennessee.
it’s the doctors’ duty to keep her alive. They took the Hippocratic oath. It’s the state that is trying to kill her, not the doctors
But it was the state that brought her to the doctors.
We, as a society, are trying to kill her, not torture her. The constitution explicitly bans torture
It’s a fine line between execution and torture
what differentiates torture or not is guidelines on a paper.
most ppl today would agree, that waterboarding is torture. in guantanamo it was not considered torture as long as a few guidelines where followed. guidelines, like at what angel the prisoner is laying on the floor…
Ok but as a society, we’ve gotten pretty good at killing people. Lots of different ways. Suddenly we’re like, “Oh no. This is really hard.” It’s like the one thing we excel at.
Does it? Then why does the US do so much of it?
Could have just shot her in the head when it failed just baint her brown and put a gin in her hand and have coos there.
I mean, in Westerns you can’t be hanged twice.
First time?
I’ve heard it’s like, if you survive 3 executions, it’s a sign that God wants you to live.
If she weighs as much as a duck
or a very small rock
I heard god was a rapist and a terrorist and an abuser
That’s the Islamic god, and all the other ones. Christian god is cool as hell and super laid back.
If he could, he would let them all go, but the truth is god is not omnipotent, he is impotent.
Then why call him God
Exactly, and I don’t, I call him god as in a concept, god with a capital G is a religious term as in an actual person and elevated position.
Gods only exist as delusions for the weak minded.
Omnipotent is religious belief, impotent is the result of not existing, not existing makes god 100.00% impotent.
No, you’ve got it wrong - after the first two, the third is free.
From what I understand, no. But her lawyer will probably argue another lethal injection attempt would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. So she may end up getting the electric chair. A grim fate regardless.
I mean death penalty opinions aside, does it make sense to give medical care to someone you’re trying to kill? What a weird world we live in.
The rule of law still matters. While it might feel logical that someone just take a scalpel to an artery after the injection failed, the law says it has to be done in a specific manner. Anything else is (legally) murder. And healthcare professionals also have an oath to fulfill.
Like I said, what a weird world we live in.
This subject came up while I was having a medical test done and the tech and I discussed it. She brought up a good point. Why not just put the subject to sleep like you would in an operation. From that point, pretty much nothing is cruel and unusual since the inmate won’t feel it.
What if someone truly is executed, literally dead and buried in the ground…but then I use necromancy to bring them back? They quite literally died for their crimes. I just…undid it. Are they free to go, having paid their debt to society?
There are some the cases that are a bit like that in history, like Half-hanged Maggie and Anne Greene, women who survived hanging, which probably gets the closest to that necromancy situation, in real life. Half-hanged Maggie was considered to have gone through her sentence by Scottish law, so she was let go (and had to remarry her husband, since she had legally died). Anne Greene’s execution was reprieved, but by English law she was not considered to have gone through the sentence. But in the end she was pardoned, as they believed it was God’s will that she lived.
That hasn’t been decided by the courts yet, probably due to the lack of a suitable test case.
I really dont want to find out we’re living through Torchwood Miracle Day.
We already have enough pedophiles-child killers running around without finding out one of them is a hero of the story.
She’s doing better than Mitch McConnell.
She’s definitely killed orders of magnitude fewer people than Mitch has.
In a normal society this horrific sequence of events would be cause to reexamine what was done and determine if it’s appropriate for the state to continue murdering its citizens.
I mean, at least part of the problem is that nobody want to provide drugs to kill people. Most of the country moved way past executions a good long while ago.
They’ve got a shit govorner that must have gotten bored waging war on the state’s only African American majority city and decided to kill a woman to make himself feel better.
Unfortunately this is a normal society. The exception was a brief period where we were steady improving things for all our citizens and visitors, including our imprisoned, our institutionalized, etc. Historically those people have always been mistreated and abused with little to no regard and plenty of glee from sadists masquerading as the religious, those seeking justice, and those concerned for the safety of others.
Please tell me I’m not the only one with these scenes running through my head.
But seriously. This is no anomaly. This may be a more stark example than most, but it’s part of a running pattern of botched executions. What more do people have to see to be swayed that capital punishment is barbaric and should be abolished?
They tried to execute her twice and within a week she’s already doing more than Mitch McConnell has done since he’s ‘returned’ to the Senate
Abolish it. It’s not the 19th century anymore.
The US Federal Government (excluding the military probbaly) is bad at everything it tries to do, including killing people.
That’s overly reductive.
In general the US government is good at the things it wants to be good at, and bad at the things is doesn’t
Death penalties are a good example of one where it doesn’t want to be good at it. A huge portion of the population does not want death penalties, and obstruct the process where they can - a good thing, generally for anyone against the death penalty
A result of that is an inability to find competent executioners and often inability to find drugs for lethal injections
An example of something the government does well: Aviation infrastructure. The US has far and away the best aviation infrastructure in the world, with an incredible safety record. Best part is all the infrastructure is socialized. Anyone who wants to use it can, for free. Got a cheap drone you want to fly through controlled airspace? You can access ATC services for free to do it
While the US military is very good at spending money it is somewhat… less good… at winning the wars it gets itself into.
That’s because the military fights battles, they don’t win wars. You can’t bomb people into compliance. You can’t kill enough civilians to ensure peace. Military occupation creates resistance, not acceptance.
The only way the military can “win” a war is to kill everyone. The greatest military in the world doesn’t mean shit if you don’t have the economy and the diplomacy to back it up. Saying that the military isn’t good at winning a war is like saying that a steering-wheel isn’t good at winning a race.
“We the people”.
That means YOU are part of the problem. Fix it.
Edit: adorable lemmy thinks I’m wrong.
I am iron Man
Gasp iam iron Man?
Adorable lemmy might not be all american.
They need to fix their shit too.
