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Why not hanging for carrying out the death penalty?

Emily's Cat said:
Why not use veterinarians? They can access the same drugs (although not human grade, but I doubt that would make any material difference). And vets aren't as-a-whole barred from executing animals when deemed necessary, so perhaps the ethical quandary can be sidestepped.
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What if the vets don't want to be used? Anyway, I'd guess, since some medical professionals can and do assist with executions, vets probably could too.

Darat said:
Are they legally allowed to treat humans in USA states?

ETA: Apparently not:


https://www.successinveterinarypractice.com/veterinarian-treat-human-medicine/
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Interesting; they can in the UK, but doctors are not allowed to treat non-human animals.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I was going to say "not for crimes" but dogs do get put down when they attack people.
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This raises a bit of a philosophical question. We have no particular hesitation about executing animals that are considered to be dangerous and likely to cause harm. It seems to be clearly implied that we do not believe they can be rehabilitated in a meaningful way - despite the high degree of trainability and teachability that we know dogs and many other domestic animals possess.

If we don't believe that animals can be meaningfully rehabilitated out of their innate violent and aggressive instincts... why do we believe that humans can?
 
Daald said:
Why is legality an issue here? This is the state doing it here so the law can be changed right?
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Pragmatically, AMA has a *lot* of lobbying power, and it's nearly impossible to pass laws that a powerful lobbying entity opposes.

Philosophically, I think that such a change could introduce some risk. Right now, the law is "Only doctors can prescribe these drugs, and people can only access them via prescription". Changing that to "Only doctors (and some others) can prescribe these drugs, and people can only access them via prescription (or other exception)" presents a potentially exploitable loophole. That's always a challenge when altering laws to allow for exceptions - exceptions have a tendency to grow and be stretched well beyond the original intention. And with every expansion of that precedent, it becomes more difficult to mitigate exploitations.
 
zooterkin said:
What if the vets don't want to be used?
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Pretty sure I mentioned this earlier, but I would never support obligating any individual to take part in an execution. It would have to be voluntary participation.

zooterkin said:
Anyway, I'd guess, since some medical professionals can and do assist with executions, vets probably could too.
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The article was a bit vague - what kind of participation are we talking about? I think most executions have the participation of a doctor or nurse of some sort, in order to declare death - but not to cause the death. The linked article is unclear to what extent these doctors and nurses have participated.
 
Emily's Cat said:
If we don't believe that animals can be meaningfully rehabilitated out of their innate violent and aggressive instincts... why do we believe that humans can?
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We don't believe animals can learn to drive safely while obeying traffic laws. Or can be taught to write sonnets that scan properly. Or can apply trigonometric identities when simplifying integrals. Why do we believe humans can?
 
Emily's Cat said:
This raises a bit of a philosophical question. We have no particular hesitation about executing animals that are considered to be dangerous and likely to cause harm. It seems to be clearly implied that we do not believe they can be rehabilitated in a meaningful way
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I'm not sure if the assumption is that they cannot be so much as they won't be. Society doesn't want the hassle and expense of doing that rehabilitation for the owner, and we think the owners are likely to continue to fail to keep the dog under control (which is often true), so just for expediency we remove the problem in the surest manner available.

Harsh but practical. The distinction isn't so much that dogs are less able to be rehabilitated than humans, but that they're worth less to begin with and so erring on the side of convenience to society at large isn't a problem.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Why not use veterinarians? They can access the same drugs (although not human grade, but I doubt that would make any material difference). And vets aren't as-a-whole barred from executing animals when deemed necessary, so perhaps the ethical quandary can be sidestepped.
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Others have answered but since this was addressed to me, my take on it (as a Not Lawyer) is that no such loophole exists. If the vet assisted directly in the execution, then their use of the controlled materials would probably be justifiable but they'd be illegally practicing medicine on a human. If they dispense those materials to someone else knowing it's not intended to be used for an animal in that person's care, that's essentially the same crime as a doctor "prescribing" ten thousand Fentanyl pills to the local drug dealer.
 
Myriad said:
Others have answered but since this was addressed to me, my take on it (as a Not Lawyer) is that no such loophole exists. If the vet assisted directly in the execution, then their use of the controlled materials would probably be justifiable but they'd be illegally practicing medicine on a human.
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I don't think deliberately killing someone counts as practicing medicine on them.
 
Ziggurat said:
I don't think deliberately killing someone counts as practicing medicine on them.
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In the hypothetical context under discussion, in which the authorization of the state and the privileges of a licensed veterinarian to practice veterinary medicine are being used to render an act (that would otherwise be murder) legal, it would have to.

So yeah, that's another way the hypothetical loophole could fail.
 
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Ziggurat said:
I don't think deliberately killing someone counts as practicing medicine on them.
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I agree when it comes to executions.

On the other hand medical assistance in dying in Canada is solely the legal responsibility of medical personnel and is a part of the medical practice of those who choose to participate. And it is covered by all government medical plans.
 
Darat said:
That thought had crossed my mind.

I have the idea now of a governor sat in a vet's waiting room with a prisoner stuffed into a furry suit and in a carrier.
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Conservative states are the most pro death penalty
Conservative legislators are anti-furry
....

wait they can see it as killing two boogie men in one injection
 
Emily's Cat said:
This raises a bit of a philosophical question. We have no particular hesitation about executing animals that are considered to be dangerous and likely to cause harm. It seems to be clearly implied that we do not believe they can be rehabilitated in a meaningful way - despite the high degree of trainability and teachability that we know dogs and many other domestic animals possess.

If we don't believe that animals can be meaningfully rehabilitated out of their innate violent and aggressive instincts... why do we believe that humans can?
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Because some have been.
 
May I point out that the evolution of execution methods is not to provide a more humane death to the person being killed, it's to provide an operation to allow those doing the killing (which are often murders) with the illusion that they are not killing another person.

Eliminating cruelty is not a consideration.
 
Darat said:
This thread was sparked by this article:

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/01/18/alabama-nitrogen-execution-death-penalty

The article is about an upcoming execution in which they are going to use nitrogen suffocation to kill the prisoner. It's a method never used before, and it does seem - like the article says - entirely experimental.

If you read the article, you'll see that there are a variety of methods proposed or being used yet I see nowhere is using hanging. It's been used for centuries, carried out properly it is instantaneous, we know how it works, there are even hangmen in some countries that could give hands-on advice.

So, my question is why all these weird and experimental execution methods when there is a perfectly good method they could adopt? What is the reluctance to use hanging?

(Thread isn't meant to be about the punishment of the death penalty itself, not interested in a debate about whether it is right or wrong in this thread.)
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Gary Gilmore would like a word
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
May I point out that the evolution of execution methods is not to provide a more humane death to the person being killed, it's to provide an operation to allow those doing the killing (which are often murders) with the illusion that they are not killing another person.

Eliminating cruelty is not a consideration.
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Perhaps executioner is not the ideal job for someone who is squeamish about executing people? Just a thought.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Perhaps executioner is not the ideal job for someone who is squeamish about executing people? Just a thought.
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It's not really a good job for anybody. But especially so in the US "justice" system, where anybody with reasonable intelligence will conclude that a large number of the executions are, in fact, murders.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
It's not really a good job for anybody. But especially so in the US "justice" system, where anybody with reasonable intelligence will conclude that a large number of the executions are, in fact, murders.
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Don't be silly. If you're using "murder" in the legal sense, then legal executions cannot be murders by definition. If you're using "murder" in the ethical sense, surely every execution is a murder.
 
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