The lone woman on Tennessee’s death row was still alive after she was administered two lethal injections, her lawyer said in a motion seeking to halt her execution Wednesday night, a stunning development after the Supreme Court had stepped in to allow the state to put her to death.
At 8:26 p.m. local time, witnesses said “executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals” and Christa Pike was “still alive and snoring,” her lawyers said in a federal court filing.
They said Pike “has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat” and that curtains to the death chamber “have gone down twice.”
That’s fair. But it’s not just the Tennessee courts. She’s taken her case to the US supreme court multiple times.
And yeah, Tennessee can be conservative as fuck, and the education system leaves almost everything to be desired, but I lived there, 30 minutes from Knoxville, for 15 years. Most people are pretty against the death penalty anymore, at least most everyone I spoke to about it. And considering I did political organizing, I spoke to a lot of people of differing opinions. It’s actually one of the hooks we used to use when trying to convince people about more progressive or lefty policies. Start with the death penalty, as it’s normally the easiest way to get someone to the point of agreeing that they don’t always align with their political party or candidate
Wow things have changed or are different there. I remember the death penalty being pretty dang popular when I was younger
It’s still popular, until you start talking to them about it, or individual cases. People are generally “in favor” until they actually think about it for too long
People are often in favor of the theoretical death of evil humans, but the bureaucracy of administering the death penalty is too ridiculous and impractical.
On some issues the opinions of citizens are important, but in others I think citizens generally aren’t equipped to make a decision.
Another example might be taxes, or how much tax ought to be paid. Loads of people might vote to say they shouldn’t have to pay taxes, but very obviously they’re wrong.
American’s in particular seem ill equipped to separate the fact that someone may well “deserve” to die from the notion that delivering that death is not the best outcome for anyone.
No. Democracy is good for many reasons but especially because it requires people to explain to each other why they’re wrong and to thereby precipitate moral progress.
That’s why democracy anywhere is a threat to autocracy everywhere. It’s why evil people, religious people, etc., really hate democracy. Makes it hard to control others when they’re no longer morally depraved.
For instance, if you’re right that governments shouldn’t be administering the death penalty, you have to explain why and in doing so help people become less stupid.
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