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Alabama suffocated a man to death in a gas chamber tonight after starving him so he wouldn’t choke on his own vomit as they did it. And this was deemed perfectly legal by multiple courts in the vaunted American legal system.
That’s what happens when you value institutions over people.
Link for more info: https://www.reuters.com/legal/alabama-prepares-carry-out-first-execution-by-nitrogen-asphyxiation-2024-01-25/
Ahhh the old “moving the bar because my argument is flawed trick”. Whatever, I’m still game.
Last time I checked the state does not have the power to “kill people who have committed no crimes.” There is no law on the books nor precedent set, that gives any U.S. State or Federal agency the power to execute the innocent. So to directly answer your question, no I don’t think the state should have the power to kill people who have not committed a crime.
Certain states do have the death penalty for citizens who are found guilty by a jury of their peers for very serious crimes. All states that have death penalties currently require that said jury of their peers vote for the death penalty. Only in those cases can the guilty party be sentenced for execution.
You can make the argument that our justice system is not perfect. (Which is what I think you are clumsily trying to express with your last two posts.) That a jury’s can convict a defendant who may be innocent. To that I reply, that’s a chance we’ll have to take.
I do know a man on death row. I worked with him for two years. I traveled with him, worked on projects, I even had an hand in promoting him up the ranks in our company. I was the person who counseled him and sent him home on the day he committed his crime. He was extremely upset, I heard him out and told him to take some time for himself, go home, calm down, and think it out.
Instead he left and murdered two people and destroyed three families. He’s been on death row for well over a decade. I think he belongs there and deserves his fate. I support the death penalty.
“Committed no crimes” is an objective statement about reality. The state has killed people who committed no crimes, and the state had a right to execute all of them. Both of those statements are true, so their combined form, “the state has a right to execute people who have committed no crimes,” is also true. Personally, I would prefer if we made that statement not true anymore.
Lol perhaps in your fucked MAGA fantasy world the state is empowered to kill people who are not guilty of crimes. Back in reality a jury of their peers has to agree without a shadow of a doubt that the accused is guilty and should be executed. Can justice be miscarried, yes. But no system is perfect.
A jury of your peers does not determine whether or not you actually committed a crime, they determine whether the evidence against you is sufficient to find you guilty. A jury of Claude Jones’ peers found him guilty based on evidence that was later shown to be faulty. That guilty verdict gave the state the right to execute him. He was innocent. They had the right to execute an innocent man. They could do the same to you.
As I’ve stated before those are chances I’m willing to take.