Carl Sack says: ‘I thought Republicans were Pro Life?’
Denny Crane replies: ‘That’s for babies. Criminals are for killing’
Boston Legal, Season 5 Episode 4 ‘Kill Baby Kill’
This was an extraordinary episode of the hard-hitting series by David E. Kelley and centred on a correctional officer in Virginia who, as part of his inclusion in a ‘death team’, witnesses an execution that is going badly wrong. The prisoner is having a fit for nearly 30 minutes and is clearly not dying but nobody knows what to do. The guard takes out his gun and shoots the restrained man in the head, killing him outright. He is then charged with Second Degree Murder.
According to the programme, executions by lethal injection in America are not carried out by doctors as they refuse to perform these procedures on ethical grounds. This means that the muscle relaxants, barbituates and fatal dose are administered by non-medical personnel, resulting in botched executions where the drugs that are meant to anaesthetise and paralyse don’t get injected into the vein properly.
The result is that the condemned man is potentially conscious but unable to communicate his pain and distress when the lethal dose goes in.
Apparently, this problem is particularly relevant for the State of Virginia where they use a different method of lethal injection to other States. One which, it was reported (although later they said that they were misquoted), has been deemed unsuitable for putting down sick animals by the American Veterinary Association.
With a client who refuses to plead insanity and being forbidden by the judge to use the validity of the Death Penalty as an excuse, Carl Sack’s ‘unusual’ defence is that the prosecutor is deviously and insidiously trying to draw public scrutiny to the abolition of executions by pursuing the case because he is secretly in favour of doing away with it.
In seeking a strategy for the defence of a man who is being tried for killing someone who was in the process of being executed, Carl and Denny Crane have a discussion about the fact that America is the only Westernised nation to retain the ultimate punishment, drawing unflattering parallels with other countries who use execution as a correctional measure – Iraq, China, Sudan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Carl quoted statistics showing that it was more expensive than life imprisonment and less effective, with Canada showing a 40% drop in homicides after the law was changed.
Reference was made to the fact that most Americans love the Death Penalty and, in order to capture that percentage of the voting public, all prospective Presidential candidates purport to be in its favour, even Obama and Hilary Clinton.
That’s when Carl asks the most telling question of all about the Republicans.
To this Brit, the political system and ideologies in America – admittedly as put to me by the cases depicted in Boston Legal – are often quite bemusing.
Cake…This is humor, right? Tongue-in-cheek, haha…right? Certainly you wouldn’t base your opinions on a fictional TV show and the political opinions of Mr. Kelley. I would direction your attention here: http://www.crimeandconsequences.com/crimblog/2008/07/virginias-lethal-injection-pro.html.
Besides, the condemned in VA can still choose the chair if they fear the needle. John Allen Muhammad took the needle in VA. Know him?
I’m personally not aware of any type of “not hitting the vein” arguments..they seem to center around the “amount” of drugs administered. If you’re serious about your opinions expressed this post, perhaps a teensy bit more research is in order. Bemusing would be a Brit who based her entire opinion of the US death penalty on an episode of Boston Legal….
By the way, was the guard found guilty?
Hi Lois! We stopped hanging people here back in the Sixties and, every so often, calls for the Death Penalty to be reintroduced return – particularly with regard to crimes against children like the one I mention in my post later today.
I like Boston Legal because it tends to take contentious kernels and turn them into story lines that get you thinking about the subject from both sides… as well as highlighting some unusual Americanisms.
The point of the post was not to debate the rights and wrongs of the Death Penalty per se but to think about the method of its execution and the programme provided some useful reference points at which to start. Thank you for the link, that was very helpful. Although it does beg the question why one State thinks it necessary to use the higher amount and another does not. In the UK, this would be something that was decided at a national level.
We are so ‘regulated’ here in Britain that the idea of anyone performing a ‘medical’ procedure who was not a doctor – even on prisoners – would cause a flurry of comment by our investigative journalists. From a personal viewpoint, having had blood taken by various ‘professionals’, I know how easy it is to do it badly or incorrectly. So to have such intricate procedures carried out by someone who was not medically trained leaves the outcome open to problems and, in this humane society, that would be unacceptable to many. The UK is a hotchpotch of confused ‘nanny’ rules, so we can have sick pets put down but do not accord the same courtesy to terminally ill people who are asking to be helped out of their pain permanently.
Human rights and civil liberties are what underpin the morality of those who are in a position to make decisions on such matters. So, whilst a large proportion of the general public may be in favour of the ultimate punishment, those who vote on their behalf will temper this with the thought that to have one innocent man be hanged is worth the cost of keeping the guilty alive.
And, mostly, I agree with this because, otherwise, we run the risk of becoming like those countries who still stone people to death for adultery.
Until it comes to adults who hurt children.
Then, emotions come into play and I cannot say for sure that I could allow someone who hurt my child to go physically unpunished.
PS, The verdict was Not Guilty :)
I know it isn’t a perfect system. But it is tough. There are people among us who are truly just monsters. How are we really supposed to deal with those who commit multiple murders or truly heinous murders (children, and other defenseless persons)? I don’t have that answer and it is not an argument. I think it is a serious question which deserves serious consideration. I do know that if any person ever harmed my children, there would be no doubt in mind that they should not be allowed to live another minute, or allowed to take another breath on this planet.
We have a situation that reflects this at the moment in the UK with the killers of young Jamie Bulger. I shall post about it later this evening.
So where is the problem with someone found guilty and worthy of the death penalty (in cases of murdering another human (usually an innocent and not a gang related murder or anything) getting the needle no matter how inhumane? They out to cut their wrists and let the sorry human trash bleed out slowly. Then to compare that to an innocent life being vaccumed from their poor decision making mothers womb is silly and sadly a take that some of the most foolish, simple and dull truly back. Unless of course the fetus intentionally took the life of someone innocent.
I can assure you the death penalty is not more expensive than life in prison. If it is they are doing it wrong. I can buy a 50 box of bullets for $8.00, I don’t know what it takes to feed one of the low rent rat bastards for a day but do the math.
We should vote, people against the death penalty should be taxed more to feed the lifers, people for the death penalty should be taxed for the bullets mentioned above.
Over here, we always err on the side of caution, preferring to protect the life of the one innocent who might be executed erroneously. However, I agree with you that being shot in the head is far cheaper and somehow less barbaric than the whole sideshow of the electric chair or lethal injection. How did all these different options come about?
I suspect that normal imprisonment is cheaper than your current option because of the separation of these prisoners into the death row units which require additional supervision and then the numerous appeals over many years to the various levels of justice.
In response to your final statement, it seems easy enough on the face of it, but would those same sides be drawn when it came to paying financial damages to the families of anyone who later proved to have been executed in error or indeed to taking the moral responsibility for such an outcome.
It is a hugely contentious issue and one which, I guess, will go rumbling on until they can eradicate the gene that causes people to commit the heinous crimes involved.
Here in Florida, we used to have “Ole Sparky” and we were competitive with Texas for the Death Penalty Championship. Now, we’re lucky if we execute ONE per year with lethal injection.
Points:
1) The Death Penalty does not NEED to be more expensive than life-in-prison. It used to be dramatically less expensive.
2) The alleged drop in Canuckistan’s homicide rate has NOTHING to do with their formal elimination of the Death penalty.
3) Being against Taxpayer-Funding of Abortion and being in favor of bringing back OLE SPARKY and swift sure justice are not contradictory positions.
4) The contradictory position is that of muslibs who believe INNOCENT babies should be killed at taxpayer expense while GUILTY criminals should be coddled.