17 April 2008
This is not a subject that I like to think about but must be addressed. I have been against lethal injection because of the drugs used and lo and behold the U.S. Supreme Court upheld it’s constitutionality. In states that do support a death penalty, I hope that they find more humane drugs to use. The minute it’s use was O.K.’d the state of Georgia planned to execute to condemned killers. Kentucky and Virginia quickly followed suit. In my opinion, the drugs used now are cruel and unusual punishment because the protocol for administering it isn’t always properly followed. 36 states allow the death penalty and 27 use lethal injection.
Just what crimes demand a death penalty? The Supreme Court has tried to limit the death penalty, but that trend could be reversed and extend capital punishment to crimes other than murder. The ruling now is that murder is the only crime committed by one person against another that can be punished by death so at this point in time there are limits of the Death Penalty. The State of Louisiana
passed a law making rape of a victim younger than 12 punishable by death. If challenged it will go to the Supreme Court and the possibility of a change in the Death Penalty law when a life has not been taken.
After the court reinstated capital punishment, it held that the Eighth Amendment’s bar on cruel and unusual punishment prohibits applying it to some defendants, such as the mentally retarded, and also certain crimes, one of which was rape. If I had my way, a child rapist should get life without parole and take his chances with a prison population that doesn’t have much use for child rapists.
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