What are your opinions on this Amendment?

http://tinyurl.com/pdrfgmc 

I think if you call yourself a strict constitutionalist all of the Amendments should hold the same power of the Constitution as the "hot button" ones (i.e. #2). What's your thoughts? 🌫

You can support the Constitution, including the 8th ammendment, while also supporting capital punishment.

This case was an error. A mistake.
It was not intended to make the guy suffer. Quite the opposite.


I had to google 8th amendment. Wasn't sure which one it was.
Turns out, it was right after the 7th...

Do convicted rapists & murderers have rights..?? 🤔

Cruel? Maybe. But accidental. Unusual? Guess so. So what? Had it gone as planned he'd be dead. As it is, he's dead. Did he suffer a little? Maybe, but I'm not shedding a tear. Doesn't mean I'd go piss on the Bill of Rights.

Not after we give them a drug induced convulsion.

I took an ethics class in 1975 that had a unit on criminal justice: Rehabilitation vs. Retribution. The debate rages on today no closer to resolution.

The classic though experiment: say a young man kills his mother in cold blood. Psychoanalysis shows indubitably that his only violent outburst ever would be against his mother. He no longer presents any danger to society. If he is rehabilitated, do we let him go?

Or, what if a petty thief suffers from kleptomania? The best psychoanalysis shows he will never be cured. Does he spend the rest of his life in prison?

There are way too many problems with a rehabilitation model of criminal justice. But it just doesn't go away. We still try to rehabilitate our criminals.

When California last did lethal injection, they would insert an IV into each arm to prevent such disasters. And they would swab the arms with alcohol before inserting the needles

^ The examples presume great value in the ability of psychoanalysis to predict future behavior in order to even have that debate. I'm not convinced we are any where near there yet.

felons can't vote and stuff right..?? 🤔

So it it OK for the Government to break down your front door and seize all of your guns if it is a mistake? Just taking the above argument to the extreme.

I personally think that the guillotine is a pretty humane way to execute someone. Severs the spine in one quick blow. No pain or suffering. 🌫

'an eye for an eye' I say... 🌫

Guillotine, huh?
I prefer the V-cut.

=d>

Everybody must get stoned... :-"

No one said it was "OK".
But your scenario happens all the time.

Local cops or the feds or a swat team can break down your door with a court ordered warrant.
Obviously, mistakes will happen. Humans are involved.

In my opinion, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't do it. If we only proceeded when the course of action was deemed infallible, then we'd never get anywhere.

The colonists used to have stocks, tar & feather, banishment and all kinds of unusual punishments. "Take the case of a Southeastern Virginia man who was found guilty of just making a ``detracting speech'' about the governor. Having been found guilty as charged, the governor's critic was disarmed and arrested, after which his arms were broken and his tongue bored through with an awl."

They did have capital punishment. If we are strict constructionists, then we have to recognize that the authors and ratifiers of the 8th Amendment never saw any conflict with capital punishment.

Today's debacle doesn't change my mind one bit. Except we might want to consider going back to hanging or firing squads.

^ and don't forget that awl thingy!

or we could put their head in a vise.... 😟

No argument from me on Capital Punishment; I just wanted to start a discussion on the 8th Amendment in the light of the botched execution in OK. Like I said above, I think that the guillotine would be acceptable in my mind. Just being a chit stirrer.

That's all we need: another vise...

He was sentenced to death & the sentence was carried out. End of story.