Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Death penalty? We don't need no stinkin' death penalty.
THE execution of a Californian man was postponed at the last minute yesterday after two court-appointed doctors refused to help to administer the lethal injection, a move that reignited America’s death penalty debate.
Michael Morales, who has been on death row since 1983 for the rape and murder of a teenage girl, was scheduled to die at 12.01am. But the execution was suddenly put off after the two anaesthetists withdrew, claiming their involvement would violate their medical oath to preserve life.
The involvement of the doctors, which had been ordered by a judge, was the first such case in the US and stemmed directly from research in The Lancet, the British medical journal, last year. The article, published in April, has shaken up advocates on both sides of the death penalty issue in the US because it suggested that some prisoners executed by lethal injection suffered agonising deaths.
The death penalty opponents have found a new trick. Find a few medical people that don't believe in it and make an absurd claim about pain and suffering. A third trimester baby should be so lucky to have someone step in and not allow the forceps to be plunged into their skull and have their brain collapsed.
In any case I'm not sure we should have executions anyway. I like the idea of telling these brutal killers that showed no mercy for their victims that it's time for them to meet their maker. When you get them strapped in and ready to ride the needle, just say something came up and drop them back in their cell with a "maybe next week." A few trips down the hall like this might find them begging for Old Sparky and the Ted Bundy treatment.
For the punch line of this whole story read the next paragraph after my excerpts, I thought that guy was supposed to be the devil!
