Georgia has executed a convicted murderer, the first person to be put to death in the United States since the Supreme Court ended a de facto moratorium on capital punishment last month.
William Earl Lynd died by lethal injection at a prison in Jackson, central Georgia, at 7.51pm (0951 AEST) today. Lynd, 53, was convicted of shooting his girlfriend to death in December 1988, said a spokeswoman for the prisons department.
In the hours before he died, the US Supreme Court rejected a final request for a stay of execution filed by Lynd's lawyers.
Lynd's execution is the first since the same court on April 16 rejected a challenge to the cocktail of three drugs used in most US executions, which opponents had argued inflicted unnecessary pain.
A nationwide pause in executions had been in effect since shortly after the court said on September 25 it would hear an appeal by two death row inmates in Kentucky against the use of the lethal drugs.
SMH
Why does an allegedly civilised country continue to use murder as a punishment? Because that's what it is - government sanctioned murder.
Just because it is the law, doesn't make it right.
Vengeance is not a logical form of punishment. It is a knee-jerk reaction steeped in emotion. Regardless of whether you killed a person out of malice or psychosis or law, you still have blood on your hands. At some point, regardless of how you feel about it now, no matter how you justify it, you will feel some level of guilt. The only people who don't are sociopaths.
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yes it never ceases to amaze me at the astonishing level of stupidity of people who justify state sanctioned attrocities with the disclaimer "...but it's the law".
As if anything as maleable and fluid as "the law" could ever be considered justification for anything.
A quick scroll down the passages of human history reveals just how arbitrary "the law" in fact is, it's nothing more than mob rule legitimised.
"The law" is an entirely distinct entity to morality, ethics or justice for that matter, yet people cling to this hopelessly flawed belief that they are somehow linked.
A lot of people cling to law and order because it gives faux legitimacy to the disengenuousness of their lives I think.
That really is their problem, unfortunately it seems in a democracy everyone has to live with the myopic legislation passed as a result of this insanity.
Behold the precariousness of the human condition in all it's pathetic frailty.
Yeah ... the key word there is civilised.
The US is locked in this kind of old testament time warp of an eye for an eye without causational factors factored in.
There's a reason the rest of the industrial west considers right wink yanks to be boorish halfwits. Because a lot of them are.
Sorry "wing" not "wink"
MB, it is not often that you stir me up enough to write something, but what is wrong with vengeance? Your blogs are full of it if you could elicit a payback (sure it is not the death penalty but it is vengeance nonetheless).
All I can say is maybe you would like to think about how you would feel if it was your daughter or wife that was murdered by this guilty killer??
How would you deep down honestly feel?
You might think that I am an arsehole, but if someone either raped or killed one of my daughters I can assure you that I would hunt them down and kill them - of that there is no question.
Life imprisonment is in itself a death sentence (funded forever by you and I)....form your own opinion. At least for a parent that had lost everything that was the heart of their life it could have some respect of closure.
Think before you judge about what it might mean to you.
I have thought about it and I can say absolutely my first and no doubt long term reaction would be for revenge. I would want that person to hurt just as much as they hurt me.
But at the same time, I also know I would feel as guilty as hell for knowing that someone, no matter what they had done to me, had been killed purely out of vengeance. Regardless of whether or not I was the one who carried out the act.
To me, killing anyone is wrong. Whether it be via execution, war or whatever.
Each human life lived is worth something, even if we can't see it because of deeds that person has done.
Yes, life imprisonment is a death sentence, but who are we to say who lives and dies? I would rather have my taxes paying for keeping someone in prison than for it to go towards killing someone. Given everything else that goes on in the world, I think there is enough state sponsored death in the world without voluntarily adding to it.
Capital punishment is always going to be a grey thing. It can never be black and white. Even those of us who hold pretty strong views on the subject can't honestly say that we wouldn't be tempted by the other side. I guess the thing that we've got going for us is reasoning and logic and the hope that we stop and think about our desires before we act on them.
As for my posts being full of vengeance - I don't personally think so. Extreme anger, yes, but vengeance? No.
Oh and Brad? I meant to add last night - I don't think you're an arsehole for wanting revenge if someone hurts your girls. It is a genuine human emotion and I'd be more concerned if you didn't.
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