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World Opinion Condemns the US for a 'Savage' Execution
Around the world and across the US, the firing squad execution in Utah has been met with a wave of criticism from those entirely opposed to the death penalty and those who say that shooting is not the most humane method of killing a prisoner.
The execution chamber at the Utah State Prison is seen after Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by a firing squad in Draper June 18, 2010. Four bullet holes are visible in the wood panel behind the chair. Gardner, 49, was pronounced dead at 12:20 a.m. Mountain Time (0620 GMT) after being shot in the chest by a five-man firing squad.(Trent Nelson-Salt Lake Tribune/Pool) In Salt Lake City, opponents held a multi-faith vigil. "I think we do not prefer to be associated with Iran, China, Saudi Arabia and the other countries who use the death penalty as we have used it," Nancy Appleby, chairwoman of the Utah Episcopal Diocese Peace and Justice Commission.
Rev Tom Goldsmith of the First Unitarian Church agreed: "Murdering the murderer doesn't create justice or settle any score." Bishop John Wester added: "The firing squad is archaic, violent and simply expands on the violence that we already experience from guns as a society."
Civil rights organisations in the US also joined the chorus of opposition. "Gardner's execution was both savage and inhumane and highlights the systemic injustices that plague the entire death penalty system in Utah and the rest of the United States," said John Holdridge, director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Such arbitrary and discriminatory administration of the death penalty is the very definition of a failed system."
The USA has carried out 28 executions so far this year, and 1,216 since resuming judicial killing in 1977. Utah accounts for six of these executions.
Amnesty International, which has long called for a worldwide repeal of the death penalty, said shooting had also been used in China, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Vietnam this past year.
But that may no longer be the case in Vietnam. The day before Gardner was killed, legislators there voted to end the use of firing squad and make lethal injection the only method for executions. The change is due to take effect next year.
Vietnam has long been criticised for the number of death sentences if imposes. About 100 people are executed each year in Vietnam, many for drug-related crimes.
The decision to switch to lethal injection came after a parliamentary committee said it was necessary to find a more humane method.
Amnesty International said it "opposes the death penalty, in all cases and in all countries, regardless of the method used to kill the prisoner, or the nature of the crime for which he or she was sentenced to death."
108 Comments so far
Show AllAh, the myth of American exceptionalism rears its head again: "We don't act barbarously like SOME other countries..." Why don't we just face facts? We are the world's leading killer of other human beings, especially considering our role as one of the leading weapons exporters. I think the firing squad perfectly represents the quality of our national character (that, and stupidity).
[Sarcasm] But, FastEddie, you're missing the point. When we kill people it's different from when non-exceptional people kill. You see, we could blast the earth dead, but as we are exceptional, even our "mistakes" must be FORGIVEN as they were done in innocence.
Don't you understand? We are a priori innocent *because* we are exceptional and we are a priori exceptional *because* we are innocent. [End sarcasm]
Proving, once again, that sarcasm can be a superb way to make a point!
"We [the United States] are the world's leading killer of other human beings, especially considering our role as one of the leading weapons exporters." FastEddie75
It's so true it had to be repeated.
Another story that M$M barely covers, as it would tarnish people's perception of the USA.
Um, I don't mean to pre-empt the Grammar Zealots-- but "'Savage' Execution" is a tautology.
And "humane execution" is an oxymoron...
What is the linguistic link between "execute" and "executive?"
Both the savage and the humane act with feeling.
Executives execute - orders, plans, people, planets - and do so devoid of feeling.
What's being left out of this story is that this method of execution was this prisoners choice off the death from the options offered in utah. Hanging is another.
"I think we do not prefer to be associated with Iran, China, Saudi Arabia and the other countries who use the death penalty as we have used it," Nancy Appleby, chairwoman of the Utah Episcopal Diocese Peace and Justice Commission.
But Nancy this is the country that carpet bombed Iraq into the stone age, used depleted uranium causing over a million children to die of leukemia, and THEN bombed another 1.3 million Iraqi's to death. The United States of America is a country with secret police, concentration camps, where political protesters can disappear or be imprisoned indefinitely.
The myth of America as a land of justice is just that, it's a myth. This execution is completely congruous with what the USA really is.
Very quick way to die. He didn't suffer. What about his victims?
Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders.
Kind of misses the point, doesn't it? The point is, if human life is something precious, you don't step on another human as you would an insect. That is what the death penalty is all about, isn't it?
Not everyone is opposed to the death penalty. If your veiw is that justice is served and you favor its use, the firing squad is a quick method.
I absolutely agree. Not everyone is opposed to torture either, or slavery or any number of fine old customs. I think there should be a place where people who favor executions and war and human sacrifice and other forms of institutional homicide could go and be free to live and kill and die and bugger each other to their heart's content, without the onus of being looked upon as vicious or unevolved or mentally ill. Someplace where nobody is denied the satisfaction of pointing a rifle at the heart of a human being tied to a chair and blowing him away for that rush of retributive justice. Someplace far away from the rest of us, please.
Most of the rednecks around here are pretty good shots. If a mad dog was mauling one of their grandchildren they have enough sense to put it down. This guy was worse than a mad dog, look him up on wiki. Sometimes people get what they deserve.
What a stupid analogy--or non-analogy. If a mad dog were mauling my cat I'd shoot it--assuming I had a gun to hand. I'd certainly shoot a man mauling a child or any other human or animal. You do that to rescue the victim. That's a long way from being analagous to putting the perpetrator through the criminal justice system and then cold-bloodedly having paid government employees execute him long after the damage he did has been done.
You also need to see there are no more victims. Society protects itself from predatory killers. I agree the wheels of justice turn too slowly.
No statistic has yet demonstrated the deterrent effect of capital punishment.
You only have to answer one question to make your comment real, have you ever killed anyone or sentenced them to die?
Perhaps the Sudan. Slavery is still practiced there. They also practice genocide. They execute people at the drop of a hat.
Perhaps the victims family should decide the punishment.
Though I abhor killing, having seen the results of child molestation in many cases, I have to admit I think I'd cheerfully pull the trigger myself on these fiends.
Perhaps its just not that simple. Are there no crimes so horrific that the perpetrator should be eliminated for comitting?
I have very mixed feelings about this either way as a hard and fast rule.
The death penalty is not abhorrent because of what it does to the victim, but because of what it does to us. It coarsens us: coarsens our souls and our sensibilites and makes us less human and much less decent.
"Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." John Donne--Devotions XV11.
Are you listening flunkdaddy? It is not about what kind of people the criminals are. It is about what kind of people WE are. Yes, there are horrible people out there. Yes, we have an obligation to protect society from them. Life without parole does that very nicely in this country. When we get out of the business of isolating killers from our midst and into the business of retributive punishment we are on a slippery slope toward becoming what we hate. Everybody who deliberately kills somebody, whether that is an executioner or a jury or a thug robbing a convenience store, is thinking the same thought: "the sonofabitch has it coming." That evil people kill does not license us to be like them. It should demand of us to be the opposite.
We became what we hate a long time ago. Except we pretend that it's different when it comes from us.
Let me ask you a hypothetical, if a 30 year old man raped and sodomized your 6 year old grandaughter, beat her and broke both arms and blinded her in one eye, is it that easy for you to answer the question.
For me it isn't.
Being human, I'd probably find the guy and beat him to death. What's your point?
Thats why I have mixed feelings. When you kill, the memories stay the rest of your life. When you see violence you cannot obliterate those memories, the effects of horrific acts remain in your mind.
Many of these people are less than wild animals and society and the world would be a cleaner place without them, but what if you have to make the decision? Personally make the decision and witness the execution of your decision?
Not such an easy question is it, as you say.
An interesting choice of words. The Turks felt the world would be a cleaner place without the Armenians. Ditto the Germans vis-a-vis the Jews, the Serbs vis-a-vis the Muslims etc. Often the most monstrous acts are perceived as retaliatory, one murder mysteriously cleaning up the blood from a prior murder.
I don't dispute the need to remove dangerous people from society. Segregation of these individuals is something were are entitled, indeed obligated to do. But it is when we set ourselves up as punishers that we breathe life into the nastier regions of our nature. The desire for revenge is difficult to repress in all but saints. But society should be less passionate, an agent of regulation not payback.
I've heard the argument that if we ourselves had to be judge and jury and executioner we would abandon the death penalty. It isn't true of course. Hangings and beheadings have been very popular public entertainments in many parts of the world. Taking delight in somebody else's misery or death comes quite naturally to us. But it is hard to argue that we should encourage that unfortunate aspect of human nature. It might be that mixed feelings is as close as we'll come to a resolution of the problem.
Perhaps NOT Sudan. What you call "Sudan" was once a part of the great continent of Africa, ihabited by beautiful people of many tribes. Then it was colonized first by Egypt, Britain, then both. Since then governments dominated by Muslims in Khartoum have taken turns trying yo run an entity that never should heve been, and never was , a country. The trbal peoples of the southern half of the country have not had enough to eat for the last 20 years.
if you want to send despised rejects someplace, they'll have to go to your own back yard.
I'm simply speaking of what they actually do and are. There is NO excuse for their actions. None. Slavery is a terrible thing in its own right.
Sorry, but Israel isn't far enough away.
Hey Daddy, you flunk.
Apparently you are oblivious to the fact, that innocent people are executed invariably, because the justice system is flawed.
So, you are for killing innocent people.
Is that the best you got? Nobody advocates executing the innocent, this persons guilt was not the issue.
Our humanity is the issue.
How would you know he didn't suffer?
If Ronnie Lee Gardner asked for the firing squad then how could anybody else object to its being used. All executions are barbaric. Lethal injection is less barbaric only to the spectators and to the citizens whose governments do the killing. Let the prisoners choose. There is an advantage in firing squads and guillotines in that their bloodiness might convince a few more people to oppose the death penalty by whatever means.
By lethal injection, by hanging, by guillotine or by firing squad, end it now.
If they are sharp-shooters, why do they need four bullets and one blank?
Why not four blanks and one bullet?
The irony is that most shoooters know when they've fired a blank or a real round. The difference is noticeable. I always thought this whole idea was pretty stupid.
"The irony is that most shoooters know when they've fired a blank or a real round. The difference is noticeable. I always thought this whole idea was pretty stupid."
This reply is a good answer to the question of why four real and one blank instead of the other way around. It may be stupid, but the idea is supposed to leave the shooters with a bit more chance at a clear conscience if they want it,
The death penalty doesn't work and it's as a rule cruel and unusual punishment. Other industrialized countries, and I exclude Israel which is a police state, don't have the death penalty and have lower crime rates.
The lynching though by the president is even worse, which is to say the president's approval of the execution of US citizens abroad is the death sentence carried out without due process, and therefore is lynching by definition-- "thank you Barakus Obombus for this little bit of 'Western civilization," oxymoron that it is.
AD
0 briefly attended Occidental College, known as Oxy to we alumni.
They are currently running a course on stupidity.
Terry Gilliam is also a graduate.
Israel does not have the death penalty except for (and this is pretty theoretical at this date) people like Adolf Eichmann who took an active part in mass killing of Jews in the Shoah.
..and rock throwing Palestinian children.
..and flotilla passengers.
Don't be ridiculous. The subject was "capital punishment," i.e. state mandated killing of its criminals who have been tried and found guilty in a duly appointed court of law. What you and the previous commenter brought up was murder and piracy, themselves crimimal acts not formal executions. Both are evil but "capital punishment" refers only to those acts formally ordered and carried out by the justice system of the state.
Bullshit. Guaranteed impunity for murder by police and army (in the case of the US, for example) and "civilian" lynching mobs (in the case of Israel, additional to the other two) are as real as the ritual human sacrifices by "duly appointed court of law". They are much more frequent and their general chilling effect on society much more widespread.
Your decreeing in your own mind that "capital punishment" will only apply to the latter is your own problem; others are free to use it according to current language and their own logic.
The death penalty doesn't work and it's as a rule cruel and unusual punishment. Other industrialized countries, and I exclude Israel which is a police state, don't have the death penalty and have lower crime rates.
The lynching though by the president is even worse, which is to say the president's approval of the execution of US citizens abroad is the death sentence carried out without due process, and therefore is lynching by definition-- "thank you Barakus Obombus for this little bit of 'Western civilization," oxymoron that it is.
AD
Well, I posted this idea once but it never showed up, so I'm trying again. I apologize if I end up being with two very similar posts.
" 'I think we do not prefer to be associated with Iran, China, Saudi Arabia and the other countries who use the death penalty as we have used it,' Nancy Appleby, chairwoman of the Utah Episcopal Diocese Peace and Justice Commission."
If the other countries that still had the death penalty were England and Norway, I don't believe that her holiness would have put those names in this kind of sentence as it wouldn't rise to the level of distaste and aversion she is seeking. She names non-Western countries, and mostly Muslim ones at that, with which to condemn by association. This is nothing but using racist tactics to try and make her point. I oppose capital punishment under all circumstances, and I am glad that there are others who share that conviction, but I abhor this type of bigotry that is gratuitous to the issue at hand.
Countries and territories that retain the death penalty for ordinary crimes:
Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Botswana, Chad, China, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad And Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States Of America, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zimbabwe
Countries that have abolished the death penalty since 1976
1976: Portugal abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1978: Denmark abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1979: Luxembourg, Nicaragua and Norway abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Brazil, Fiji and Peru abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes.
1981: France and Cape Verde abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1982: The Netherlands abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1983: Cyprus and El Salvador abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes.
1984: Argentina abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes.
1985: Australia abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1987: Haiti, Liechtenstein and the German Democratic Republic (1) abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1989: Cambodia, New Zealand, Romania and Slovenia (2) abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1990: Andorra, Croatia (2), the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (3), Hungary, Ireland, Mozambique, Namibia and Sao Tomé and Príncipe abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1992: Angola, Paraguay and Switzerland abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1993: Guninea-Bissau, Hong Kong (4) and Seychelles abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1994: Italy abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1995: Djibouti, Mauritius, Moldova and Spain abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1996: Belgium abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1997: Georgia, Nepal, Poland and South Africa abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Bolivia abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes.
1998: Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, Lithuania and the United Kingdom abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
1999: East Timor, Turkmenistan and Ukraine abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Latvia (5) abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes.
2000 : Cote D'Ivoire and Malta abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Albania (6) abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes.
2001: Bosnia-Herzegovina (7) abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Chile abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes.
2002: Cyprus and Yugoslavia (now two states Serbia and Montenegro (9)) abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
2003: Armenia abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
2004: Bhutan, Greece, Samoa, Senegal and Turkey abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
2005: Liberia (8) and Mexico abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
2006: Philippines abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
2007: Albania (6), Cook Islands, Kyrgyzstan and Rwanda abolished the death penalty for all crimes. Kazakhstan abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes.
2008: Uzbekistan and Argentina abolish the death penalty for all crimes.
2009: Burundi and Togo abolished the death penalty for all crimes.
Notes:
(1) In 1990 the German Democratic Republic became unified with the Federal Republic of Germany, where the death penalty had been abolished in 1949.
(2) Slovenia and Croatia abolished the death penalty while they were still republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The two republics became independent in 1991.
(3) In 1993 the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic divided into two states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
(4) In 1997 Hong Kong was returned to Chinese rule as a special administrative region of China. Since then Hong Kong has remained abolitionist.
(5) In 1999 the Latvian parliament voted to ratify Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, abolishing the death penalty for peacetime offences.
(6) In 2007 Albania ratified Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, abolishing the death penalty in all circumstances. In 2000 it had ratified Protocol No. 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, abolishing the death penalty for peacetime offences.
(7) In 2001 Bosnia-Herzegovina ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, abolishing the death penalty for all crimes.
(8) In 2005 Liberia ratified the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, abolishing the death penalty for all crimes.
(9) Montenegro had already abolished the death penalty in 2002 when it was part of a state union with Serbia. It became an independent member state of the United Nations on 28 June 2006. Its ratification of Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, abolishing the death penalty in all circumstances, came into effect on 6 June 2006.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/abolitionist-and-retentionist-countries#retentionist
Thanks very much for this posting.