Utah firing squad death announced on Twitter | Hacker News Reader

Utah firing squad death announced on Twitter

news.bbc.co.uk

16 pointsConcours34 comments

Incidentally, does anyone know why in the US system the governor is given the ability to stop an execution?

I suppose it's the same thing as the ability of the President to grant pardons. But what's the logic behind giving the executive branch the ability to overrule the judicial branch in these sorts of circumstances?

I don't believe this is the case in every state, they each have their own constitution. As w1ntermute says, it has to do with checks and balances. Personally, I don't believe that any single branch of government should have final say on the life of an individual. It makes sense that the executive be given the task of second guessing this instance as the executive is the branch actually tasked with enforcing the laws.

And, keep in mind, he only has the right to pardon. Not to execute, only to preserve life. In other words, he has the power to counter the courts, but not replace them.

There is definitely a precedent for this method, which seems to work pretty well; the presidential pardon, as you mentioned, and the presidential veto.

I think the more pressing concern is why, in the US system, the government has the right to execute a person at all.

Who decides in other systems?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment#Global_distr...

It seems like in some of these other systems, people are executed for non-violent crimes too.

Is that a trick question? Because it is clearly allowed by the constitution? And in the "US System", whatever that is, the states can further limit penalties.

> Because it is clearly allowed by the constitution

I think that's what he's got a problem with

I remain unconvinced that there will never be cases where execution is justified.

At the very least, when comparing life in prison to execution, do not forget the sheer cost to keep them in jail for life. It may seem inhumane to say that, but these people are hardly humane themselves. Plus, in being forced to board them, citizens are negatively impacted for the rest of the criminal's life.

I believe the cost to execute somebody in the US is significantly more than the cost of keeping them in prison for life.

Why is it?

Legal costs of getting them sentenced to death. Apparently it takes $1.5-2 million to pay for the legal proceedings necessary to go beyond life in prison, while room & board & etc for life in prison costs about $500k.

That makes it really easy to be against the death penalty.

I would like to think that the decision of whether to execute people would not be based on financial concerns.

Oh. That's ridiculous. I feel like that's a sign of a problem elsewhere in the system.

It's the cost of appeals. Whether you consider that a problem probably comes down to political leanings (discussions of which are best avoided on HN).

It'll be that way until the US get rid of its guns, stop fighting the world and get some human rights in place... Don't count on that happening for a few hundred years yet though.

Funny to see this one downvoted.

Checks and balances, though I feel this particular check/balance is a bad one.

Wow plus the tweet itself has a tone of religious extremism with an implied consent from god as a justification for an atrocity.

I'm not even sure I'm against the death penalty but doing it in the manner of the Taliban is sick.

"but doing it in the manner of the Taliban is sick"

I'm not sure if you were referring to the method of execution used, but Mr. Gardner was the one who requested that his execution be by firing squad. Subsequently, that method of execution has been outlawed.

I didn't get the impression that Governor Shurtleff gave the go ahead out of religious conviction at all. The only religious element was a contract between the assumed mercy of God and the convict's apparent lack thereof.

Agreed. Since "May God have mercy on his soul" is pretty much boilerplate language for executions, we should look at the difference in what Shurtleff says.

When he writes, "May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims," the emphasis is on Garner's crime.

The "May God grant him the mercy..." part is more likely a cultural artifact than religious extremism.

Same as how our money has 'In God We Trust' written on it. If you're to get up in arms about simple phrases like that, better start objecting to US currency too.

I do object to US currency for having that phrase, since that's an endorsement of religion by the Government itself.

I don't object to the governor's comments, which were made by the Governor as an individual.

It never really sounded like religious endorsement to me. When the President takes the Oath of Office and says "So help me God", I never took that as religious. If he was to utter "God help us" when faced with a particularly grave and insurmountable situation, I wouldn't be thinking 'gee he is religious isn't he'.

Where was there a tone of religious extremism?

i wouldn't place this in the same realm as the Taliban (since they kill anyone)

Interesting, but does anybody know why they are all so mad that he was shot (as opposed to killed with a lethal injection)?

It just seems that with shooting, we at least know what will happen and how not to fuck it up.

I think there's always been a drive to make executions look less "barbaric" by using the most technologically advanced methods. Right now that's lethal injection (you'll note it's not just a syringe of poison, but a fancy machine with lots of flashing lights that administers the poison). Before that it was the electric chair, which seemed very high-tech at the time but was probably much crueler than most of the older methods.

So a firing squad seems like a step back to a more barbaric age. Personally I think I'd prefer death by firing squad to death by lethal injection. Staring down the barrels of a bunch of rifles sounds better to me than being poisoned in my sleep.

Part of it is probably the fact that he was still moving after being shot five times. Lethal injection would most likely hurt less.

I thought the way it was done was that 4 of the 5 firing squad members fire blanks? In fact Wikipedia mentions that this is the case in Ronnie Lee Gardner's execution in particular:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_by_firing_squad#Blank...

The story I read said that only one of the bullets was a blank, but the pattern you mention is the one I have also heard of more often. When I think about it though, that would be even more risky as many people have survived single gunshot wounds, at least for a little while.

Actually I did a little more reading (offline, no link unfortunately) and apparently in this execution four of the five firing squad members were firing live rounds, and one fired a blank. The reasoning for this is that each person can say "well, at least there's a chance that I fired the blank". Over time, each man will believe he fired the blank, to console himself. The weakness in this concept is that an experienced marksman will be able to tell the difference between a live round and a blank (more recoil from a live round).

So the Right has found another medium with which to elicit irrational emotional excitement like oh-so-many reality TV shows from its inbred voterbase... news?

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