***
Exekutionspatrull, gaskammare, hängning och elektriska stolen blir standard i USA i brist på avrättningsdroger?
Publicerad den 30 jan 2014
U.S. lawmakers are looking for
alternatives to help them kill. The lethal-injection drugs used to
execute prisoners on death row are in short supply, and there is concern
over how effective they are anyway. But some of the other methods being
considered are neither new, or campaigners say, humane. RT's Marina
Portnaya reports.
Nytt förslag 2014 i demokratins högborg, USA:
- Återinför exekutionspatrullerna!
SR 2014-01-18
Efter en mycket uppmärksammad avrättning i Ohio i veckan, föreslås i USA ett återinförande av exekutionspatruller när dödsdömda fångar ska avrättas. Argumentet är att det inte är mycket värre att skjuta ihjäl en människa än att ge en giftinjektion.[...]
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=83&artikel=5760248
Panicked lawmakers mull firing squad executions as drug shortage worsens
RT 2014-01-18
Politicians in at least two US states where authorities have been unable to obtain lethal injection drugs have admitted they would be open to executing prisoners via firing squad, resurrecting a method that has disappeared in much of the world.
European manufacturers that have traditionally supplied the drugs used to painlessly execute prisoners have stonewalled, boycotting sales of the drug on a moral basis.Officials in the states where capital punishment is employed have turned to pharmacies to concoct untested mixes of existing drugs in an attempt to make a cocktail that will end a convict’s life.
The method of using a sedative and painkiller combination is now coming under scrutiny, however, after it caused a convicted rapist and murderer in Ohio to gasp for air and convulse violently during his final moments. It was the first time in the a two-drug method has been used in the US and it instantly became a rallying cry for death penalty opponents who say the inmate suffered from cruel and unusual punishment.
Proposed legislation in Missouri seeks to correct this problem by carrying out the death penalty with a firing squad.
Missouri state representative Rick Brattin told Reuters Friday that a number of state Republicans support execution by firing squad because victims wait too long for justice as it is, although how executing an individual via firing squad would speed up the appeals process remains unclear.
“A lot of folks may picture the 1850s and everyone lining up to shoot, but the reality is that people suffer with every type of death,” Brattin said. “This is no less humane than lethal injection. If I had my choice, I would take the firing squad over lethal injection.”
Current Missouri law allows someone to be executed with gas, although that method has not been used since 1965.
Of all the states in the US only Utah has ever deployed a firing squad, doing so three times since 1977 with the last instance coming in 2010. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told Reuters that Utah is phasing out the firing squad and that such suggestions are evidence that lawmakers are desperate for answers on how to solve the lethal injection quandary.
Wyoming State Senator Bruce Burns is pushing for his own state to begin using a firing squad if the struggle to obtain the necessary drugs continues. Execution by gas is legal in Wyoming, although it has not been used since 1965 and lawmakers have maintained it would only be used if lethal injection ever becomes impossible. Burns’ bill will go under consideration at a legislative session in February.
“I consider frankly the gas chamber to be cruel and unusual so I went with the firing squad because they also have it in Utah,” he said. “One of the reasons I chose firing squad as opposed to any other form of execution is because frankly it’s one of the cheapest for the state. “The expense of building a gas chamber I think would be prohibitive when you consider how many people would be executed by it, and even the cost of a gallows.”
Yet Dieter, the death penalty researcher, warned that the firing squad may create more problems than it would solve.
“That I think would raise concerns in the federal courts, perhaps the state courts, about whether an unusual, perhaps a cruel and unusual punishment is being inflicted,” he told the St. Louis Post Dispatch. “I don’t know how the ultimate ruling would come down, but I think there would be delays as that case got considered and it might even go to the Supreme Court. This would be unusual.”
***
http://rt.com/usa/firing-squad-death-penalty-drugs-803/
***
Dennis McGuire såg i torsdags sin pappa avrättas i Ohio, och det är en avrättning som väckt stor upprördhet, inte bara inom familjen McGuire, utan också bland läkare, jurister och vanliga människor över hela USA.
För sonen var inte den ende närvarande som fick se en otäckt utdragen dödskamp, med tydliga tecken på svår andnöd under minst en kvart.
Det tros bero på att man använde en tidigare helt oprövad blandning av läkemedel när denne dödsdömde våldtäktsman och mördare skulle avrättas.
Det går nämligen inte längre att få tag på de preparat man brukat använda för avrättningar i USA, efter att bland annat en dansk tillverkare slutat sälja läkemedel till länder där de används för att döda.
Eftersom minst en stämning nu väntar för delstaten Ohio efter avrättningen, har andra delstaters politiker nu börjat fundera över alternativ.
I Missouri, som ska genomföra en avrättning om någon vecka, föreslår en republikansk delstatspolitiker att exekutionspatruller ska återinföras.
Detsamma har föreslagits i Wyoming, där gasning visserligen är ett tillåtet alternativ till giftinjektion, men där man inte längre har en fungerande gaskammare.
I Utah kan redan i dag dödsdömda välja att skjutas ihjäl, men det var ett tag sedan nån valde det.
Enligt de politiker som vill ha tillbaka exekutionspatrullerna är avrättningar plågsamma hur de än utförs. De anser också att det är ett rimligt lidande och straff för den som tagit någon annans liv.
Den övertygelsen gör att USA tillsammans med bland andra Kina och Iran är världsledande när det gäller antalet verkställda dödsstraff.
http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=83&artikel=5760248
***
Publicerad den 17 jan 2014
The state of Ohio executed a man on Thursday using a new and untested combination of lethal-injection drugs. - But now the state is facing a lawsuit over the execution because it took convicted rapist and murderer Dennis McGuire 25 minutes to die after the drugs began flowing into his body.
McGuire's family says the length of time it took him to die - much of which he was gasping for breath and making loud snorting noises - amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. RT's Perianne Boring takes a look at what led Ohio to use the new drugs in this execution.
***
Uploaded on 11 May 2011
Team America fan music video.
Ameridumb
USA ska skjuta ihjäl dödsdömda med exekutions-patruller - stor brist på avrättningsdroger
***
***
Publicerad den 23 jan 2014
This comes a week after the state of Ohio executed a man using a new and untested combination of lethal-injection drugs, which took 25 minutes to kill convicted murderer and rapist Dennis McGuire after the drugs began flowing into his body, and during much of that time he was gasping for breath and making loud snorting noises.
Virginia is one of six states that still employs the electric chair, but only after an inmate asks to be executed with it. RT's Ameera David looks at how capital punishment states are scrambling to find new ways to execute Death Row inmates due to a shortage of lethal-injection drugs.
***
***
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vidareläsning:
Undersökning avslöjar: Europa och USA fördummas med raketfart
--U.S. conducted bioweapon tests in Japan in early 1960s--
SvaraRaderaJanuary 18, 2014
Source: Homeland Security News Wire
The U.S.Army tested biological weapons in Okinawa, Japan in the early 1960s when the United States ruled the prefecture. U.S documents confirmed that the tests, conducted at least a dozen times occurred between 1961 and 1962. The test involved releasing rice blast fungus over rice paddies in order to measure the agent’s effect on production. With hundreds of millions of people dependent on rice as a staple food, failure of rice production could result in mass starvation. The fungus infects crops naturally, and experts estimate it destroys enough rice to feed sixty million people a year.
The U.S. Army tested biological weapons in Okinawa, Japan in the early 1960s when the United States ruled the prefecture. U.S documents obtained by Kyodo News confirmed that the tests, conducted at least a dozen times occurred between 1961 and 1962.
Japan Times reports that rice blast fungus was released over rice paddies in order to measure the agent’s effect on production. Rice blast, caused by a fungus, causes lesions to form on leaves, stems, peduncles, panicles, and seeds.
With hundreds of millions of people dependent on rice as a staple food, failure of rice production could result in mass starvation. The fungus infects crops naturally, and experts estimate it destroys enough rice to feed sixty million people a year.
The United States may have had China and Southeast Asia in mind when testing the rice blast fungus. Recently, the U.S. disclosed information on chemical and biological warfare tests conducted by the U.S. military at sea and on land in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Utah.
The United States ended all biological weapons programs in 1975 with the signing of the Biological Weapons Convention.[...]
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20140117-u-s-conducted-bioweapon-tests-in-japan-in-early-1960s
http://www.blacklistednews.com/U.S._conducted_bioweapon_tests_in_Japan_in_early_1960s/32137/0/38/38/Y/M.html
--Texas set to execute Mexican national despite diplomatic protests--
SvaraRaderaRT January 22, 2014
Texas is scheduled to execute a Mexican national on Wednesday despite warnings from federal officials and foreign diplomats that it could damage the relationship between Mexico and the United States.
Mexico has strongly objected to the execution, arguing that if it goes forward, the United States would be violating its responsibility outlined in international treaties.
The man in question, 46-year-old Edgar Tamayo, was in the United States illegally at the time of his arrest, when he shot and killed a Houston police officer named Guy Gaddis in 1994. Tamayo was convicted of the crime, but both his lawyers and the Mexican government argue he was never informed of his right to seek diplomatic assistance, established under the international treaty called the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
Tamayo’s lawyers claim that if Mexico were able to intervene in the case sooner, he could have avoided the death penalty. According to the Guardian, his attorneys say revelations about their client’s brain damage and low IQ surfaced too late to be of use in the trial.
About a decade ago, the United Nations’ International Court of Justice ruled that the US should reexamine the convictions of 51 Mexican nationals sentenced to die without being informed of their right to diplomatic assistance. Tamayo’s death would mark the third execution to be carried out, all by the state of Texas. [...]
http://rt.com/usa/texas-execute-mexican-national-tamayo-042/
--Death sentences and the demise of human rights in the US--
SvaraRaderaJanuary 24, 2014
The recent execution of Dennis McGuire by the state of Ohio using a previously untested cocktail of lethal drugs confirms that in the 21st century the words barbaric and United States of America belong in the same sentence.
Prior to McGuire’s execution on January 16 for the 1989 rape and murder of a 22-year-old pregnant woman, a court hearing to determine whether the execution should proceed had been warned by a medical expert that the combination of lethal drugs scheduled for use would likely cause the prisoner “agony and horror”. David Waisel, associate professor of anesthesia at Harvard medical school, was cited as an expert witness by the defense. After the execution, during which McGuire took 25 minutes to die after the drugs were initially administered, and during which according to eyewitness accounts he was in a state of extreme agony and distress throughout, Waisel said, “Initially I was angry, because I told them this would happen. Now I'm very sad about this. I'm also horrified and aghast. This was all totally unnecessary.”
Waisel had presented Judge Gregory Frost with a nine-page statement setting out his medical opinion of what would happen if the execution of McGuire went ahead using the drugs concerned – midazolam and hydromorphone – during the appeal hearing at the US district court for the southern district of Ohio. Waisel warned the court that the prisoner was at “substantial, palpable, objectively intolerable risk of experiencing the agony and horrifying sensation of unrelenting air hunger…” An official for the state of Ohio, who also gave testimony at the hearing, reportedly said, “You’re not entitled to a pain-free execution.” [...]
http://rt.com/op-edge/history-of-death-penalty-usa-151/