Remember when lethal injection was considered the humane way to execute criminals? I do.
Well, of course, there have always been people who disagreed with that assessment, but these are typically the same people who don't like capital punishment in the first place.
A federal judge in California (where else?) has now ruled that California's lethal injection system is unconstitutional.
Already under close scrutiny by Senior U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson for having a health care system that fails to keep inmates alive, the prison system, Fogel wrote, is failing to kill them in a humane manner. Fogel found that lethal injection may be unconstitutionally cruel as practiced by the state, indefinitely prolonging his February injunction on California executions.
I know, I know. I'm supposed to care whether or not they feel pain while they're being executed, even though Morales didn't worry about that when he viciously beat and murdered a woman in a vineyard in 1981.
But I don't care, and if that makes me unfeeling, then so be it. From the story by a San Jose CBS affiliate:
But Fogel wondered whether the combination of drugs was necessary, given that the American Veterinarian Association said it would not euthanize animals the same way California executes inmates.
I have more sympathy for animals which are being euthanized, even those being put down because they are mean and vicious. Animals lack the capacity to understand what they are doing and it is up to their owners to keep them under control.
But I find it insulting that we would hold murderers only to the same standard that we do dangerous dogs. I expect people to behave better than animals. That's why I find attempts to block capital punishment this way to be blindingly naive and completely disrespectful of humanity.
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