I will piggy back on SherpaPhils post and reiterate from my post, the justice system can not be trusted enough for what you guys are suggesting.

Imagine it was your kid on trial, and the court was comprised of a liberal judge who by course of valid law threw out every witness that was going to testify on behalf of your kid and instead allowed a bunch of shill witnesses to testify they saw your kid kill someone else and ignored every bit of work your kids lawyer did to discredit or impeach those witnesses.

Are you still all for immediate executions?

What if you find out later after the execution that judge has an ongoing relationship with the prosecutors office and everyone in the county knows about it but nothing can be done about it due to the "powers that be"?

Are you still all for quick executions?

In this hypothetical… did our kid kill someone or are they innocent. I don’t think anyone wants to see their kid die, but at some point there are consequences for your actions that even a parent etc needs to understand.

That's the problem... nobody knows with absolute certainty.

It doesn’t. I’ve posted this before, but my sister in law was murdered in an armed robbery by an ex co-worker. The guy spent 15 years on death row before the state finally executed him. My wife went through the entire legal process from jury selection, all the way up to all appeals being exhausted. Then came the day of the execution. It was very surreal and the staff at the unit were extremely professional and caring. In the end, he paid with his life, but his crime was long forgotten by society and had zero impact on deterring others. Did his death bring closure? No, because nothing can be done to unwind all the hurt and death he caused. It’s our belief justice was served that day.

In my hypothetical, the kid is actually innocent. The "hypothetical" was based on my experience in the legal system had I been on trial for murder.

The point being, we all want some sort of quick justice that is metered out to perfection. The reality of that ever happening is zero.

That's messed up.

Was that the Cummins Prison? Had an uncle that worked there in the 60's

That I don't know as I was just a kid and my Dad pointed them out to me at times when we were going fishing.

Eventually it serves as a prevention measure of being a repeat offender, but the timing of this is obviously all wrong to have much effect.

That was common among Arkansas prisons at the time including Cummins and Tucker.

Thanks for providing the idea for an interesting topic. The medieval method was more related to Buzz's comment.


Executions are quite sanitized and almost clinical nowadays. Even if you you televised them, they might be kind of lackluster. Personally I'm in agreement with capital punishment, but I'm not sure it's that much of a deterrent. People were still committing plenty of capital crimes when we had public executions. I also don't like that it has to drag on for years in the courts. But a quick execution is a lot of power to turn over to your government.

I'm sure that execution keeps the perp from doing it again.

Lets take the most recently released serial killer's journals and see if execution of a prior perp would have prevented anything with "her" mass murders in Nashville...

She says in her journals she wanted to be killed and be remembered just like the Columbine killers. They had quick judgement, being shot and killed on the school premises.

Yet, here we had a troubled adult who was so wrought on creating a name for herself she wanted to shoot up an elementary school so her name would live on in history. She specifically chose the elementary school because she didn't want the plan to go sideways by being overtaken by a more powerful person, so she chose the young kids school to cause the most deaths. She also said in her journals if her plan was discovered prior to being able to shoot up the school, she would kill her parents.

Does this sound like anything a quick execution could have prevented?
You think gang violence is something any quick execution is going to prevent?
You think drug violence is something a quick execution is going to prevent?

It may kill the perp, but it is doing nothing to prevent anything other than a repeat attack by the perp.

I believe the Columbine killers committed suicide?

No matter the method, they were shot and killed on school premises. Was the gunshot self inflicted, I don't remember enough to know. I wasn't trying to be specific with the style of death, just that they had the ultimate quick judgement for their crimes. Still didn't prevent anything in the future. How many copy cat killers have idolized those two devils.

I met the Tucker Phone once. All I can say is OUCH. Administered by some young gal in Mo - for fun! Just to the hands though.

It’s a scientific fact that if you’re dead you will commit less crime.

Execute them and make it messy and painful. Forget the BS about avoiding cruel and unusual punishment. Make it cruel. It might scare a few folks away from murdering innocent people, and just one innocent person saved would be worth it.

Given the number of people who have been murdered by someone previously convicted of murder, there seems to be a strong case that more executions would save more innocent lives.

Life without parole. Juries make mistakes too.

I wonder if that would put a heavy burden on those performing the executions?

Let serial killers execute them so they can get it out of their system.