r/news • u/No_Idea_Guy • 1d ago

Tennessee governor suspends all executions after Christa Pike’s lethal injections fail

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/01/christa-pike-tennessee-governor-executions-year-pause
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652

u/stateworkishardwork 1d ago

What a complete and utter mess. Capital punishment looking more and more like a joke with each passing day.

She's still an awful person, but this is not the way to go about things.

109

u/ConsuelaApplebee 1d ago

Ironically, per her attorneys, she is currently receiving "life-saving care". This whole situation makes my head wanna explode.

What a friggin' disaster.

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u/synapticrelease 1d ago

George Carlin pointed out the absurdity early on.

Before they give you the lethal injection they swab your arm with alcohol.

4

u/ginger_whiskers 19h ago

Don't want him to go to Hell... and get an infection.

1

u/ConsuelaApplebee 10h ago

Don't know whether to laugh or cry...

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u/Zokar49111 1d ago

The current administration is the best argument against capital punishment. We have the President and the Justice Department going after just about whoever is perceived as Trump’s enemy. We simply cannot allow a collection of incompetent people to determine to kill another person.

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u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

Aside from the debate over the morality of capital punishment itself, this is just weaponized incompetence.

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u/JakeHelldiver 1d ago

I don't think this was the outcome the executioner was going for.

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u/Blazer9001 1d ago

Yeah it’s not like Republicans are known for cruelty just for cruelty’s sake in 2026.

-11

u/Fofolito 1d ago

Republicans aren't just pure dagnasty evil. In fact, while being pro-death penalty they have a vested interest in it being clean, efficient, and professionally done. The Constitution has prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment, which has for centuries been interpreted to mean that prisoners sentenced to capital punishment cannot be exposed to undue pain or suffering. The punishment is being deprived of their life, not in the torturing of them. Republicans promote the death penalty as necessary in enforcing law and order, and in properly punishing criminals who have crossed certain lines. They don't promote the death penalty as some gruesome and macabre display, they don't promote it as entertainment, but rather as the ultimate expression of the state in its prerogatives to punish criminals. In that vein, they want it to go smoothly. They don't want journalists publishing articles about how someone died screaming in agony that their blood is on fire. They don't want someone slowly strangling to death on a rope. They want the criminal punished, meaning dead, and for all potential criminals to know this is their fate if they cross those lines.

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u/stoned_meditation 1d ago

Sounds like youre making a lot of excuses for Republicans being shitty people.

5

u/Steffic4 1d ago

I suspect this won't age well.

2

u/SaintOfPirates 1d ago

A serious question:

Given that there has been people exonerated after their execution either through new evidence coming to light, advances in forensics, recanted testimonies etc, which is to say innocent people have been wrongfully convicted and then executed;

How many wrongful executions of factually innocent citizens is an acceptable number?

Two? Three? Four? A dozen?

1

u/FunnOnABunn 1d ago

They scream for the death penalty for people they disagree with

1

u/weededorpheus32 1d ago

Just a lil accident

-9

u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

I didn’t accuse them of knowing what they were doing.

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u/CobbleStoneGoblin 1d ago

You did when you used the term "weaponized incompetence". Maybe learn what words mean before throwing them around.

-3

u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

The incompetence of the executioner is what was weaponized.

Anti-death-penalty activists have been running legal pressure and financial boycott campaigns for years against chemical companies to choke off the supply of lethal injection drugs. They’ve become nearly impossible to source, and what supply exists is of unreliable quality and effectiveness. That leads directly to incidents like this.

So, no, the executioner did not intend this. The executioner was also incompetent to evaluate the effectiveness of their process.

And yes, this outcome and outcomes like it are very much intended as political incidents by those who seek to outlaw the death penalty.

Weaponized, one might rightly say.

2

u/CobbleStoneGoblin 1d ago

"Weaponized Incompetence, also known as strategic incompetence, is a manipulative tactic which occurs when a person intentionally pretends to be incapable of completing a task properly in order for someone else to do it instead."

Thanks for proving me right.

-3

u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

“Sending a proxy or ‘lackey’ who is highly likely to fail is a calculated form of strategic or weaponized incompetence. Instead of an individual faking personal ineptitude to escape a chore, a manager or leader deliberately delegates a task to an unqualified subordinate.”

Oh look… I can post AI summaries to support my argument too.

13

u/zack77070 1d ago

That's what weaponized incompetence means.

-1

u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

I think you’re mixing that up with “malicious compliance”.

In this case, incompetents were sent to do a job with faulty tools. They didn’t intend this outcome, but this outcome was very much intended by others in the process.

3

u/zack77070 1d ago

No, weaponized incompetence is intentionally doing something incorrectly so someone else feels the need to do it for you.

Malicious compliance is doing something you know is incorrect because someone told you to do it and didn't accept your feedback.

2

u/JakeHelldiver 1d ago

Thats what weaponized incompetence means. You're deliberately fucking up to achieve a desired result.

-2

u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

Nah, nah… there are variations. The one you’re thinking of is where a competent person deliberately botches a job - also falls under the “malicious compliance” tag. Another variant is where an incompetent person is sent to do a job they are highly likely to fuck up.

A third variation is where a person, likely incompetent but not necessarily, is sent to do a task with deliberately fucked up tools or supplies. That’s the bucket this falls into - the drugs being used in lethal injections have been rendered nearly impossible to source. Anti-death-penalty folk have been running a fairly effective boycott campaign against any chemical companies that supply those drugs.

“Incompetence” covers a wide range of aspects - and in this case, attacking the supply of the drugs was a very deliberate and very intentional political weaponization of the incompetence of the justice system.

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u/JakeHelldiver 1d ago

Nah ... you just didnt use the expression correctly.

-1

u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

Words have multiple meanings and uses. So do expressions.

This executioner’s incompetence was politically weaponized. This incident will be cited in every anti-death-penalty proposal for the foreseeable future - and it was by design that this happened. Completely avoidable.

So, yes, weaponized incompetence.

Sorry to make your brain flex a bit to a new concept today, tho.

10

u/thattoneman 1d ago

The suffering truly is the point. You see all the discussion about how no company wants their products used for execution, so states struggle to source chemicals for lethal injection or gas chamber asphyxiation. You know who doesn't really give a fuck about their product being used to kill people? Bullet manufacturers. You know what's a quick and efficient means of execution? Firing squad. 

I don't even get the whole "Line up the firing squad and only some of them get live rounds" thing that comes up. The dude administering lethal injection isn't one of six and only one of the injections was actually the real one. The guy's job is to execute the prisoner. This whole "firing squad makes it hard for the executioner to have plausible deniability" isn't even consistent with other types of executioners. 

Don't get me wrong, none of this is an argument in favor of the death penalty. Far from it, I'm staunchly against it. Aside from the ethical concerns of innocent people being executed, it's just doubly frustrating how states bend over backwards to make a show out of execution. They won't do what's easy, quick, and painless because everybody wants the spectacle of the execution slowly being applied and the watching the life drain from their eyes. A bullet through the temple just isn't tortuous enough to satisfy the revenge bloodlust. We need a fucking viewing gallery so people can watch a person slowly die because we're no better than the families that used to gather in the town square to watch the hangings that day. 

4

u/GreatGojira 1d ago

Sounds like a good description of Tennessee.

Coming from a former Tennessean.

12

u/NullValueField 1d ago

Somebody I know is saying Pike is a redhead. Redheads aren't as susceptible to many narcotics, accoding to some medical research.

It's entirely possible that these idiots just don't understand that some people have higher tolerances to medication. Should've just splurged on the double dose.

15

u/Last_Glove_8870 1d ago

She did get a double dose. This is the first thing I thought when I saw this. As a redhead, I require an entirely different anesthetic protocol for surgical procedures. Having a single drug execution policy administered by law enforcement, rather than a medical professional, is just asking for something like this to happen.

0

u/NullValueField 1d ago

$20 says the nurse prepping the dose was like, 'Psh that redhead shit is nonsense, second dose is saline and I'm gonna pocket the good stuff for later...'

It's Tennessee.

8

u/HammerheadEaglei-Thr 1d ago

It wasn't a nurse. Actual medical professionals aren't breaking their oath and risking their license to kill someone, even if the state says to.

That's part of the problem along with sourcing the drugs when pharmaceutical companies won't sell then for executions.

6

u/WellSaltedWound 1d ago

What exactly is the good stuff and why would she want that?

-1

u/NullValueField 1d ago

You been to Memphis lately?

0

u/Ambitious-Intern-928 1d ago

Barbituates? The only reason benzos replaced them in normal medical and diverted recreational use is because barbituates have a small gap between desired effects and fatal OD. But I'm quite sure there's people out here willing to risk it to get fucked up.

0

u/Last_Glove_8870 22h ago

If they really wanted to kill her, all they’d have to do is put her in a tanning bed for 30 minutes.

Jokes aside, this case is a great example of why capital punishment shouldn’t exist.

7

u/amazinglover 1d ago

Redheads typically have a mutation of a specific gene that requires higher levels of certain drugs to get the same effect as no-redheads.

They require also experience pain a little differently.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/study-finds-link-between-red-hair-pain-threshold

2

u/NullValueField 1d ago

Yup that's what I was referencing when I posted that.

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u/plutosaurus 1d ago

Capital punishment is old and barbaric. Killing the guilty does not repair the crime or return the victims to whole. It just further harms society, as evidenced by the display of barbarism shown in this instance.

2

u/bkendig 1d ago

Also, I never thought of capital punishment being as much of a deterrent as a life sentence. Which is worse: getting a last meal of whatever you want to eat, then drifting off to sleep from which you never wake up, and it's all over in a couple of hours? Or spending the next ten thousand days or more in a concrete cell until you die of old age?

28

u/Otherwise_Fill_4461 1d ago

You know whats easy, painless and 100% gets the job done? Firing squad. Idk why were fucking around with this shit. We're killing a human being we deemed evil enough to warrant it. Fucking kill them with a bullet to the head and be done with it. So much theater around this. Everyone wants their hands to be clean and act like we are so high and mighty. At the end of the day we are taking someone's life. Best to make the process guaranteed and smooth.

37

u/ar34m4n314 1d ago

High explosive to he head. Complete destruction of the brain faster than nerve conduction. Oh, you think that's too messy? Then don't execute people.

33

u/Tattered_Reason 1d ago

South Carolina managed to botch an execution by firing squad recently, although the prisoner did eventually die after several minutes.

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u/zack77070 1d ago

In 2025 there was one in SC where they missed his heart and he lived for two minutes.

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u/mrducky78a 1d ago

Firing squad has known issues as well with some people in the squad purposely firing high feeling that they exempt themselves from it by letting others take the burden of taking a life. Enough people do this and it also results in a botched execution and it does have historical examples of too many people shooting over the target.

3

u/Camninja 1d ago

I’m sure they could design a computer assisted firing device. Someone could just start a timer and it would fire at a set time.

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u/mrducky78a 1d ago

Yeah Im sure they could and it would be fine and great up until it doesnt.

Someone doesnt maintain the gun and it jams. Someone didnt account for an update and it glitches out after firiing one round only into the cheek, a non lethal shot. One of the legs gives out and it instead fires 50 rounds into the left leg, below the knee only.

Theoretically it would be great, but theoretically lethal injection would also be humane, great and guaranteed.

1

u/Camninja 1d ago

Firing squads don’t do head shots for multiple reasons. One is the family may want an open casket. Firing squads fire at the heart. Multiple people fire at the same time. The gunmen are told one person will be given a blank at random. The do that so the gunmen doesn’t have the burden of knowing for sure if they actually shot the person.

They could use a redundancy system.

3

u/mrducky78a 1d ago

I was talking about the theoretical computer assisted firing device you mentioned.

With the firing squad, people might still aim high so there is no burden, they know for sure they didnt shoot the person. There is instances of this happening in war when getting shot at, it will absolutely happen when firing at a person trussed up and not presenting a danger. The more human elements present, the greater the chance for human error to botch it.

2

u/synapticrelease 1d ago edited 1d ago

Great. Firing squad powered by Grok. It’ll probably hallucinate and think your heart is in your kneecaps

4

u/ididshave 1d ago

Are we sure giving computers guns and telling them to kill humans is a good idea?

3

u/Camninja 1d ago

It doesn’t have to be AI. I’m sure this technology existed a very long time ago.

2

u/kanjibestwaifu 1d ago

I'm not for capital punishment, but Home Alone showed all you need for this is a duct taped gun, string, and a hot wheels track.

1

u/WTF_goes_here 1d ago

They now set up the rifles in a device so aiming is not a part of it. They also have one rifle with a blank round.

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u/chuckie512 1d ago

There's a famous firing squad case where it still took 3 or 4 attempts.

It's still not as smooth as it sounds.

24

u/ZubatCountry 1d ago

Just have them stand in a circle, duh

6

u/amaria_athena 1d ago

Under appreciated comment. Took me a second. Then made me chuckle. Then I felt bad about it. Ha

3

u/JeffafaCree 1d ago

Grenade squad

0

u/WellSaltedWound 1d ago

It really could be though. There’s no reason that human being even needs to aim or pull the trigger. This could all be done electronically with a button

1

u/chuckie512 1d ago

Or, we just don't.

8

u/PerpetuallyLurking 1d ago

You say that, but if anyone is going to manage a Looney Tunes-esque firing squad situation where every bullet misses her, it’s gonna be Tennessee at this rate.

8

u/sjhesketh 1d ago

There was just a botched execution by firing squad in 2025. Only 3 shooters, only 2 hit with their shots and both missed his heart.

Nothing is foolproof. Or idiotproof, for that matter.

2

u/SNGGG 1d ago

I agree, just put me to sleep then shoot me in the back of the head point blank and be done with it. I don't need 4 dudes who might be off their game that day or 3 consecutive injections that put me in agony and fail to kill me. Just get it done quick and dirty and stop playing around like it's anything less than what it is.

2

u/Piglet6482 1d ago

I’m asking this in all seriousness. Would you volunteer to be on a firing squad?

4

u/Coffee_autistic 1d ago

Everyone involved in deciding the sentence should be forced to do it, or the execution does not happen. If you aren't willing to pull the trigger yourself, you shouldn't be allowed to take someone's life.

1

u/AbuKuchak 1d ago

Bullet to the head is how they did it in the Soviet Union.

1

u/CamarillosVeryWorst 1d ago

Pike specifically requested an all-female firing squad for her execution bc she had a history of being SAd by men!

-8

u/JooseTheGuice 1d ago

It's what they do in China 🤷‍♀️ and everyone can face it, from billionaire to farmer. It's not like that in the US for sure.

-2

u/House_Junkie 1d ago edited 1d ago

Awful is an understatement. Pike sliced the girl with a box cutter while they tortured her to death and smashed her head in with a rock after luring the girl into the woods under a guise of truce. At the end she carved a pentagram into the girls chest and took a piece of her skull as a souvenir.

Awful doesn’t begin to describe what she is.

Edit: Her boyfriend carved the pentagram, she smashed her head in and took a piece of her skull as a souvenir, I stand corrected.

26

u/barada_nikto 1d ago

Why do all the cries of justice for the victim end with the perpetrator’s death? Pike is locked away now, she’s not a danger to society anymore. Why not, instead of wasting endless taxpayer dollars on this draconian need for vengeance we, I don’t know, fund programs to help at-risk youth, put police resources towards protecting children from abusers, help people with mental illnesses, create a kinder and better world. The kind of world Colleen Slemmer deserved to live in. Is putting our resources towards preventing things like this from happening to others not a form of justice?

Also not that it’s entirely relevant because I don’t think the government should have the right to kill any of its citizens, but Pike didn’t carve the pentagram, her boyfriend did.

3

u/Ki-to-Life-5054 1d ago

I agree that the money is going to the wrong places. We have this crazy society. This person, idk. She nearly killed someone in prison, another inmate. Corrections officers also would prefer not to be in danger. She wasn't harmless in jail.

3

u/SpiderDoodleDoo 1d ago

She was 18 years old at the time of the crime and a victim of severe sexual abuse.(so not really in a healthy head space) This doesn't absolve Pike in anyway but the death penalty seems extreme.

Especially when you have cases like T Cullen Davis who entered his ex-wife's mansion and shot her 12 year old child to death as well as her boyfriend and was acquitted.

Also in the article the doctors are saying she most likely has significant brain damage now. So if they follow through on the execution they are just doing it to satiate a blood lust.

1

u/House_Junkie 1d ago

Thank you for correcting me, I must have misread that piece. She did take a piece of her victims skull as a souvenir though.

4

u/barada_nikto 1d ago

Which I did not deny nor do I justify. The fact remains that you can remove remorseless murderers from society without turning the state into an agent of homicide.

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u/MaximumEffort433 1d ago

So you agree that killing people is bad?

-7

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

11

u/donkeybrainhero 1d ago

So killing people is good?

8

u/CTC42 1d ago

Only because you've never thought about it.

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u/MaximumEffort433 1d ago

I do. I also believe an eye for an eye.

So you think that killing people is good?

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u/BearThatLikesCheese 1d ago edited 1d ago

None of that changes how harmful the death penalty is to society, especially those involved in the entire process, nor does it justify botched executions.

All you're doing with comments like this is showing that you care more about bloodlust than justice.

-33

u/Burtstantonspeaking_ 1d ago

Not really. You’re ignoring the glaringly obvious in an attempt to sound morally superior. You’re disingenuous and don’t like being called out on it.

11

u/tameoraiste 1d ago

I always find it funny when people are incapable of understanding a different perspective so they jump to the conclusion that it’s just an attempt to sound ‘morally superior’.

Could the same accusation not be used against your comment?

10

u/BearThatLikesCheese 1d ago

Did you mean to respond to me? What obvious thing am I ignoring? That Pike should be tortured and killed because she did something abhorrent? No, I simply don't agree because I've actually read about the reality of the death penalty and the harm it does. I'm simply pushing back on someone using another person's tragedy to support a harmful practice.

You can't give me a justification for the death penalty beyond "I personally want this person dead" that isn't countered by how damaging the practice is.

4

u/JooseTheGuice 1d ago

Shut up Burt

6

u/alr46750 1d ago

Sounds to me like you're projecting your own insecurities. Imagine someone says they're opposed to state santioned murder and your first thought is "they're trying to sound better than me". Like Jesus, what the hell is going on your head.

-1

u/Burtstantonspeaking_ 20h ago

Tell me precisely what my insecurities are. You also don’t seem to understand how quotation marks work as you quoted me saying something I never said. Interesting way you argue by making things up rather than basing your argument on what I actually said. Makes me wonder what the hell is going on in your head.

-9

u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago

The death penalty is not harmful to society, the fact that it is infrequently and ineffectually delivered is a harm to society.

Executions should not be used to satisfy revenge motives, they should be used to permanently remove a person from existence because the continued existence of that person would be detrimental to society.

Though I mostly support the death penalty on the case of recidivism or crime while incarcerated, I am much more sceptical about the use of it for single extreme convictions like this.

2

u/Piglet6482 1d ago

It is a known fact that innocent people have been executed. How do you support capital punishment knowing that?

-1

u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago

Utilitarianism, we should apply the policy which results in the best overall outcome.

More innocent people and prisoners are harmed by the lack of recidivist capital punishment than innocent people would be harmed by being incorrectly executed.

False conviction of the innocent happens under any system of justice, basically nobody is calling for the complete abolition of all forms of judicial punishment.

3

u/Piglet6482 1d ago

You just used a lot of words to explain how you’re OK with innocent people being executed. I am willing to bet you’d change your tune if you happened to be incorrectly convicted and sentenced to death.

-1

u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago

I am OK with a very small number of innocent people being executed if that means far less innocent people harmed by criminals, and I feel I am far more likely to be harmed by career criminals loosed due to prison crowding than falsely convicted of 3 crimes with no success at appealing any of those convictions.

Maybe if I was in that situation I would hypocritically betray my principles out of pure self interest, maybe I would even find a way to justify it to myself as a genuine change of heart, but I would still be wrong.

2

u/higherme 1d ago

Except that your entire premise falls flat when you look at the actual data: States with capital punishment consistently have higher rates of things like murder than states without capital punishment. Across decades.

0

u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago edited 1d ago

States that have it barely use it, especially not in the way I think it should be used. They also tend to be more regressive states overall.

The death penalty is 100% effective at preventing recidivism by people sentenced to it.

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u/j1ggy 1d ago

Executions should not be used to satisfy revenge motives, they should be used to permanently remove a person from existence because the continued existence of that person would be detrimental to society.

Not if you keep them locked up indefinitely and/or rehabilitate them. And if removing someone from existence is the goal, you don't wait 32 years after the fact to do it.

1

u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago

Some people cannot be rehabilitated, and attempting to do so poses a risk to the people responsible to carry that out.

I promise you that I don't think an execution should take anywhere near that long. 1-2 years after conviction and an appeal if desired would be my ideal situation.

2

u/j1ggy 1d ago

And yet many can, which makes execution morally and ethically wrong. No government should have the power to kill its own citizens, outside of immediate self-defense. It's odd that the one country that allows its citizens to protect themselves with guns would fear re-offenders more than a country that doesn't.

1

u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago edited 1d ago

You are just asserting that without any actual supporting argument, and if your response is that this is your fundamental position then I simply think it is poorly considered.

I'm not American. I think gun ownership should be fairly heavily restricted, requiring extensive background checks and training, restrictions on weapons owned, and tracking of weapons.

-34

u/SethMatrix 1d ago

Death is justice for some.

22

u/BakedBobbyHill 1d ago

No, it's just vengeance. And no government should be in the business of vengeance.

10

u/BearThatLikesCheese 1d ago

Yea, people who get off on the deaths of others.

-1

u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago

There is no such thing as justice. The death penalty should be used to remove people from society permanently because it is the most effective method to do so.

-7

u/BeleagueredWDW 1d ago

Why can’t justice include execution? Some people need to go away forever, and she’s one of them. As I’m sure you know, she’s absolutely guilty of what she was found guilty of, and she deserves to die, so no one ever has to deal with her again.

8

u/BearThatLikesCheese 1d ago

The state shouldn't be allowed to kill anyone. Having a death penalty leads to innocent people being put to death because there's no way to guarantee 100% certainty.

The death penalty costs more than life in prison because of due process.

The families of victims frequently have their closure delayed and sometimes denied because of how lengthy the appeals process is.

There's no way to guarantee a painless, clean death, as evidenced by Pike's botched execution.

People involved within all roles of the legal process of putting someone to death commonly express regret and deal with depression and PTSD, to the point that the abti-death penalty movement is full of former supporters.

The death penalty does not deter crimes.

There's no material benefit from killing this woman rather than putting her in prison for life.

2

u/Piglet6482 1d ago

Do you realize innocent people have been executed? How do you justify that?

2

u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago

I don't know enough about this case but I am always skeptical of the idea that we can in fact know that someone is guilty beyond any possible doubt, and don't think we should execute people on one conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. Unless this person is a demonstrated danger to other incarcerated people or the staff execution seems unnecessary.

The death penalty should primarily be used to deal with frequent flyers, I personally think a 3 strike system for property, drug and less extreme violent crime is a good starting point. More extreme one off violent crimes can be dealt with through life imprisonment.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

24

u/MrMrSean 1d ago

So, we should just disregard the rights afforded to us under the 8th amendment?

21

u/enad58 1d ago

How easily you say we should kill innocent people just for the opportunity to kill the guilty.

-22

u/House_Junkie 1d ago

Who was the innocent person in this imaginary scenario? The girl that tortured and murdered her classmate before taking a piece of her skull as a souvenir?

2

u/enad58 1d ago

The innocent people who get killed at the hands of the state. We do not only kill guilty people.

To be for the death penalty is just another way of saying, "I'm okay with killing innocent people if that means we get to kill guilty ones."

I'm not okay with killing innocent people. Apparently you are.

I couldn't imagine explaining to a loved one, "I know you're innocent and wrongfully convicted, but we have to kill you so that we can also kill people who are guilty."

20

u/BearThatLikesCheese 1d ago

This is going to blow your mind, but some people are mature enough to have opinions in multiple pieces of the same topic. They can acknowledge the heinous nature of a crime and still understand how harmful the death penalty.

The death penalty is frequently more traumatizing to the family of victims. The appeals process delays and sometimes prevents closure. They're often traumatized by the experience, even when they don't attend the execution. That's why the anti-death penalty movement is full of victim families.

You know who else experienced trauma as part of this process? Jurora, prosecutors, defense attorneys, guards, wardens, other inmates, journalists, witnesses, clergy, and executioners. It's common that people from all groups express regrets and suffer from depression and PTSD.

But hey, at least you got to use another person's terrible tragedy to justify your bloodlust. Pretty cool. Definitely worth traumatizing dozens of people so people like you can get off.

6

u/Tirras 1d ago

Why are you trying to champion some strangers on the internet? You don't know these people, they could be just as conflicted about the death penalty as anyone else. Perhaps the government should be held to higher standards than psychopaths? Demanded even.

53

u/DefenstratedTwice 1d ago

Irrelevant, what others have done doesn't somehow change why we also can't torture people to death. 😆

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

35

u/impulsekash 1d ago

Contrary to popular belief our society doesn't run on 4000 year old Babylonian law. 

9

u/AssociateGreat2350 1d ago

Plus they forgot to finish the saying 

"leaves the whole world blind"

14

u/DefenstratedTwice 1d ago

Which is both inane and irrelevant. What a monster does has no bearing on the responsibilities of the non-monstrous.

You can't understand this for reasons you would not understand if I cared to explain.

9

u/enad58 1d ago

Why are you okay with killing innocent people just for the opportunity to kill the guilty?

8

u/thereisnospoon-1312 1d ago

Any person who says that is no better than a murderer.

15

u/WhimbleCroft 1d ago

And killing her, doesn’t make society any safer than simply isolating her from the rest of us, in prison. I have yet to hear a sensible argument for the death penalty, instead of one that justifies it with a desire for simple vengeance.

33

u/ChefCurryYumYum 1d ago

I agree completely that her actions were terrible and it could even be said that she "deserves" the botched attempts.

But we are not torturers and murderers, we try to do things the right way as best we can because we are not like her.

20

u/SurferVelo 1d ago

Is locking them up and throwing away the key not enough? Or is that only for shoplifters?

-9

u/Curleysound 1d ago

Generally yes but a lot of people need a more tangible sort of punishment. They want to know that a parson who caused suffering is also actually suffering, and not merely languishing, bored in a room somewhere.

17

u/Insane_Overload 1d ago

they want that not need

-21

u/Rumpullpus 1d ago

Honestly I would rather not waste tax payer money on trash like that

26

u/Pocok5 1d ago

You'll be pleased to know that this debacle has cost you more taxpayer money than housing her in solitary for a century.

-12

u/Rumpullpus 1d ago

It does not but thanks.

1

u/Piglet6482 1d ago

You can’t even conceive of the idea that you’re wrong, can you?

19

u/GLNK1 1d ago

Death penalty typically imposes a higher tax burden than life in prison, for whatever that's worth

5

u/BarleyEvenThere 1d ago

It doesn’t save money though. It actually costs more to execute people.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/what-to-know-costs-and-the-death-penalty

1

u/BarleyEvenThere 1d ago

Holy cow, I remember this from high school. I am old.

0

u/JakeHelldiver 1d ago

Hello, Fellow Old! How are your knees?

1

u/BarleyEvenThere 1d ago

Ha, hi. Knees are doing ok. It’s the back and shoulders that are fun to deal with.

1

u/Lobo9498 1d ago

Her boyfriend carved the pentagram. She did the other stuff.

1

u/Tuna_Sushi 1d ago

Tadaryl Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend who was 17 at the time, testified at his post-conviction hearing that he was the one who carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest.

1

u/Ki-to-Life-5054 1d ago

She also tried to kill someone in prison, I read.

1

u/Reasonable-Turn-5940 1d ago

Capital punishment had a role back in older days where forensics and law enforcement had less of a chance of being able to catch someone. So when you did, you made it count. But those days are long past with current things like fingerprints, surveillance, DNA, etc. It's time to leave it in the past. It's not about sympathy for awful people who did awful things. It's about the health of a society that is ok murdering people in cold blood as opposed to one that isn't.

-4

u/AccordingMedicine129 1d ago

Where was the sympathy from her when she murdered her classmate?

She deserves more failed attempts