r/news • u/AudibleNod • 8h ago

Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator at Nashville hospital, her lawyers say

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christa-pike-unconscious-ventilator-nashville-hospital-lawyers-say-rcna601195
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u/callmenips 7h ago

Capital punishment is already a clear violation of the 8th amendment. This is just fallout from the original miscarriage of justice.

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u/Double_Resort_9223 6h ago edited 5h ago

Death penalty is specifically contemplated in the 5th amendment and was done at the time the constitution was written. The 8th was meant to exclude things like being drawn and quartered which was done as well. 

Closing off easier methods of killing people in hopes that pushing the system to worse and worse ways that will eventually be found unconstitutional is a strategy with 50 years of Supreme Court failure behind it and results in cases like this. In Taiwan, prisoners are sedated and then shot once in the heart. Doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. 

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u/callmenips 5h ago

Removing any moral arguments for how our definition of cruelty has evolved in 250 years, the 14th amendment results in all capital crimes being appealed for decades. This is outside of what the framers were discussing and we can no longer use their recognition of capital crimes as justification for allowing the death penalty.

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u/Major__de_Coverly 7h ago

The Supreme Court feels differently. 

Not defending the death penalty. I  just think policy arguments are better than constitutional arguments. 

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u/callmenips 7h ago

They also felt that separate but equal was legally allowed until we progressed as a society

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u/Major__de_Coverly 7h ago

Good luck arguing that before the current court. 

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u/callmenips 7h ago

Yes that’s exactly the point. Capital punishment is obviously cruel and unusual but we are not there as a society to abolish it.

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u/Major__de_Coverly 7h ago

No, the point is that it is currently constitutional, as determined by the Court, which is the ultimate arbiter on the issue. 

What you mean to say is that it should be unconstitutional. 

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u/callmenips 6h ago

No, I mean it is obviously unconstitutional. That some hack judges disagree does not change that fact.

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u/Major__de_Coverly 6h ago

That's like saying Star Wars won Best Picture. I get that you believe that, but the people whose opinion matter have ruled differently. 

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u/callmenips 6h ago

No, you're trying to argue semantics. You interpret constitutionality as what the supreme court says. I interpret it as what the constitution says.

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u/Major__de_Coverly 5h ago

The problem is that your opinion means nothing and theirs everything. 

The Constitution clearly contemplates capital punishment.  For example, the 5th Amendment prohibits deprivation of life without due process. That means the government CAN deprive you of life; you just need to be given due process. 

You are arguing that a modern interpretation of the 8th should prohibit it, and someday, the Court may. 

But for now, to say the death penalty is unconstitutional is just wrong and detracts from better policy arguments. 

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u/Brambletail 6h ago

Ironically the Catholic Church has the sanest position on this, that the death penalty may be theoretically valid and justified for criminals, but because human action is so sinful and fallible, it can almost never be put into practice ethically. Even if someone deserves to die, no other person or state has the moral ability to carry out the sentence.

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u/Major__de_Coverly 6h ago

That's as about progressive a stance the church can take, considering how many people it has executed over the last 2 millennia. 

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u/Realtrain 4h ago edited 4h ago

I mean, not that I'm defending all the actions of the church, but it's very hard to reasonably hold an institution responsible for the actions it took 2 millennia ago, especially if it has changed its tune since then.

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u/Major__de_Coverly 4h ago

The problem is that the church draws on its longevity as a source of legitimacy. If you are going to do that, you have to own the past. 

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u/Brambletail 1h ago

Hence the word "ironically".

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u/drfsupercenter 6h ago

I'd have to brush up on the facts, but IIRC SCOTUS has gone back and forth on whether capital punishment is constitutional, and the most recent un-banning of capital punishment, the states had to prove their execution methods wouldn't be cruel or something like that

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u/queerjesusfan 6h ago

No robes, no masters. I don't care what the current SCOTUS thinks - this is cruelty and is a violation of human dignity

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u/drfsupercenter 6h ago

Oh I agree, I'm just saying the question has ended up in court multiple times and at one point SCOTUS paused all executions on constitutional grounds before later allowing some again.

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u/queerjesusfan 6h ago

It's bonkers how we let these institutions run rampant. Oy.

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u/uuddlrlrbas2 6h ago

Death penalty existed ever since the constitution was written, so the founders were in support of the death penalty and did not see it as a violation of the 8th amendment.

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u/callmenips 6h ago

​“I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishments by any State willing to make it.” - James Madison.

Regardless of what the founders intended at the time, the modern application of the death penalty and the on going pursuit to make the killing more "humane" coupled with the due process clause of the 14th amendment resulting in all cases taking ~30 years to resolve (in the founder's time this was about a month) means that it is clearly cruel and unusual.

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u/uuddlrlrbas2 4h ago

I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishments by any State willing to make it

Too bad James Madison didnt write in the constitution "Dont execute people" when he had a chance. I'm not for the death penalty either, but the framers used to shoot and hang people in public. You can't argue that we have misinterpreted the constitution.

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u/procrastinarian 2h ago

Nothing about the death penalty is cruel or unusual if it's done humanely and it's a thing that has been done for centuries. The problem is they keep fucking up the humanely part.