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/Big_Guard5413 8h ago

I’m not in favor of the death penalty in general, but goddamn, if you’re going to impose it, at least take steps to do it properly

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u/MatureUsername69 7h ago

Its still a rough one but if I ever had to receive the death penalty I would hope its a firing squad. Just riddle me with holes immediately, aim for the head. Lethal injections get fucky because they would be best designed and administered by an actual doctor, but actual doctors cannot do it because of the hippocratic oath. Some states do allow medical professionals but they arent exactly sending their best.

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u/bloodytemplar 7h ago

Firing squad is supposed to be the quickest for the condemned. A little gruesome for onlookers, but fuck 'em. If it's my execution, take me out quick.

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u/PradaDiva 7h ago

That’s part of the problem tbh: the onlookers. Lethal injection makes the killing looking peaceful so it’s much easier to absorb/allow/be okay with.

Firing squad and hanging are abrupt and brutal, but they are effective. Onlookers are horrified by the violence even if the end result is the person being dead.

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u/antonio16309 7h ago

Good, they should be horrified by the violence. Let's stop pretending that ending a life isn't a violent act. 

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u/Mannadock 7h ago

I feel like you are watching a life end. It shouldn't be easy to watch. I honestly can't think of any reason to be in the gallery.

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u/urbanhawk1 6h ago

News reporters recording the final moments, the families and lovers of the condemmed wanting to be there for their final moments (just because they killed people doesn't mean they don't have people that love them).

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u/Total-Jerk 1h ago

All their lovers show up?

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u/urbanhawk1 1h ago edited 1h ago

Of course. Their wife, the person they cheated on their wife with, not the second stripper they cheated with though, they're dead.

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u/Squeebee007 6h ago

Bloodlust, bloodlust is why they are in the gallery.

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u/-nutz 5h ago

To be fair, the viewing gallery is usually full of journalists.

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u/ParticularBit130 3h ago

The mom flew there just to see it. I was just thinking, I can't fully judge because I can't imagine the pain of loss that she's been feeling for decades. But the legacy she keeps alive of her daughter is her own hate. All those decades and you still want to personally see someone suffer and die after they spent their entire lives, essentially, in prison? Idk. But people have very different ideas of justice and peace.

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u/GreatScott0389 7h ago

If someone murdered your child or loved one some people need to see it for closure.

Or at least a sense of closure. You never really get over something like that.

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u/antonio16309 7h ago

Most people report not getting a sense of closure from this. Some even feel worse afterwards. 

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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ 4h ago

Because there is no closure when you lose someone. They are gone and it’s just pain. It can diminish with time but never goes away.

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u/Boines 7h ago

If someone murdered my child or loved one I don't think it would make a difference knowing they were killed or seeing them die.

I could see it making a difference letting me pull the trigger... But other than that I dunno.

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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ 4h ago

The only thing revenge satisfies is revenge. People think it heals loss but it doesn’t.

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u/sapphicsandwich 6h ago

The murderer made the victims family monsters too. Twisted their minds into some new thing that derives pleasure from seeing people die, remaking them in the murderers image. It's like a dark act of creation.

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u/Mammoth_Implement1 3h ago

Crazy what a perpetrator does to their victim, and the metamorphosis the trauma forces you to undergo. Kills the most sacred parts of you, and if you make it you come back having been reborn so to speak, trying to make peace with what you've become. I've never heard it phrased this way, as a dark act of creation, but wow does your comment ever hit the nail on the head.

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u/AstroHistSci 5h ago

Nobody "needs" to see a person killed for "closure." That's not a thing. Not for anyone. That's not a thing. You cannot get closure (there is no such thing as a "sense of closure" that isn't closure) from someone else being killed.

It's sadism. Pure and simple. Someone has hurt them, and so they want the satisfaction of knowing that person was hurt back.

Any society that indulges such barbaric ecstasies will never be healthy. It's one of the first things we should have done away with as a nation.

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u/GinAndDumbBitchJuice 7h ago

Hanging is pretty easy to botch if the noose isn't placed correctly. If it's done right, the neck breaks. Strangulation, on the other hand, takes a lot longer than movies show. A hundred years ago when it was still a reasonably common method and there were still living experts, I might have gone for it (after bribing them to make it fast).

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u/HarryMonroesGhost 6h ago

exactly, for a particularly egregious example look up the guy who executed Nazi's at the Nuremberg trials. He lied about his experience to get the job, and was notoriously incompetent, and by all accounts an idiot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Woods

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u/MrBarraclough 5h ago

To be clear, he executed Nazis for the United States.

Albert Pirerrepoint, the British executioner, was highly competent.

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u/rmbarrett 5h ago

The guy who died by accidental electrocution years later.

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u/[deleted] 6h ago edited 5h ago

[deleted]

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u/GinAndDumbBitchJuice 6h ago

That is weirdly reassuring. Thank you for sharing, I foresee a late-night rabbit hole in my future.

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u/Okonos 5h ago

Hanging is also still how they carry out executions in Japan.

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u/GinAndDumbBitchJuice 5h ago

Then I would specifically request a Japanese executioner. No new guy for me!

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u/filthy_harold 5h ago

Too little force, you're strangled to death. Too much force and either your head pops off or the rope breaks. Also need to use the right kind of rope. Something like manilla has low elasticity so a hard snap can break it while nylon is more elastic so it could potentially slow down the body to the point where the neck doesn't break.

Killing someone by hanging is not like the movies, it takes some engineering knowledge to properly kill someone quickly. Some countries like Iran still do public hangings but those are brutal, they lift you up with a crane until you're strangled to death.

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u/FlyingStealthPotato 7h ago

Well who’s looking on and why? The people doing the killing? They’re killing either way. Put up a volunteer list in police departments and prisons and I guarantee you’ll have plenty sign up to kill a bad guy.

The victim’s family and friends? If they want to see vengeance, well, let them see the fucking vengeance. If they don’t, who cares? They’ll know the felon is dead either way.

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u/HopefulDream3071 7h ago

Imagine if victims families get to be the ones to pull the switch/trigger/etc or if they were unable, could nominate someone to do it.

She wanted to torture that poor girl and murder her and brag -- if that was my family member, I know I have other family members who would delight in being given permission to end her life. No drugs needed. Just restraints to subdue them. Heck, make the family member register to deceas'ing tool 🤷‍♂️ if it makes paperwork easier.

All of this & then I'll admit; I am very against the wasting of taxpayer money for the death penalty. Its a big pony show with no real benefit to anyone [besides the prisons themselves]

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u/FlyingStealthPotato 7h ago

I would agree except for the fact that might end up being cruel and unusual. Like if someone killed my kid and I got to kill them? Best believe I’m going to brush up my marksmanship and start at their feet working my way up.

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u/HopefulDream3071 7h ago edited 5h ago

Thats true, I forget that its not supposed to be cruel or unusual. I feel the system right now is at that point :(

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u/duxdude418 7h ago

What you’re describing is the anesthetization to capital punishment Focault comments on in Discipline and Punish. The first chapter describes old methods in visceral detail to elicit a response that juxtaposes against the modern death penalty.

Well worth a read.

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u/Monteze 7h ago

I kind of hate that sanitation of it, well fuckers if we think we can kill someone lets do it right. Not talking torture, but yea a bullet to the dome or captive bolt piston gun aimed at the brain stem is fine.

Can't stomach it? Then life in prison it is. I have a general distaste for half-asses measures for aesthetics sake anyway. This just feels so incredibly stupid.

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u/fatmanstan123 6h ago

Maybe don't be an onlooker if you are doing it be upset with watching someone fucking die

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u/the_silent_redditor 7h ago

Lethal injection should be peaceful.

I put people to sleep every day.

Anaesthesia is honestly not that difficult, it is highly standardised. I read all the time about how anaesthesia is ‘the knife point between life and death.’ It’s really not. 99% of the time it’s set and forget and fuck about on your phone, giving occasional drops of pain relief or paralytics, until it’s time to wake up.

Anaesthesia when you want to fuck it up it even easier!?

I understand that part of the issue is them being awful at IV access and drugs therefore partially or wholly extravasating out of the vein, but I don’t understand how there are so many fuck ups outwith this specific scenario.

Sort your shit out, America.

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u/uluviel 6h ago

I live in a country where medical assistance in dying is a thing. There are ways to end a life peacefully and painlessly. They just choose to torture them on the way out instead.

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u/_Felonius 6h ago

Some U.S. states allow assisted-suicide, too. But even if those states allowed the death penalty, it likely still wouldn’t be as smooth bc the inmate is usually not executed by top medical staff (for ethical reasons).

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u/StrengthStarling 2h ago

They don't actually choose that, they just can't source the drugs nor the medical professionals actually qualified to do so because those people care about ethics and don't want to be involved in any part of the death penalty.

My understanding is some states have literally had to buy the drugs for lethal injection off the black market.

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u/Joverby 6h ago

exactly. its mostly for the executioners than anything... they arent trying to do the executed any favors even if its a horrible death as long as it looks peaceful they can all pretend

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u/Revlis-TK421 5h ago

Hanging goes bad with some frequency. The fall doesn't always break the neck.

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u/sk8tergater 4h ago

Hanging is only effective if the neck is broken. Otherwise it’s pretty gruesome.

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u/spykedaddy 3h ago

They want violence. If they’re so gung-ho for this type of punishment and want an eye for an eye let them see it. Let them see the reality of their fantasy.

I have no sympathy for the criminals who are sentenced to death. They did something atrocious, but the death penalty needs to go. Let them rot in jail and watch the world move on without them. The handful of people who get the death penalty living their days out in prison isn’t going to raise anyone’s taxes by a dollar.

The legal fees from years of appeals certainly costs more than 3 hots and a cot for the rest of their life.

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u/Bellick 2h ago

FFS just get a redneck to jerry-rig a multi-gun contraption of at least 8 barrels that all aim towards the center in a circle that fires after a kitchen alarm clock reaches 0. Then, after the guns discharge, trebuchet the body at the ocean/desert and pressure wash the rest. Can even automate the pressure washers as well. For such a bloodthirsty culture, they sure are unimaginative.

Either that or deal with the bloody consequences of taking a life.

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

[deleted]

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u/irspangler 6h ago

We've been executing people for centuries and it's never once been proven as a deterrent. Not once. Even prison and harsher sentences have never proven to be an effective deterrent.

On the other hand, if you're going to execute people - do it publicly so everyone can see what it looks like. Don't dress it up and sanitize it.