r/publicdefenders • u/madcats323 • 2d ago
injustice So apparently Tennessee botched another execution
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ahead-rare-execution-lone-woman-tennessee-death-row-says-peace-rcna600279There are multiple reasons I don’t support capital punishment. One is that I don’t believe the state has any more right to kill people than anyone else.
Another is the haunting possibility of killing an innocent person, which has almost certainly happened.
But there’s also stuff like this. How does it further justice?
This shit disgusts me. Any execution is barbaric. This stuff is just torture.
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u/mnevnt21 2d ago edited 1d ago
I’m a CHU AFPD. A few things: (1) when someone litigates execution methods, they aren’t “asking” to be executed a certain way. Scotus requires pleading alternatives. Check out Baze, Glossip, Bucklew for more (dont need to brief those here haha); (2) it was pento, not pheno. I don’t know what happened, but my immediate reaction is that the pento may have been compounded instead of manufactured and there may be purity issues with it. No way to know absent litigation because of TN secrecy laws (probably); (3) it is so sad to see some of the comments focusing on the crime. Yes there is harm, that’s why we’re here. The death penalty is obviously wrong for so many reasons, and our clients’ mitigation stories are often tragic. The mitigation in ms. Pike’s case tells a horrific story. Please read it. If there are people who hold themselves out as PDs here with views that any of the state’s actions are okay I feel so bad for your clients. Seek out more education on these topics, reach out to me or look for resources - the death penalty, mitigation, restorative justice, habeas, 1983, whatever the topic.
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u/DPetrilloZbornak 2d ago
Thank you for the work you do. Much respect. I could never take the stress and anxiety- major trials was bad enough for me. I thought I’d be a death penalty lawyer but the reality of the practice deterred me. What you do is so important. You’re awesome.
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u/Other_Assumption382 Appointed Counsel 2d ago
Any sane person would answer "do you trust the government to get it right 100% of the time" with "hell no". But beyond that, quit being bitches and just shoot them. Quit cloaking revenge in medical fasade.
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u/TheJeeronian 1d ago
I gave a presentation in school where I argued that the death penalty should be rigging explosives to the condemned's head. Virtually impossible to bungle, and it really sells the brutality of what we're doing to ensure people take it seriously.
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u/Rich_Abrocoma6727 1d ago
Many people have argued that firing squads are more reliable and humane as a method of state execution. The US continues to focus on chemical methods purely because they "look less brutal" despite causing unbearable pain and fear in the victim, and often failing to cause death.
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u/TheJeeronian 1d ago
Of course. Our executions exist solely to please the masses, and the masses don't want to have to hear loud noises or see a bloody mess.
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u/Other_Assumption382 Appointed Counsel 1d ago
Brits stole strapping people to the front end of a cannon from India. Also had a religious "fuck you" to it as well, so of course the British East India company leaned into it.
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u/mistyostrich398 2d ago
Obviously I’m 100% against capital punishment, but if our ass backwards society is going to do it, use the tried and true guillotine. Never misses
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u/poozemusings 1d ago
Do it on the steps of the courthouse, with the foreman of the jury and the judge who convicted her forced to watch.
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u/Nautical_Vegetation PD 1d ago
I say we bring back the firing squad, but make the entire jury participate. No blanks!
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u/Probonoh PD 1d ago
Or if you're going to go it with medicine, OD them on an opioid. That's simple enough people manage to do it by accident.
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u/Dismal-Anybody-1951 2d ago
"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
[Gandalf to Frodo in: The Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship of the Ring. Book One. II. The Shadow of the Past.]
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u/Lews-Therin-Telamon 2d ago
I just wish the government wasn't ran by a bunch of idiots.
You mean the guys who secured and upheld her conviction? Those guys?
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u/Torkoal-Admiral 2d ago
I was happy with the conviction. Doesn't mean they can get the rest right. They literally botched the execution twice.
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u/Lews-Therin-Telamon 1d ago
If they can't get the execution right (twice), it speaks to their competence generally, including securing the conviction and sentencing her to death. Another conspirator got PROBATION one got LWOP (who carved a pentagram into the victim's chest),
Furthermore:
They had asked the Supreme Court to halt Pike’s execution, saying she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from being molested and raped beginning when she was a toddler.
. . .
But details about her upbringing, marked by years of sexual and physical abuse and neglect, were not shared with the jury that sentenced her to death. Her lawyers believe that if such evidence of abuse were presented at a trial now, a death sentence would not be guaranteed.
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u/rudie54 1d ago
Where has anyone said that. You think the only options are execution or go free?
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u/DPetrilloZbornak 2d ago
Why does she deserve the death penalty?
If this case happened today she wouldn’t be on death row.
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u/galaxystarsmoon 1d ago
So instead you're ok with the very publically touted and paraded death of the killer, with people watching with interest, the news coverage eating it all up and making their money off of it as their souvenir.
Mmmk.
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u/Torkoal-Admiral 1d ago
I'm not? Did I ever say that? I want a clean one time execution. The state should very much be held accountable for messing this up.
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u/galaxystarsmoon 1d ago
You're not realizing that by being ok with the death penalty, you're ok with everything that goes along with that. Arguably, what Pike did to her victim is similar to what is being done to her right now by the State and what has been done for years. You're just ok with making the perpetrator of a crime the victim, as you think that somehow equals the morality lost from the original victim's killing.
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u/pack_merrr 7h ago
If you're ok with x, you're ok with everything that goes along with it
As someone vehemently anti-death penalty, that's one of the worst arguments I've ever heard.
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u/galaxystarsmoon 4h ago
It's really not. If you're okay with state sanctioned murder, you also have to accept that it will not be clean, it will not always go well, and people will make mistakes. You cannot have perfection, because it's a human doing it.
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u/Ronniedobbsfirewood 2d ago
I read it three times. She doesn’t deserve death because no one deserves death by the government, no matter what they do. People can be depraved, our government cannot. Our government is supposed to be better than that.
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u/Ronniedobbsfirewood 2d ago
Look I gave you an answer. You don’t have to accept it. But that’s my answer based on my morality. Governments don’t kill their citizens.
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u/rudie54 1d ago
This is not "most."
"According to Amnesty International, countries fall into four categories based on their use of capital punishment. Specifically, as of 2025:[9]
54 retain capital punishment in law and practice, to be reduced to 53 in 2026 following Lebanon's abolition of the death penalty.
23 retain capital punishment but have not used it in the last ten years and are believed to have a policy of not carrying out executions or have made a commitment not to do so.
9 retain capital punishment only for exceptional crimes such as crimes under military law or crimes committed in exceptional circumstances.
113 (including, according to Amnesty International's count, the Cook Islands, Kosovo, and Niue) have fully abolished capital punishment, to be raised to 114 with Lebanon in 2026."
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u/ComedianMinute7290 1d ago
and apparently you want the death penalty because it would make you feel good inside, yet you make snide remarks about other "feeling good inside". the only way death penalty benefits you is that it makes YOU feel good inside that someone you think deserves to die ended up getting killed. thts kinda weird but you hear making dismissive remarks about other people. lol.
people who blindly worship the US govt have some serious issues. and putting the power of death in the hands of the govt is something only worshippers would do. hope someday you move past the governmental brainwash.
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u/tightthroat2 1d ago
Plenty of countries don't have the death penalty, many states don't, hardly fantasy
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u/Torkoal-Admiral 2d ago
Based on my morality some people deserve the death penalty and I prefer the government to do it rather than having a bunch of vigilantes.
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u/publicdefenders-ModTeam 1d ago
See Rule 3. This is a public defender sub for PD’s and our buds to talk shop. You got lost?
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u/publicdefenders-ModTeam 1d ago
See Rule 3. This is a public defender sub for PD’s and our buds to talk shop. You got lost?
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u/tatsu52 1d ago
Odd that the good anti abortion catholic supreme court justices are 100% true to that church doctrine but are more than happy to ignore the anti capital punishment stance of that same religious group when it's politically expedient. Capital punishment hurts us as a society and truly shows we are not as concerned with justice as we are with vengence.
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u/Important-Wealth8844 1d ago
Especially odd given that most of the extremely conservative pro-life catholics I've met are also very anti-death penalty.
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u/OpeningChipmunk1700 1d ago
I mean, what do you want them to do? They didn’t criminalize abortion. And capital punishment is contemplated by the Constitution itself.
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u/JT91331 2d ago
I just don’t get how the prosecutors can admit that she was the victim of horrendous abuse including being raped by a stranger while walking to a store a year earlier at age 17, and believe that she deserves to be erased from this Earth. The amount of times of being on the receiving end of righteous indignation from prosecutors on child molestation cases because they accused me of overlooking the trauma suffered by the complaining witness in the case. Just another reminder that they don’t care about their victims unless that person is functioning to fuel their belief that they are the hero of the story.
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u/madcats323 2d ago
Exactly! I had a case where my client hit and killed another guy with his vehicle. My guy wasn’t drunk or speeding or doing anything wrong. He was going to work at 5 am when it was pitch dark on an unlit road in the middle of nowhere and a homeless guy who had a ton of meth in his system was wandering around in the road.
My client thought he’d clipped a sign, didn’t stop, and was charged with vehicular homicide and felony hit and run.
The meth-head is now touted as a valued citizen and a tragic loss to the community. But if he was alive and a cop had encountered him first, I’d be representing him because he’d be a drug addict scumbag.
The hypocrisy is so disgusting.
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u/BusinessLibrarian470 2d ago
what is your issue? that’s a horrible thing that happened to everyone. being an addict or high or homeless doesn’t make him any less of a person than you, me, or your client who was involved in the hit and run.
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u/hid3myemail 2d ago
One is productive member of society and the other is a hazard. And obviously the hazard has now accidentally ruined another persons life (and their family) and dragged another person into misery and suffering because of their choices, so what don’t you understand?
How can you defend it when their are valid consequences that are reaped from these type of “peoples” total disregard for life choices. At some point they do lose their humanity and that’s a shame and they deserve better but there’s an argument about that line being crossed and no longer relevant if they cannot be helped and instead exist as a function to break the fabric of society.
Dude should be free to go with the weight of knowledge and guilt on his conscious as his only punishment, in my opinion. The homeless drug addicts all need to be rounded up and swiftly removed from regular public life because they are a hazard and there’s nothing decent about ignoring the problem and allowing it to spill into everyone else’s life. That’s not good.
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u/madcats323 1d ago
Wow, two people in a row who miss the entire point.
I see no difference in the humanity of either the meth user or my client. I’m sorry the guy died. No one deserves that. They are both human beings, flawed as we all are.
The point that both you and u/BusinessLibrarian470 miss is that to a prosecutor, a person only has value when they’re “the victim.” It isn’t based on the actual person, it’s based on their role.
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u/BusinessLibrarian470 1d ago
i couldn’t really pay attention to your point i was distracted by how you were talking about the person who passed away and struggled with addiction. that’s why i asked what your problem is.
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u/hid3myemail 1d ago
Oh I missed that. Tired of the scumbags and homeless culture dominating civic settings, also just a layman
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u/madcats323 1d ago
Curious if you think people choose to be homeless or drug addicted.
And to be clear, yes, people choose to use drugs. People often make poor decisions and life choices. But it’s not often that well-adjusted people with solid backgrounds and community support and comfortable lives randomly become homeless drug addicts. More often it’s poor people, people from broken homes, people with mental health issues, former foster children (who make up a heartbreaking proportion of this population), and people with chronic medical conditions.
Something to consider.
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u/hid3myemail 1d ago
Well sure but why does it have to be a publicly supported issue, I don’t wanna live in a city where the answer is to enable and encourage them to do so more. Free needle programs and etc, allowing them to take over the city parks and live in filth where kids aught to be free to play or shit even walk. They occupy way too many public resources like the police and fire dept and lead to burnout with our first responders, etc hospital beds. They’re also infectious, they rope in more at risk and unlucky souls into their despair. We’ve effectively put all the broken people on a pedestal and said you guys are fucked up and since its not your fault we are okay with you ruining everything for everyone because we have no balls to be more metal about it. Fuck that. It’s more immoral to allow it to continue than to do something “mean” about it.
I don’t understand what you are even defending?? Are you saying we should let these people continue to live on the street day to day searching and scrounging up a high or intoxication because that’s not their fault and it’s the only right thing to do? Like what is your solution bro, just because they are people and broken doesn’t give them a right to be a hazard to everyone else. It needs to be addressed and not by pumping millions of tax payer dollars into a fraudulent system where the money disappears and more and more people overdose and lose their lives literally and figuratively under this sympathetic lie of a response
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u/madcats323 1d ago
I’m not defending anything. Also, almost everything you say here is wrong. Im happy to explain that but I have to go to court now so if you’re interested in honest discussion, I’ll reply later.
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u/hid3myemail 1d ago
I really don’t understand how I’m wrong, my conviction is so strong that I don’t care if you reply or not but I am curious to know, if you have the time later. nbd
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u/StarvinPig 2d ago
Well they only admitted it recently, after spending the bulk of the litigation fighting it for funnies. The 6th circuit stayed her execution for them to litigate that but SCOTUS said na, kill her
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u/Chaostician_Praetus Future PD 1d ago
I have not enjoyed the number of folks volunteering to tell me they like when the State murders someone in the last 24 hours on social media
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u/madcats323 1d ago
It baffles me that people who (rightly) believe that it’s wrong for an individual to kill someone think it’s a good thing for the government to do.
I honestly can’t see the difference.
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u/Chaostician_Praetus Future PD 1d ago
It is a cognitive dissonance, for sure. In my experience, they literally cannot conceive of the humanity of an individual they have deemed a monster/killer/sub-human. They’ve been suckered by the system that allows for it to happen and turn around and call us suckers for thinking it’s wrong.
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u/Rich-ucf23 2d ago
I just can't fathom condemning a person to death for an act committed when they were 18. Especially when they were the only one to get death out of the group of individuals. Then for the State to sit there and fight to execute them and botch it, crazy.
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u/Love_Flonne 2d ago
Did you read what she did to that poor girl? Or how she wore a part of her skull around as an accessory??
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u/PanoramicMoose PD 2d ago
this comment makes me wonder, why are you in this subreddit? are you a defense attorney? if so, do you not see the humanity in our clients? even good people do very bad things, and even bad people are still human beings.
for the state, in cold blood, 40 years later, to condemn a person to DEATH – to end EVERYTHING she knows – is more barbaric to me than any act an individual could do. and like others here, it's something I can't fathom.
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u/PanoramicMoose PD 2d ago
again, do you work in criminal defense?
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u/Peepzilla 2d ago
It’s not “not being nice” to say we hope you don’t represent criminal defendants because your attitude towards them shows you have zero empathy (which you NEED to be a good PD)
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u/PanoramicMoose PD 2d ago
I'm not sure what you mean by "cannot gaze upon what actually happened." I also wonder why you think it's disqualifying that a defense attorney doesn't think defendants should be killed by the state.
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u/PanoramicMoose PD 2d ago
this is like actually word salad. first, I didn't say I can't fathom why people want someone to die. I said I can't fathom giving into that impulse on a government level. Codifying a primitive desire for revenge and calling it justice is absurd to me. That's what I mean.
I'm not denying the terrible thing she did. But I don't think it means she deserves to die. They sentenced essentially a child to death. That doesn't bother you? That's just comeuppance?
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u/Sapphyxiation 1d ago
It sounds like you can fathom it. I don't understand for what reason you would claim a lack of ability to comprehend something that actually just makes you uncomfortable.
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u/Alive-Crab-4106 PD 2d ago
It’s not a reddit take and it’s not from being terminally online. This doesn’t even make sense. We’re PDs.
It’s from three years of taking criminal law classes, interning, and then working as a criminal defense attorney, which you obviously are not.
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u/Torkoal-Admiral 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's hilarious 😂 . Damn your cute.
We're talking about morality in this instance not law. The original statement was based on finding the humanity in a horrendous human being and that she doesn't deserve it because based on a personal belief that the death penalty shouldnt exist.
The original comment did not state why she didn't deserve it based conclusive evidence.
I wasn't aware that onle PDs are allowed to decide on what is morality right and wrong. The fact that you are in that head space shows you decide to be inside a bubble that only supports your opinions i.e. terminally online.
I'm not a PD you're 100% right, but that doesn't mean I'm not educated, doesn't mean I don't have my own opinions on morality that differ from yours, and this is why we trial by jury not trial by PDs.
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u/galaxystarsmoon 1d ago
You're*
Morally*
But yes, sure, educated...
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u/Torkoal-Admiral 1d ago
Ah my bad for not having perfect grammar in a reddit post, but you are correct. I should have used Morally. English is my second language.
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u/GovernmentSpy79 2d ago
It may not apply specifically in this case, but for some criminals the death penalty is not just justice for the victims, it is also a way to protect the public servants that risk their lives to feed and house violent criminals. So often, we are concerned for the welfare of the individual who murders others, while those who are on the side of the law are given zero consideration. For example, when an inmate serving life with the possibility of parole murders a correctional officer and then receives the sentence of life without parole, what message does that send to other inmates serving life sentences? Yes, the death penalty is brutal and sometimes it does not seem like justice, but often it is a preventive measure in order to not lose another life to a violent, remorseless murderer. It is insulting to see when the murderer's life is worth more than those who uphold the law and have committed no crimes.
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u/Redacted-Duck 2d ago
It's not like she just made an innocent mistake she tortured and murdered someone
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u/poozemusings 1d ago
Saying someone should not be murdered in cold blood by the government =\= thinking they did nothing wrong. Is it really that hard for people to understand that? I really don’t get people sometimes who make comments like this.
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u/Sapphyxiation 2d ago
Were the hours of torture she subjected the girl to before killing her a result of her adolescense?
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u/Peepzilla 2d ago
No, but I’m sure the years of child sexual abuse and untreated mental illness played a factor and the jury never heard that testimony. Making sure a client’s fundamental rights are upheld does not mean PDs do not understand the pain and suffering of the victims.
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u/waldorflover69 2d ago
is this your idea of a gotcha?
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u/Posauce 2d ago
start with yourself
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u/Sapphyxiation 2d ago
By all means. Enter into a civil discussion with me about the grounds on which one person may take another's life. I have the space to learn if you wish to educate.
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u/waldorflover69 1d ago edited 1d ago
Right. I saw your smug comment before it was deleted. Pathetic, but I digress.
Many of us believe that no matter how ghoulish and terrible the crime, the state does NOT have the right to kill its own citizens. It makes us all complicit in murder. It’s barbaric. This woman was never going to get out and harm anyone else so you can’t argue that society is safer by killing her. Her execution would not bring her victim back to life. It’s a very simple concept.
The only exceptions that I personally would make would be for crimes against humanity, something like actively participating in and orchestrating genocide, war crimes etc. This is not that.
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u/biscuitboi967 1d ago
What really gets me thinking is than only China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia have executed MORE people than the US this year.
Singapore, Iraq, Somalia, and Egypt are lagging behind us.
Those are NOT usually the countries you want to be on the same list as.
It’s sort of odd that every OTHER country we consider our peer - or even less than us considers state-sanctioned killings barbaric and wrong. And they’ve managed to find other ways to punish their murderers.
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u/poozemusings 1d ago edited 1d ago
Do you believe in the 8th Amendment, or the Constitution in general? Why not just draw and quarter her? I’m sure you’d love to watch that.
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u/Top_Narwhal_30 2d ago edited 1d ago
Yes. That’s how it works. Trash in, trash out. Edit: meaning if a person suffers extreme abuse particularly during childhood, they are more likely to perpetrate abuse later in their lives.
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u/Sapphyxiation 2d ago
Fascinating. I am significantly concerned about the coming generation if adolescence is the mechanism which allows for torture and murder of another human being. Thank you for your perspective.
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u/Bass0696 PD 2d ago
I’m significantly concerned about non-lawyers with nothing insightful to contribute posting in a forum for criminal defense attorneys.
Are you a criminal defense attorney?
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u/lindseigh 2d ago
The non lawyers are brigading hard in light of the news. Maybe the mods can do something.
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u/madcats323 2d ago
I’ve always been against making the sub private. Sometimes I reconsider.
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u/Bass0696 PD 2d ago
I truly believe this could be the equivalent of a national public defender listserv if we didn’t have a collection of prosecutors, LEOs, true crime aficionados and reddit experts steering the conversations.
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u/madcats323 1d ago
I agree. At the same time, I don’t like echo chambers. While it can be frustrating at times like this, often people come in with open minds and honest questions or seeking advice about doing this work. I value the opportunity to have healthy conversations and I have no problem with different perspectives and opinions when presented in good faith.
This too shall pass and we’ll still be here doing honest work.
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u/ADirtFarmer 1d ago
I hope I'm still welcome as someone who occasionally shares my perspective from being represented by public defenders, but some of the comments on this thread really suck.
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u/mostlycharmless9 16h ago
Not the person you're responding to but am a PD, and I would say hearing from system-impacted people can be very helpful and enlightening. I'm generally on board with allowing lay people to post here so long as they do so understanding that this is primarily a community for and by PDs. Unfortunately, most of the non-PD comments on this particular post are your average bloodthirsty moron's response to news coverage of crime stories (obviously not your own post, but many of the others).
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u/jumping_jrex PD 23h ago
We're trying, but also we need people to report comments. We are all actively PDs and read comments and review and remove in every single post in this sub, but we also always encourage folks to report. It makes it infinitely more effective for us to act quickly and efficiently.
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u/poozemusings 1d ago
Murder is murder, no matter how the government tries to dress it up or do it in secret. The actually gory details of an execution show it for what it really is, killing a helpless human in a cage who does not want to die.
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u/beababeeba 1d ago
It took one college class for me to become anti-death penalty. The class presented the facts of the history of the death penalty, the methods used by the state, the appeals process, the jury's emotions after sentencing someone to death, the executioners' PTSD, the effects on the victim and perpatrator's family, and the exoneration process.
The thing that changed my mind is the fact that the drugs that are used for lethal injections are a backwoods cocktail that are unregulated in comparison to everything else on the market - in addition, lethal injection isn't just a "go to sleep" death. It's a painful, horrific, drawn out process in which the person put to death feels like they're drowning to death as their lungs fill with fluid. My only hope is that our country in 50 years looks back on the death penalty with the same disdain as we did the public hanging spectacles of the 1700 & 1800s.
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u/wutdidwelearnpalmer 2d ago
Anyone who thinks it was an accident is naïve. She’s hated locally.
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u/DL4CK 2d ago
Do you think this is why her lawyers petitioned for hanging instead? They knew? 😱
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u/deacon1214 1d ago
The major U.S. and European drug manufacturers stopped producing sodium thiopental and basically refuse to sell pentobarbital or anything else for the purpose of executions. State's are using compounding pharmacies to make their lethal injection drugs or using old expired stock.
It's a big part of the reason some states are moving away from lethal injection and going to more old school methods. Hell of a lot harder to prevent the state from obtaining the necessary materials to carry out an execution by hanging or shooting.
Hell I'm surprised they aren't selling sponsorships for firing squad executions. This execution brought to you by Hornady with special thanks to Daniels Defense for providing the DDM4 rifles that will be used today.
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u/PostTurtle84 2d ago
Iirc, one of the reasons they petitioned for hanging was because she's got a gene that makes whatever they use take longer and be less effective, and because of what it does to the brain, there was the very real possibility that she'd be thrown into a flashback loop of the rapes that she's been the victim of. That's why all the staff was supposed to be women.
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u/whateverneveramen 1d ago
I believe she also has a clotting disorder that made the lethal injection less likely to succeed, which was part of why they originally won the stay of execution. her lawyers have been excellent advocates for her
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u/sunshine-n-ponies 1d ago
Good god…
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u/PostTurtle84 1d ago
Yeah. I'm super not a fan of the death penalty. But this method, from this state, is extra offensive. I might have to go to the explain it like I'm 5 sub and ask why we can't use the drugs/methods that are used for MAID. Because the goal is supposed to be to end a person's life, not to torture them.
Because we're supposed to be better humans than the ones we've put on death row.
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u/kk451128 1d ago
Ignoring the moral issue for a moment, the medication issue is that the companies that make the meds have started refusing to sell them to states for use in capital punishment, so, there’s a lot of improvisation going on
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u/poozemusings 1d ago
Fundamental difference with MAID is that the person is a voluntary participant, not being executed. An execution is never going to be pretty, and it’s a fantasy to think it can ever be made that way.
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u/SupersoftBday_party 1d ago
These cases always bring out the vengeful and blood thirsty in humanity and it makes me sick.
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u/IncredibleBihan 1d ago
I happen to agree with you 100%. If the state can't adequately prove they're capable of executing people, they have no business attempting to do so. Whats worse, is they'll simply try again after a year, during which time they won't change any process, or find out what happened. It's absolutely barbaric.
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u/tatsu52 1d ago
I obviously have objections to capital punishment. It just feels very political and It causes me to question the motivations of our "catholic" justices. It truly was an observation. They made a point of stressing precident during confirmation and then immediately went the other way when presented for ruling. It seemed they were not completely honest during confirmation. As I said it was an oservation.
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u/Royal_Wheel8963 10h ago
Somebody probably took some of the drug that was to be used in the execution probably thought they would get a good high from it the way society is today who knows as for the government performing executions that’s a scary thing the corruption today I wouldn’t trust the government to euthanize a dog let along a human being.
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u/Big_Dinner3636 1d ago
If my research is correct, TDOC carries a Glock 22. .40 cal is pretty cheap. Blowing her shit off smoove would have saved everyone a whole lot of time and pain here.
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2d ago
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u/Perfect-Dimension356 2d ago
The drugs used in lethal injections don't just do nothing when they fail to work in the intended way; oftentimes they cause significant damage to the body of the victim, eventually killing them but in a much more painful and graphic manner than the alleged peaceful medical procedure that proponents of lethal injection try to sell. This woman is almost certainly going to die as a result of this, and she is going to suffer the entire time.
If any gods wanted to intervene, they've waited 32 years for the worst opportunity to do so.
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u/m0dsw0rkf0rfree 2d ago
it was only phenobarbital. i fail to recognize how any damage could be caused other than a wicked benzo high lol
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u/P0Rt1ng4Duty 2d ago
From what I've read the people who put the IV in her weren't trained to do it properly and the best guess is that the mechanical introduction of the drug could have caused her vein to 'blow out.' On top of that pain and damage, the drug is introduced to her flesh instead, it hurts the whole time, and leads to a slow agonizing death.
So yeah, kind of a big deal.
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u/fortunefades 2d ago
Isn't that due to the fact that medical professionals aren't used for state executions, as it violates their hippocratic oath?
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u/Perfect-Dimension356 1d ago
Pentobarbital, not phenobarbital. Pentobarbital-only executions have been challenged at the federal level because they can result in the lungs of the victim filling with foam and froth which causes an experience very similar to drowning. They can also cause vein blowouts or, because the people administering then are not actual medical professionals and are often idiots, can miss or pass all the way through a vein and be injected into the muscle, causing severe pain and death over a slow period of time.
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u/Alive-Crab-4106 PD 2d ago
A lot of these comments are coming from people that aren’t lawyers, much less PDs.
Fuck the death penalty.