Idaho halted the execution of serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech on Wednesday after medical team members repeatedly failed to find a vein where they could establish an intravenous line to carry out the lethal injection. Creech, 73, has been in prison half a century, convicted of five murders in three states and suspected of several more. Creech, one of the longest-serving death row inmates in the U.S., was wheeled into the execution chamber at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution on a gurney a
Friend, I’m not saying I support capital punishment. No doubt that there have been innocent people put to death (often people of colour), and that would be a failing of the justice system. Even the idea of capital punishment makes me sick.
But in the context we find ourselves in, the way Creech has been treated couldn’t possibly have been more humane or compassionate. He’s already tried to kill himself, saying he does not want to be stuck in prison for the rest of his life.
How would you go about making this situation better for this murderer? Or the family of his victims?
Well, sentencing is done on a case-by-case basis. Which is why some people who commit especially brutal types of violent murders are given a harsher penalty vs someone who may have killed in the heat of the moment. This is probably as fair as you can get, since some crimes obviously shouldn’t get the same heavy had as others.
Sentencing is done within the limit of the law and, again this is not about him specifically.
You can’t sentence someone to die by a thousand cuts because that is cruel. Which violates the Constitution. Why is this not cruel? Because it’s faster?
Right. And the limit of the law, in this case, is lethal injection.
I don’t make up the rules, man. But you still haven’t said what would be the ideal in this situation.
Let him spend the rest of his life in jail (something he did not want, and already tried to kill himself over), set him free, or “other”?
You’d still have to consider the victims in this decision, so I’m curious to know how you’d do it.
Which is cruel. Even if he specifically wants it. For reasons I explain.
The ideal would be to do what every other civilized country on the planet does and not execute people. Even Anders Breivik wasn’t executed and he killed 77 people, many of them children. And no one in Norway who had any real influence seriously discussed bringing back the death penalty just for him. Because it is cruel.
Even SCOTUS decided it was cruel and halted it until they reversed their decision.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furman_v._Georgia
Our justice system is not about retribution. It has never been about retribution. Retribution is also unconstitutional for the same reason.
Not to go off-topic, but that Nazi never asked to be put to death. It seems like the only complaint he’s made about his sentence is that the Playstation he uses while in prison is outdated, and that he doesn’t get more time to make phone calls.
Do you view medically assisted suicide as cruel?
If Creech asked for death by lethal injection as a form of assisted suicide, would granting that not be the embodiment of compassion towards him?
Cruelty implies that extreme unkindness is willingly being inflicted upon another person or animal with the desire to cause pain and suffering.
This definition does not match what we see here.
After a doctor’s assessment? No. He did not undergo such an assessment.
There’s a reason why medical professionals do not assist with executions.
I hate to break it to you, but the article quite literally says that “medical team members” were responsible for assisting in getting the IV line into Creech.
Harvard also says that physicians do assist (SOURCE)
And even this cardiologist says it’s better that they do than not, even though he is against capital punishment.
It’s certainly a debated topic in the realm of ethics, no doubt, but it still happens.
But getting back to my question:
If medically assisted suicide is not cruel, and Creech requested that he wanted to die via lethal injection (medically assisted suicide, since it was at his request), where do we have a problem?