Dear Supreme Court Originalists:
The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, ••nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.**
I want them to explain exactly why this isn’t cruel.
The supreme Court ruled that due to the wording, the punishment must be both cruel and unusual. This is for sure cruel, but it’s not weird enough
And the way they determine “unusual” is by doing this absolutely ahistoric, arbitrary polling of current policy. They cherry pick whatever statistics serve the politics of the person writing the decision.
e.g., when ruling whether it was “unusual” to execute people with cogitative disabilities (Atkins v. Virginia), they did a tally of how many states allowed execution in these cases vs did not but deliberately omitted how many states do not allow ANY executions. Then concluded that slightly more states allow executions of the mentally unfit than don’t even though it was absolutely incontestable fact that the vast majority of states did not allow this kind of execution.
Ignore that the ruling technically banned those executions… because it factually didn’t, since it left it up to states to define cognitive disability however they pleased and the behavior of the kill-happy states was not affected by the ruling.
When I was really sick and needed regular blood tests, I’d have some nurses take at least a half-dozen stabs at me before getting a usable vein. We’re talking both arms and then moving to the top of the hand.
It happens. I wouldn’t call it cruel or a form of punishment, as they weren’t purposely trying to make my life miserable.
It’s mildly annoying as the patient, and I’m sure a little embarrassing for the person with the needle.
Did you know it was going to kill you if it worked? Because that would be the cruel part. Imagine knowing, for days, maybe even months after your last appeal that you were going to die. You know the exact date and time. You know nothing you can do will stop it.
How is that not cruel?
How is that not cruel?
Having known that capital punishment by lethal injection would be the consequence of his actions, he decided his own fate.
Even prison could be considered cruel, or compassionate, depending on your perspective.
Really, though, this man murdered six people. I think you’re giving his feelings far too much consideration.
Reasons aside, they were killing this man. Sounds pretty cruel when you add that little caveat.
