Is a pattern emerging? Executions postponed by Fed Judge-What's the source of the drugs

[malaise]

http://time.com/47192/texas-execution-tommy-lynn-sells-drug/
<snip>
A Texas federal judge has postponed death sentences of two murderers until officials divulge the source of the execution drugs

A federal judge in Texas Wednesday halted the scheduled execution of a serial killer and another condemned man until the state reveals to their attorneys the source of the drugs that will be used to end their lives.

“We hope that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will finally decide to comply with the law, and cease attempting to shroud in secrecy one aspect of their job that, above all others, should be conducted in the light of day,” said attorneys for the plaintiffs in a joint written statement.

[Jake Stern]

1. How sick in the head does one have to be to support capital punishment?

It makes me want to vomit when someone cheers an execution.

[malaise]

2. Very sick

I'm glad judges are stepping up - I will never support the death penalty.

[Jake Stern]

5. It is good to see that not everybody in a robe is bloodthirsty. nt

[Amak8]

3. It's favored 60-35

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1606/death-penalty.aspx

[Jake Stern]

4. Doesn't matter if it's supported 99-1 it's still sick.

I imagine Roman gladiator fights were widely supported but that doesn't mean they were right.

[LanternWaste]

22. Popularity and justice meet only rarely-- and then, only by coincidence...

One might guess that if we stuck with polling, slavery in America may have lasted well into the twentieth century.

Popularity and justice meet only rarely-- and then, only by coincidence...

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. Not "sick in the head", just misguided.

There are some people out there who have done some really sickeningly horrible things; cheering their executions is entirely understandable. I think that many of the more vehement opponents of the death penalty haven't grasped just how evil some (and thereby hangs the rub) of its victims are - I don't know if you're one of those, but there are certainly many who are.

While I'm opposed to the death penalty, on the grounds that it will inevitably sometimes be misapplied and I don't think that executing innocent people is a price worth paying for executing guilty ones when imprisonment is a perfectly good option, if it could be applied infallibly I would think very seriously about supporting it.

[Jake Stern]

7. Degree of evil is no excuse for the state to engage in murder.

For the record I DO grasp just how evil some are and still I oppose state sanctioned murder.

[malokvale77]

8. I like the way you reason.

Welcome to DU

[Jake Stern]

9. Thank you!

[kcr]

10. How can that be?

You aren't special like the person you responded to, obviously

[Donald Ian Rankin]

11. Execution is not murder, and using a loaded word is not an argument.

Murder is a crime; if an execution is legal then it is not murder. There *are* good arguments against the death penalty; I've just advanced one. But calling it "state sanctioned murder" is an attempt to circumvent rational argument by using a loaded and inaccurate word.

[Jake Stern]

19. You call it a "loaded word" I call it my "opinion"

which happens to be that capital punishment IS unjustifiable and criminal, and seeing as it's done in my name and with my tax dollars, I have every right to call it whatever appropriately derisive name I choose.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

21. Unjustifiable I agree with, but criminal?

What law is it breaking?

When you say criminal, do you mean that you think it *ought* to be criminalised, or that you think it currently *is* criminal in America? And if the latter, what do you mean by "criminal" - legal executions certainly don't fit the usual definition of the word.

[Major Nikon]

20. So Joseph Stalin didn't murder millions because it was legal at the time?

While "state sanctioned murder" might be an oxymoron, I don't believe it's all that inaccurate. When the state executes people knowing inevitably some will be innocent, murder seems to be a pretty good description.

[countryjake]

12. Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision

Execution is back on for serial killer with S.A. ties
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Texas-executions-stayed-over-drug-source-5370603.php

A Houston federal judge on Wednesday blocked the executions of two condemned killers who argued that the state's failure to disclose details about the drugs that will be used to kill them violated their constitutional rights.

But hours later, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision, putting the Thursday execution of serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells back on schedule.

[malaise]

13. Good grief

I still respect the judge who stopped it.

[countryjake]

14. Can you believe the lightning speed they overturned that ruling?

I respect the judge, too, this morning.

She must be spinning; the claim was that they threw out her decision so fast precisely because the execution was scheduled for today.

[malaise]

15. No surprise - Texas is notorious for executing people

Ignorance is bliss among its leaders.

[countryjake]

16. I just hope the lethal drugs they're using don't take half an hour to work...

like that guy they put thru agony in Ohio. His family has a lawsuit against the state now and I'm hoping Ohio won't throw out the case.

McGuire execution lawsuit called similar to failed cases
http://www.toledoblade.com/Courts/2014/02/18/McGuire-execution-lawsuit-called-similar-to-failed-cases.html

[davidpdx]

17. The answer is yes

And many governors have stopped executions in their states. I know Oregon isn't the only one, I just can't think of the others off the top of my head.

I hate to say it in this way, but the botched execution recently pretty much proved the point about executions being brutal.

It will be interesting to see if the pressure is kept on individual states about the type of drugs they use and where they are coming from.

[countryjake]

18. Gov. Jay Inslee, for one. Last month he said no executions while he's in office.

Washington currently has nine men on Death Row and Gov. Inslee said that by calling for this moratorium, he hopes to reopen the debate, get people thinking.