India's top court favors death by hanging

[Coventina]

Source: Associated Press

NEW DELHI (AP) — India's top court has refused to replace hanging with lethal injection as the country's sole method of execution, saying there is no evidence it is less painful than other ways.

Monday's ruling rejected a petition by rights activist Ashok Kumar Walia, who said hanging was a "cruel and painful" method of execution and should be replaced by lethal injection, which is used in more than 30 U.S. states as a primary method of execution.

"How do you know that hanging causes pain? And how do you know that injecting the condemned prisoner with a lethal drug would not cause pain?" Supreme Court Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan said.

Balakrishnan and Justice P. Sathasivam said experts believe that hanging — meant to dislocate the neck and sever the spinal cord — causes instant death.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jzvjxmS2DS1XkjXO92o2m6fmuAUwD999EO5O0

[TheCoxwain]

1. The judge is fucking styoopid ....

[pattmarty]

2. How many "normal" countries actually have a death penalty?

[InfiniteThoughts]

5. actually ... i believe that "normal" countries SHOULD have death penalties

but it cannot be distributed like sweetmeats ... if it is tightly regulated (like in India), i think death penalty should be used against people who commit grave attacks on humanity - mass murder, child rapes.

[hlthe2b]

9. "but it cannot be distributed like sweetmeats"

uggh.... what a disgusting way of putting it. :shrug:

[InfiniteThoughts]

16. sorry ...

but isn't that the reality in southern united states? ... i could have avoided the use of the word "sweetmeats" but the intent was that death penalty has been dished out too often in these states - something that doesn't happen in India.

Stats:
* 25 executions in US in 2009 in Texas alone (http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/executedoffenders.htm). 1169 executions in US since 1976 (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions-united-states-1608-1976-state)
* India's last execution was in 2004. The offender was a child rapist & murderer. Between 1975 to 1995, there were 41 executions.

In fact, the President is still sitting on a mercy petition filed by the perpetrator of the 2001 Parliament Attack.

[David__77]

3. This ruling makes sense to me on a level.

Why would injection of lethal chemicals causing death by shutting down the body over a period of time be more humane than hanging? Is it more dignified? No. Less painful? Doubtful. The only thing I can see is that it would be easier on the consciences of the executioners.

[redqueen]

8. I disagree.

Injection is much more dignified.

[Xithras]

15. Not really

There's a great deal of evidence suggesting that people experiencing lethal injecton suffer immensely, but are unable to move or display their pain because of other drugs placed into their body as part of the process. It's paralysis without numbness.

In comparison, a properly performed hanging instantly snaps the spinal cord at the neck, causing genuine paralysis. The person feels themselves falling for an instant, and then feels nothing at all because the nerve connections have been severed. Compression of the carotoid arteries by the rope instantly stops bloodflow to the brain, ending conciousness within moments. The death is quick and genuinely painless.

Injection may be a more "dignified" way to kill someone (if such a thing can even be called dignified), but it's certainly not the least painful way to do it.

[InfiniteThoughts]

4. apologies ... but i agree with him ...

if one believes in death penalty, he should be OK with hangings.

i am one of those you believe that there is a place in law for death penalty - murderers (kill wife & burn in grill - Sushil Sharma); child rapists; assassins; terrorists like Ajmal Kasab (2008 Mumbai Attacks). We are better off without these folks!

And to provide some perspective.

* There have been less than 10 death penalties executed in the last decade in India. The process is rigorous. ALL Death Penalty sentence are reviewed in the State High Court & the Supreme Court and that is MANDATORY. It is then sent to the President of India for mercy forgiving. If the President doesn't show mercy, only then execution takes place.
* Nalini - who a key person in Rajiv Gandhi's assasination was pardoned by the President because she had a baby.
* Mohammad Afzal - Sentenced to Death for masterminding Dec 2001 Parliament Attacks, he still waits because the President hasn't decided on his mercy petition.

[TheCoxwain]

11. are you for "stoning to death" too?

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. I wonder if cost was a factor

A rope, a tree, good to go.

[TheCoxwain]

12. you guys find humor in the most improbable of places !!!

:rofl:

[blackbooks]

14. One might almost call it...

GALLOWS humor.

(Rimshot)

[InfiniteThoughts]

7. it's tragic that a country like India looks upto US for death penalties ...

Death penalties are examined with a microscope in India. The Country spends tons of money to ensure that the sentence is awarded only in the rarest of rare cases.

Compare that to the US - where there isn't a rigorous process to whet every death penalty ...

[Stryguy]

10. In a sense, does it matter?

Purely a philosphical question:

Does the form of death matter in the slightest? As the end result you would have no recolection of the pain you endured. You cease to exist (regardless if you're religious or not) and the pain you were feeling would also not exist, nor would it's memory.

We see death in the eyes of the living but we're wrong in doing so. The real inhumane death is the one you've been tortured with the thought of happening for years on end. The thread of hope the death row inmate has to be pardoned. The fear of what's to come after you die.

I can promise you this. Taking a death row inmate, strapping him down and pretending to lethal inject him, only to unstrap him and put him back into his cell would be far more of a punishment then actually going through with it.

It is this fate and struggle for survival that puts fear into us all. It is in life that we fear death. Death itself is most likely nothingness or pleasurable based on the little we scientifically know.

When I die I hope it's without me knowing for a moment that it's coming. The 3 or 4 minutes it takes me to die, I could care less.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. the indian supreme court is very conservative. that being said, lethal injections are not much

better. ugh

[JI7]

17. how about getting rid of the death penalty all together

life in prison instead.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

18. and improving the prison system which is pretty horrific in india.