How Much Torture is Cruel and Unusual?
The Supreme Court this term will hear a case involving the death penalty-but not exactly whether it should be outlawed in every state as intrinsically cruel and unusual for the State to kill off someone for their depravity, but whether a particular type of three-drug coctail lethal injection is too gruesomely painful and so should be substituted for some lesser form of torture unto death. Apparently we are splitting hairs on what is too gruesome a method of torturing unto death. Apparently no state just gives someone the option of intervenious injection with a bottle of Vodka mixed with a bottle of crushed sleeping pills so they can quietly slip away into that good night like Anna Nicole Smith when their number is called.
The case is Ralph Baze v. John D. Rees and it will likely be heard this term. It's a case that came to the Court from the lovely state of Kentucky, which practices this form of tri-drug coctail lethal injection borrowed from Oklahoma and Texas. [Briefs are linked to the pre-eminent Supreme Court blog http://www.scotusblog.com/]
The drugs apparently have the effect of paralyzing someone's muscles so that they cannot speak or move, but without effect on the nervous system such that they feel pain but just cannot speak about it. This is coupled with a drug that induces a heart attack (otherwise known as rock salt-the kind that melts snow-in your veins it induces heart attack). It is believed that the combination of these drugs places someone in the uncomfortable posture of being slowly tortured without ability to do anything about it- kind of like in Medieval England before the invention of the guillotine where someone was executed (at the Tower of London for example) by strapping them and their heads to a block so the executioner could lob off their heads with a sword, only he occassionally didn't get it on one try so he had to keep swinging while the person was half alive and felt his blinking head sever and roll off.
Of Course the entire discussion of whether certain drugs are more cruel and unusual than others in the State killing off someone for their depravity entirely misses the point of the 8th Amendment prohibition against "cruel and unusual" because DEATH is cruel and unusual per se. It is flatly cruel and unusual as a method of "punishment" to just kill off the sinner. If the degree of torture can be analyzed as potentially "cruel and unusual" then of course the blatant killing off -death itself- is the very definition of "cruel and unusual."
It serves no deterrent to him or her, it serves no rehabilitative function, it flies in the face of most people's understanding of the potential in all human life for redemption, it plays God where God said "do not kill" as one of the top Ten on the hit parade of sure-to-land-you-in-Gehenna commandments if you break them. Sure, there are some extremely depraved incorrigibles. So let them make license plates or do anything socially useful in solitary for the rest of their lives. The State has no jurisdiction to kill anyone. That's why an "unjust war" is considered nothing less than mass murder. It's God's jurisdiction. So lets hope that the Supreme Court takes the opportunity to issue something other than the narrowest ruling that addresses only whether drug A must be substituted with drug B to send them to their maker sooner.
AUTHOR OF "DEAD MAN WALKING" COMES TO TOWN:
Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown Washington, DC is sponsoring a very special event this Sunday.
On Sunday, September 30th at 10:10 AM and at 7:00 PM, Holy Trinity Church has invited Sr. Helen Prejean to speak to the Parish community on How Do You Live a Life that Does Justice? What I Believe. Sr. Helen's presentation is offered as part of the Adult Education Lecture Series this Fall sponsored by The William J. Byron, S.J. Fund for Adult Education. For more information on Sr. Helen's presentation, please check out our website at http://www.trinity.org/Education/AdEd/AESchedule/index.htm.
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