{"id":1664,"date":"2020-07-16T15:43:21","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T22:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=1664"},"modified":"2020-07-16T15:43:21","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T22:43:21","slug":"lying-and-other-hijinks-about-the-death-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=1664","title":{"rendered":"Lying and Other Hijinks About the Death Penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Relatively unnoticed among her several frenetic attempts to come to the aid of a child killer was Judge Tanya Chutkan’s order (wiped away by the Supreme Court last night) to stay the Purkey execution because the drug to be used had not been approved by the FDA as “safe” and effective, and had not been prescribed by a physician.\u00a0 Kent analysed this attempt here<\/a>, but there is more that usefully could be said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Kent dismantles, with his usual precision, the sleight-of-hand Judge Chutkan employed in her analysis<\/a>.\u00a0 But I’d like to step away from the lawyerly approach to ask the question any fair-minded layman must be puzzling over:\u00a0 Why is a chemical that’s going to be used in an execution<\/em><\/strong> required either to be approved by a doctor or be “safe”?\u00a0 The point of an execution is not to heal the “patient” or assure his safety.\u00a0 It’s to end his life and terminate the need for safety.\u00a0 Is there anyone who doesn’t understand this?<\/p>\n

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that lawyers tend to become caught up in their own world, a world that sometimes becomes entranced with needless, and occasionally idiotic, complications.\u00a0 The idea that an execution drug is part of the healing arts is a sterling example.\u00a0 No normal layman could possibly think such a thing, but capital litigation is now at the point where nine Supreme Court justices have to get up in the middle of the night to ponder it.<\/p>\n

Along with the (closely related) incentives for defense counsel to blast out spaghetti claims in the 48 hours before an execution, this needs to change.<\/p>\n

One more thing that bears mentioning is the indignant claim by the lawyer for the other child killer executed this week, Daniel Lewis Lee, that \u201cIt is beyond shameful that the government, in the end, carried out this execution in haste, in the middle of the night, while the country was sleeping,\u201d (as reported in this Washington Post article<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Where’s the haste, exactly?\u00a0 Lee’s case, like most other capital cases, was the opposite of haste.\u00a0 Lee was convicted 23 years ago.\u00a0 Justice for him ambled along at a snail’s pace because (1) our law unaccountably tolerates it, and (2) the defense bar does everything it can\u00a0 —\u00a0 which is quite a lot\u00a0 —\u00a0 to balloon it.\u00a0 The idea that 23 years is “haste” is beyond preposterous, but this is the sort of thing defense lawyers serve up with equal doses of frequency, indignation and belligerence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Relatively unnoticed among her several frenetic attempts to come to the aid of a child killer was Judge Tanya Chutkan’s order (wiped away by the Supreme Court last night) to stay the Purkey execution because the drug to be used had not been approved by the FDA as “safe” and effective, and had not been prescribed by a physician.\u00a0 Kent analysed this attempt here, but there is more that usefully could be said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-death-penalty"],"yoast_head":"\nLying and Other Hijinks About the Death Penalty - Crime & Consequences<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.crimeandconsequences.blog\/?p=1664\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lying and Other Hijinks About the Death Penalty - 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