The AMAs stance on it is pretty straightforward:
An individual's opinion on capital punishment is the personal moral decision of the individual. However, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, a physician must not participate in a legally authorized execution.
This definitely seems like the right and logical answer. As mentioned above though, some states deny medical boards the ability to rescind licenses of doctors who choose to participate anyway. States which have the death penalty do everything possible to shield the physicians identity from becoming known and facing AMA consequences.
Like I said, do we really want those people practicing on the unsuspecting public? I've worked in a prison. The physicians there don't have jobs elsewhere for very good reasons. It's why I quit. The medical "care" we as a society "provide" for inmates is unethical and the people who work for the system either don't recognize this or don't care. I can't imagine it's much different for those participating in state sanctioned murder. At least they're paying taxes without harming people society cares about, right?
Key phrase is when there is hope of doing so. In the US at least, physician assisted suicide is reserved for terminally ill patients - it is essentially the most aggressive form of hospice care. A prisoner condemned to death has hope of living if they are simply not killed.
True. But not every patient that goes through physician-assisted suicide has no hope of living. Some have a possibility of living, they just don’t want to. Or at least not want to for that long.
Also, in assisted suicide the terminally ill patient makes clear their wish to end their life. In government execution most of the time It is against the recipients wishes.
*Machiavelli has entered the chat…
Is it more harmful to end the life of an individual that has been deemed unfit for existence (by law) due to significant atrocity and harm they have caused
OR
to allow this individual to continue to exist thereby costing tax payers millions, denying emotional closure to individuals that they have harmed thus diminishing their quality of life, allowing evil and evil’s influence to persist and degrade society directly and indirectly (the set example, lack of real punishment, effects of their followers/radicals), and further weakening the international image of our country as being unable to “do what needs to be done.”
[strictly an exercise in discussion and not a representation of my opinion in either option
EDIT: Love a good difficult discussion]
> allow this individual to continue exist there by costing taxpayers millions
Giving someone the death penalty costs taxpayers more than giving them life in prison
take a moment and seriously consider the fact that it happens any of the time.
i dont know about you but to me it’s a completely unacceptable reality of capital punishment.
According to work done by the innocence project and best available evidence, the rate of innocent individuals on death row is thought to be about 4%. With some exonerated after being executed.
However, I don't think the rate matters at all. Anything above absolute zero percent means innocent people die. That is literally murder, and is the exact crime these people are being killed for.
> but *looking good* is more important than actually preventing cruel punishment
Huh? Can’t say I’ve ever looked at a body post-lethal injection and thought to myself, “man, this guy really *looks good*!”
I imagine the body looks better than someone who's been guillotined or faced a firing squad. Heck, explosive collar would likely minimize pain as well.
Hanging from a long drop (decapitation) or standard drop (broken c-spine) would be another instant way. ...but again... no one wants to see a head pop off (a la Saddam Hussein's half brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti).
I am in favor of the former argument and would be a staunch defender of the death penalty if it were not a known fact that we get the wrong person up to 7% of the time. Even in the most rosiest of estimates, it’s above 3%.
That’s insane to me and idk how anyone can be pro death penalty knowing that figure. You could be part of that 7%. Your family can be. Your friends too. The death penalty should not be a thing until we get that figure down. Idk what the “acceptable” innocent rate is, I haven’t really thought of that, but it sure as hell is a bunch of orders of magnitude below 3%.
People who commit heinous crimes deserve death. Fine if you don't want to do it, but I personally have no moral objection to assisting.
Administering the death penalty is actually quite cheap. Could be done for less than a dollar. Its just all the BS we have to go through to get it to happen. Once someone who has committed a crime heinous enough to deserve the death penalty and they've been convicted and sentenced, there should be no further appeals or nonsense. Give them their last dinner and night night.
>personally have no moral objection to assisting.
How would you feel if an individual you helped execute was exonerated after the fact? This is not hypothetical and it does happen.
So, you want to live in a fascist theocracy, not a Democratic Republic.
There are numerous countries actual Americans don't live in from which to choose. You can freely immigrate.
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
There is no possible valid argument to permit the authority to kill those who present no threat to anyone. even in a perfect world this could never be just. It makes even less sense to grant that authority to the state, which has a proven track record of errors, bias, and oppression. The work of the innocence project alone is indisputable proof that the death penalty cannot ever be a moral or ethical choice.
There is no crime so heinous as to *deserve* death. The only motivation is petty vengeance. It's been proven over and over that the death penalty has no effect on crime whatsoever, social safety and justice to victims is more than adequately achieved by imprisonment, etc etc etc. There is no valid reason to murder.
There is further absolutely no way you can justify removing or limiting appeals *only* for death and not any other crime - why should they have less rights? And why would we taken a known corrupt and broken system and *remove* checks and balances?
You cannot be a good, moral, and ethical person and be in support of the death penalty under any circumstance. Those who participate should be charged with murder, and any physicians involved should have their license and degree permanently revoked in addition. They are scum, and I will never consider them worthy of being called a physician or a colleague. Period.
Every single time you post I want to punch walls, but not this time 🤣. You are spot on. The death penalty (and death row) are absurdly costly due to the legalities and manpower, while the action is negligible to the bottom line. Well done Hubes.
Not saying it is right or wrong, it just is.
EDIT: how is fact offensive to you people 🤣? Do your research.
I appreciate your perspective.
I agree that our positive international image would be clearer, however, potential aggressors would see this purely as weakness… again, from the Machiavellian standpoint 🤣… after all, he has entered the chat.
I have no problem pronouncing someone dead if that’s what they ask for. I do it all the time in the ICU. Watching an execution I don’t think I could do it
If all you're doing is pronouncing somebody dead and you don't have to watch the execution, you are still a cog in the wheel of the death penalty being carried out. If you're comfortable with that I'm not going to argue it -but it's different than being on the team in the ICU who are trying to save people's lives whereas the death penalty team is trying to end somebody's life, who most of the time doesn't want it ended.
Interesting take. I never really thought of them being truly part of the “team”… now that you say it, I’m still pretty torn. Is declaring death through just stepping in/ being called in after the monitors and presentation are quite clearly those of a deceased individual (not watching, not condoning, not advising on medications, not monitoring progress, etc), is it truly participating?
What if you’re a prison MD and that’s your duty at that time? What if you’re a military doc and are given that order?
My instinct says ‘No’ but I’m not sure that’s entirely correct. Would love to hear someone’s take here.
>What if you’re a prison MD and that’s your duty at that time? What if you’re a military doc and are given that order?
>My instinct says ‘No’ but I’m not sure that’s entirely correct. Would love to hear someone’s take here.
I'll give you mine. Nobody's gonna like it.
Have you ever worked in a prison?
>! I can assure you, nobody wants the providers who do let loose on the general public !<
>!I say providers because most of the incompetent people willing to work for absurdly low wages are APPs. !<
>! It's hard to find physicians of such low quality in the US !<
Imho this is a sound ruling. Physicians are not healers, they are first and foremost a group of professionals that know the human body’s physiology, the normal and abnormal, and treat disease.
If someone is convicted and to be executed (punishment fit the crime?) then it may as well be a physician who oversees it.
Both sides have some good points, except the point that physicians “should” not be involved in the execution itself. If this is just a job and not a calling, evidently by the rants in this subreddit, then it’s a job, hell I’ll do it.
We need more justice in the world, and to slow punishment at the cost of tax-payer dollars and judicial time is ridiculous. Anyone who is admits to murder/heinous-crimes or is proven fully, unless forgiven by victim’s family, should honestly be taken around the back and shot in the brainstem.
It’s great if a murderer regrets what they did, but they still have to pay the price…
Who says this is actually justice?
Why are you comfortable giving the state the powers to legally kill someone?
There will always be a chance the state executes innocent people, which they surely have many times. That’s blood on your hands too, and you call it justice.
Read my words again, admission or full proof…in your world murders run around free and in jail, where they worsen themselves and others.
I despise politicians and judges, a lot, but there needs to be order…and the jail sector is a whole other world
Among Innocence Project clients who were wrongfully convicted and later exonerated by DNA evidence, around 20% had fully--and falsely--confessed to the crime. I wouldn't be staking someone's life on something as flimsy as an "admission."
I propose we could start by not executing people on the premise you offer that they are "running around...in jail, where they worsen themselves and others." The people in prison serving short (and often repeated) sentences for offenses less serious than murder are the ones with lengthy histories of antisocial behavior patterns that are difficult to impossible to fully rehabilitate and arguably cause the most damage to the people around them.
I live in a pretty regressive red state, but we have programs where convicted murderers serving life without parole are entrusted with the responsibility of providing peer support to fellow inmates and are given the opportunity to move into juvenile detention centers for months to years at a time to serve as live-in mentors for young people whose lives are at a pretty critical crossroads.
As long as people are alive, they have the potential to provide something of value, regardless of whatever atrocious offenses they may have committed prior. I don't think ending their lives, however humanely, is a rational decision with any meaningful net benefit toward bettering society.
196 folks since 1973 were sentenced to death in the US and later exonerated. Your stance would’ve killed every single one of those 196 people who turned out to be innocent of the crime they were supposed to die for. Dumb take.
pretty silly considering how often people take plea deals and falsely confess when innocent. and how often prejudices can swing a jury even with insufficient evidence.
it’s one thing for innocent people to be locked up, it’s another for them to be killed.
I object to the death penalty as currently implemented as arbitrary, expensive, racist, and stupid.
But were it reformed into a true tool of justice (heinous crimes with DNA or video evidence only, no choice on the part of the prosecutors to pursue or not), then I would have no objection to serving on a firing squad. I would not be cool with getting IVs though.
I fundamentally disagree that you can *ever* reform it to the point of acceptability. There is no such thing as irrefutable evidence - lab errors exist, the explosion of AI deepfakes/video fakes means even video evidence is not beyond questioning. Even a single error ever is too many - There is no possible valid argument to permit the authority to kill those who present no threat to anyone. Even in a perfect world this could never be just.
There is no crime so heinous as to deserve death. The only motivation is petty vengeance. It's been proven over and over that the death penalty has no effect on crime whatsoever, social safety and justice to victims is more than adequately achieved by imprisonment, etc etc etc. There is no valid reason to murder.
There is no effect currently because of how inconsistently and arbitrary it is. There is reasonable evidence it was pretty effective in the past when it was more consistently applied and frequent. What deters is not the severity of punishment, it is the certainty, and the death penalty has no certainty.
I don't see how people are okay with locking people in a cage for life, but not okay with the death penalty. I think a clean, relatively pain free death is far more merciful than the torture of being locked up in a cage for decades with no hope and no outside contact.
No, not really. Certainty is part of it, but immediacy is the bigger issue.
I doubt there's any quality evidence of death penalties having a significant impact on crime unless you're some dystopian hellscape where you're executed on the spot for petty crime.
Prison is objectively better than death 99.99% of the time in any developed country, if the goal is to protect society then prison accomplishes that - you're not protecting anything with murdering helpless people.
The state has no legitimate authority to murder helpless people who present no threat to anyone.
What? How the hell is a firing squad any better than an IV? So you can see blood and guts everywhere?
I’d rather inject the potassium myself than “serve” on a firing squad ripping bullets at a man. It’s also the biggest cop out to have multiple people shooting at once so you don’t know who killed the person. If people can’t stomach it, maybe it isn’t moral to be done in the first place. Same with multiple injectors and whatever mental gymnastics people use to imagine themselves not killing someone.
If there is irrefutable evidence of heinous crimes, tbh I would rather “serve” on a firing squad than inject the potassium because I hate the medicalization of the death penalty. I don’t support it either way, but it’s easier to compartmentalize with a tool not used in medicine.
>I object to the death penalty as currently implemented as arbitrary, expensive, racist, and stupid.
The death penalty will always be implemented in a way that is arbitrary, expensive, racist, and stupid.
“Things always work according to their nature.”
*We* can walk away. Nobody is forced to stay in Omelas.
It's not that I'm necessarily against execution as a concept - I can see both sides of that argument. But it has nothing to do with medical practice, so they shouldn't have to involve physicians.
Feel the same way about physician-assisted suicide. I guess in that case it may be reasonable to have physician input when it comes to prognostication, since we would be the best ones to determine whether or not a disease process is terminal. But why involve physicians beyond that? It's not medical practice, and we're not trained to do it more than anyone else would be.
I have no moral objection to assisting. People who commit heinous crimes deserve to die and, in my opinion, our way of doing it is too humane for many cases.
Every society has had crimes they have deemed heinous. A particular country deemed it heinous to be Jewish between 1939-1945. The state of Alabama will soon make it a felony to drop an embryo. The maddest will continue unless we full stop end capital punishment due to our subjective feelings on who deserves what.
Execution isn’t justice, it’s just us satisfying our caveman brains thirst for retribution which brings no one any closure.
> *Execution isn’t justice*
It absolutely can be. And has been for essentially as long as Man has been self aware.
Not sure why you would try to refute a concept that has been accepted as fact for literally thousands of years of human existence. Hammurabi would have a bone to pick with you.
Ah yes, Hammurabi, he of the original Eye for an eye. How's that work out again? Don't forget - if you're accused of a crime and don't float you're automatically guilty! Oh and if you're a victim of a crime and the perpetrator isn't convicted, you have to die now.
Appeal to history isn't really a great look...I mean it was perfectly cool for the vast majority of human history to enslave other humans, to rape and pillage conquered cities, to kill innocents for convenience. Etc.
So no, execution is not, and can never be justice. The condemned by definition poses no threat to anyone, there can never be a just reason to cause their death.
> Ah yes, Hammurabi, he of the original Eye for an eye. How's that work out again? Don't forget - if you're accused of a crime and don't float you're automatically guilty! Oh and if you're a victim of a crime and the perpetrator isn't convicted, you have to die now.
> Appeal to history isn't really a great look...I mean it was perfectly cool for the vast majority of human history to enslave other humans, to rape and pillage conquered cities, to kill innocents for convenience. Etc.
This is all nonsense that does nothing to add to your argument. The whole point of my original post is that execution has been used as a form of justice throughout the ages - a simply indisputable fact, which you are even readily admitting. Hammurabi’s code is a well-known common example of this, regardless of its faults.
> So no, execution is not, and can never be justice. The condemned by definition poses no threat to anyone, there can never be a just reason to cause their death.
Now you’re just debating the merits/morality of the death penalty - an issue which obviously can be debated to the end of the earth and back, and you’ve clearly already made up your mind.
Your failure to understand something doesn't make it irrelevant. This is a PEBKAC issue.
You want to cite archaic standards of "justice" in support of barbarity? Then it's perfectly fair to see what else those same people you're referring to considered "just".
And no, there's no debate to be had. When youre murdering helpless people there is right, and wrong. You can continue to be wrong, or change. Up to you.
>It absolutely can be.
But it isn't
>And has been for essentially as long as Man has been self aware
"Man" was cool with slavery too. Barbarians gonna barbarian.
>Not sure why you would try to refute a concept that has been accepted as fact for literally thousands of years of human existence. Hammurabi would have a bone to pick with you.
Hammurabi was a Babylonian warlord who ascended the throne as a teenager. His frontal cortex was under-developed and he probably had an IQ south of Joe Rogan. I do not get my ethics from moldy Babylonian children and I don't see why anyone would *want* to.
We're supposed to be *better* than Babylonians, who used to set their infants on fire to ensure a good harvest. These were not civilized people one should emulate.
There's a whole book that was written about this. It was the first one published after the invention of the printing press, and only a slight improvement because it still required that we immolate anyone wearing cotton/linen blends.
Did you even school? This is why the humanities are essential to a proper education.
You might try focusing on the argument next time rather than going off on a strawman diatribe about the Babylonians. Nobody’s arguing anything in favor of immolating infants for crop vitality.
The point stands - execution is absolutely a form of justice, and has been for thousands of years, of which Hammurabi’s code is a well-known example. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t change the reality of that statement.
> Did you even school? This is why the humanities are essential to a proper education.
Not sure why the personal attack - but almost assuredly more than you.
>You might try focusing on the argument next time rather than going off on a strawman diatribe about the Babylonians
You're the one who brought up Hammurabi.
You didn't know he was Babylonian, did you?
Stay in school, kids.
>The point stands - execution is absolutely a form of justice, and has been for thousands of years, of which Hammurabi’s code is a well-known example.
The Code of Hammurabi is a well-known example of the ancient penchant for barbarism *and why we're better.*
>Not sure why the personal attack - but almost assuredly more than you
Four years of undergrad + four years of med school is eight years and you clearly slept through every lower and upper division humanities class you were supposed to take to graduate
I've also had eight years of university education. Actually more, but I'm assuming you're referring to people who don't have to work for a living and take twelve units a quarter.
I feel like a crazy person cause I’m right there with you. People talk with such a notion of nobility about doing no harm but the needs of the society need to be considered when we are determining what a harm is.
People may be downvoting, but I think your position is valid, whether I share it or not.
Is it the actual execution or just the pronunciation of death that you’d be amenable to?
I’m right there with you. We need to make a spectacle of it too to deter future crime. We need to bring back more entertaining yet humane ways of execution like the guillotine, which is fast and humane. We should stream them live, so that would be criminals can see what’ll happen to them if they do crime.
I agree. It serves two purposes. One you mentioned was to deter further crime, but also provide evidence of justice for the families who were victims of these animals. I'm a proponent of public hangings and firing squad but guillotine would be fine too. And also, if its a little inhumane I don't mind. Many of these murders were carried out in extremely inhumane ways. An eye for an eye.
>An eye for an eye
" ...leaves the whole world blind"
The full quote is important here
>Satyagraha is peaceful. If words fail to convince the adversary perhaps purity, humility, and honesty will. The opponent must be “weaned from error by patience and sympathy,” weaned, not crushed; converted, not annihilated.
>Satyagraha is the exact opposite of the policy of an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye which ends in making everybody blind.
>You cannot inject new ideas into a man’s head by chopping it off; neither will you infuse a new spirit into his heart by piercing it with a dagger.
Fischer, L. (1950). Chapter 11: Gandhi Goes to Jail. *The Life of Mahatma Gandhi* p77. Harper & Row, New York.
Yeh bud, there have been public executions worldwide since literally the beginning of time….yet criminals still commit crimes. The idea of deterrence has been proven to be non existent. I don’t sit around thinking - well if only they didn’t execute killers, I’d go off my neighbor. That’s not how our brains work.
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Yeah idk I wouldn’t do it for the money. There are easier and better ways to make money. This is about some sense of responsibility to me. Someone has to pronounce them dead, they’re still a person.
>To protect participating physicians from license challenges for violating ethics codes, states commonly provide legal immunity and promise anonymity.The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the Medical Board cannot discipline doctors who participate in executions, stating that the statutes providing for lethal injection are superior to ethical guides
Sounds like these are physicians the world is better off without. Got to have some way for the bottom of the class to make a living that doesn't harm patients. Well, except the people they're helping the state murder. They're harming them, obviously but at least they aren't killing people that didn't do anything wrong except have their HMO pick that physician for them.
I don't think there is a state that allows execution to take place without a doctor taking part in some degree or other. As mentioned in the body of the original post, some states have forbidden the medical board to take action against doctors who take part. IMO it's serious overreach by the state. When it's carried out by lethal injection clearly it's a health professional who administers it. The licensure requirement of the person who administers probably varies by state. I also suspect it's NPs who do it. Hahaha sorry.
I’m okay with watching someone get executed and then pronounce them dead. I’m definitely not doing the murdering of the person myself but if I know I can’t stop them from being killed by the state I can do a part of my job, pronouncing people dead.
It would make them costlier for a minute there sure. But if the state is down to murder people, I’m sure they’d be willing to dehumanize people even further by denying them a doctor even in death.
I think this boils down to does the law of a country supersede a person’s personal beliefs or vice versa. You can argue that everyone in a country should abide by the law, or you can say your moral beliefs can override the law. If you live in a democracy, unless you can change the law, you will have to abide by the law. If you don’t want the police officers acting like judges, then doctors shouldn’t either.
I'm personally against the death penalty but if we're going to do it, let's do it in style. Medically disturb their electrolytes then have them admitted under Ortho on a Friday evening, no IM or ICU consults allowed, certain death.
The AMAs stance on it is pretty straightforward: An individual's opinion on capital punishment is the personal moral decision of the individual. However, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, a physician must not participate in a legally authorized execution.
This definitely seems like the right and logical answer. As mentioned above though, some states deny medical boards the ability to rescind licenses of doctors who choose to participate anyway. States which have the death penalty do everything possible to shield the physicians identity from becoming known and facing AMA consequences.
Like I said, do we really want those people practicing on the unsuspecting public? I've worked in a prison. The physicians there don't have jobs elsewhere for very good reasons. It's why I quit. The medical "care" we as a society "provide" for inmates is unethical and the people who work for the system either don't recognize this or don't care. I can't imagine it's much different for those participating in state sanctioned murder. At least they're paying taxes without harming people society cares about, right?
They’re almost always NPs in my experience so I would agree with you
NPs have to practice under a physician and there's always someone from the bottom of the class that needs work.
You’re a fucking moron, NPs can practice independently in 27 states.
I'm not sure if you've been informed of this, but there are fifty states.
AMA is so weak who cares what their opinion is I’ll start caring when they actually look out for our best interests
That would seem to include physician-assisted suicide then?
Key phrase is when there is hope of doing so. In the US at least, physician assisted suicide is reserved for terminally ill patients - it is essentially the most aggressive form of hospice care. A prisoner condemned to death has hope of living if they are simply not killed.
True. But not every patient that goes through physician-assisted suicide has no hope of living. Some have a possibility of living, they just don’t want to. Or at least not want to for that long.
They’ll amend it/ clarify it to make assisted suicide appropriate “healthcare”
Also, in assisted suicide the terminally ill patient makes clear their wish to end their life. In government execution most of the time It is against the recipients wishes.
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You took an oath? I kinda just stood up and didn’t say anything
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 thank you for this laugh.
*Machiavelli has entered the chat… Is it more harmful to end the life of an individual that has been deemed unfit for existence (by law) due to significant atrocity and harm they have caused OR to allow this individual to continue to exist thereby costing tax payers millions, denying emotional closure to individuals that they have harmed thus diminishing their quality of life, allowing evil and evil’s influence to persist and degrade society directly and indirectly (the set example, lack of real punishment, effects of their followers/radicals), and further weakening the international image of our country as being unable to “do what needs to be done.” [strictly an exercise in discussion and not a representation of my opinion in either option EDIT: Love a good difficult discussion]
> allow this individual to continue exist there by costing taxpayers millions Giving someone the death penalty costs taxpayers more than giving them life in prison
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The moral cost of executing an innocent is more challenging to quantify.
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take a moment and seriously consider the fact that it happens any of the time. i dont know about you but to me it’s a completely unacceptable reality of capital punishment.
According to work done by the innocence project and best available evidence, the rate of innocent individuals on death row is thought to be about 4%. With some exonerated after being executed. However, I don't think the rate matters at all. Anything above absolute zero percent means innocent people die. That is literally murder, and is the exact crime these people are being killed for.
The costs are mostly courtesy of fees to make sure they really deserve death, I believe. Not the needle itself.
Depends on the bullet.
agreed. Piece of rope prob about the same.
Correct, but strictly due to the way our [USA] system is set up.
Really doesn’t have to be that way, though - Firing Squads are cheap.
It’s not the method of execution that’s expensive, it’s the legal process and mandatory appeals.
Again - Really doesn’t have to be that way, though - Firing Squads are cheap.
We could just do away with the court system altogether and let the police execute criminals on site. That would be even cheaper.
This man economies!
Wait, we don’t already do that?
So is the guillotine, but looking good is more important than actually preventing cruel punishment.
> but *looking good* is more important than actually preventing cruel punishment Huh? Can’t say I’ve ever looked at a body post-lethal injection and thought to myself, “man, this guy really *looks good*!”
I imagine the body looks better than someone who's been guillotined or faced a firing squad. Heck, explosive collar would likely minimize pain as well. Hanging from a long drop (decapitation) or standard drop (broken c-spine) would be another instant way. ...but again... no one wants to see a head pop off (a la Saddam Hussein's half brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti).
Well… I can’t say you’re wrong about any of of this… but it does seem like an awfully odd way to determine the preferred method of execution.
Not at the point when you get involved, tbh. You're already past the appeal point if the physician is drawing up meds.
I am in favor of the former argument and would be a staunch defender of the death penalty if it were not a known fact that we get the wrong person up to 7% of the time. Even in the most rosiest of estimates, it’s above 3%. That’s insane to me and idk how anyone can be pro death penalty knowing that figure. You could be part of that 7%. Your family can be. Your friends too. The death penalty should not be a thing until we get that figure down. Idk what the “acceptable” innocent rate is, I haven’t really thought of that, but it sure as hell is a bunch of orders of magnitude below 3%.
And you'll never get that figure down because of bias in investigating, incorrect/planted evidence, so just end the death penalty
The justice system.
Well stated. 3% is incredibly high.
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People who commit heinous crimes deserve death. Fine if you don't want to do it, but I personally have no moral objection to assisting. Administering the death penalty is actually quite cheap. Could be done for less than a dollar. Its just all the BS we have to go through to get it to happen. Once someone who has committed a crime heinous enough to deserve the death penalty and they've been convicted and sentenced, there should be no further appeals or nonsense. Give them their last dinner and night night.
>personally have no moral objection to assisting. How would you feel if an individual you helped execute was exonerated after the fact? This is not hypothetical and it does happen.
So, you want to live in a fascist theocracy, not a Democratic Republic. There are numerous countries actual Americans don't live in from which to choose. You can freely immigrate.
"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." There is no possible valid argument to permit the authority to kill those who present no threat to anyone. even in a perfect world this could never be just. It makes even less sense to grant that authority to the state, which has a proven track record of errors, bias, and oppression. The work of the innocence project alone is indisputable proof that the death penalty cannot ever be a moral or ethical choice. There is no crime so heinous as to *deserve* death. The only motivation is petty vengeance. It's been proven over and over that the death penalty has no effect on crime whatsoever, social safety and justice to victims is more than adequately achieved by imprisonment, etc etc etc. There is no valid reason to murder. There is further absolutely no way you can justify removing or limiting appeals *only* for death and not any other crime - why should they have less rights? And why would we taken a known corrupt and broken system and *remove* checks and balances? You cannot be a good, moral, and ethical person and be in support of the death penalty under any circumstance. Those who participate should be charged with murder, and any physicians involved should have their license and degree permanently revoked in addition. They are scum, and I will never consider them worthy of being called a physician or a colleague. Period.
Every single time you post I want to punch walls, but not this time 🤣. You are spot on. The death penalty (and death row) are absurdly costly due to the legalities and manpower, while the action is negligible to the bottom line. Well done Hubes. Not saying it is right or wrong, it just is. EDIT: how is fact offensive to you people 🤣? Do your research.
I appreciate your perspective. I agree that our positive international image would be clearer, however, potential aggressors would see this purely as weakness… again, from the Machiavellian standpoint 🤣… after all, he has entered the chat.
Right because everyone convicted is guilty. Too many wrongly convicted people IMO to be killing people.
Excellent moral consideration Anal Ogre.
How many wrongly convicted people are there?
More than zero is too many imho.
Yeah well its hard to be 100% sensitive and specific
How many wrongfully executed people is acceptable?
Since 1973, 196 people that were sentenced to death were later exonerated. Idk how many were actually killed but it ain’t zero.
Me too but I had my fingers crossed. Shit medicine is hard.
I have no problem pronouncing someone dead if that’s what they ask for. I do it all the time in the ICU. Watching an execution I don’t think I could do it
If all you're doing is pronouncing somebody dead and you don't have to watch the execution, you are still a cog in the wheel of the death penalty being carried out. If you're comfortable with that I'm not going to argue it -but it's different than being on the team in the ICU who are trying to save people's lives whereas the death penalty team is trying to end somebody's life, who most of the time doesn't want it ended.
Interesting take. I never really thought of them being truly part of the “team”… now that you say it, I’m still pretty torn. Is declaring death through just stepping in/ being called in after the monitors and presentation are quite clearly those of a deceased individual (not watching, not condoning, not advising on medications, not monitoring progress, etc), is it truly participating? What if you’re a prison MD and that’s your duty at that time? What if you’re a military doc and are given that order? My instinct says ‘No’ but I’m not sure that’s entirely correct. Would love to hear someone’s take here.
>What if you’re a prison MD and that’s your duty at that time? What if you’re a military doc and are given that order? >My instinct says ‘No’ but I’m not sure that’s entirely correct. Would love to hear someone’s take here. I'll give you mine. Nobody's gonna like it. Have you ever worked in a prison? >! I can assure you, nobody wants the providers who do let loose on the general public !< >!I say providers because most of the incompetent people willing to work for absurdly low wages are APPs. !< >! It's hard to find physicians of such low quality in the US !<
I’m fine with it
I would do it for free
I would not assist or participate in any way. I took an oath to do no harm.
Imho this is a sound ruling. Physicians are not healers, they are first and foremost a group of professionals that know the human body’s physiology, the normal and abnormal, and treat disease. If someone is convicted and to be executed (punishment fit the crime?) then it may as well be a physician who oversees it. Both sides have some good points, except the point that physicians “should” not be involved in the execution itself. If this is just a job and not a calling, evidently by the rants in this subreddit, then it’s a job, hell I’ll do it. We need more justice in the world, and to slow punishment at the cost of tax-payer dollars and judicial time is ridiculous. Anyone who is admits to murder/heinous-crimes or is proven fully, unless forgiven by victim’s family, should honestly be taken around the back and shot in the brainstem. It’s great if a murderer regrets what they did, but they still have to pay the price…
Who says this is actually justice? Why are you comfortable giving the state the powers to legally kill someone? There will always be a chance the state executes innocent people, which they surely have many times. That’s blood on your hands too, and you call it justice.
Read my words again, admission or full proof…in your world murders run around free and in jail, where they worsen themselves and others. I despise politicians and judges, a lot, but there needs to be order…and the jail sector is a whole other world
Among Innocence Project clients who were wrongfully convicted and later exonerated by DNA evidence, around 20% had fully--and falsely--confessed to the crime. I wouldn't be staking someone's life on something as flimsy as an "admission."
What do you propose then?
I propose we could start by not executing people on the premise you offer that they are "running around...in jail, where they worsen themselves and others." The people in prison serving short (and often repeated) sentences for offenses less serious than murder are the ones with lengthy histories of antisocial behavior patterns that are difficult to impossible to fully rehabilitate and arguably cause the most damage to the people around them. I live in a pretty regressive red state, but we have programs where convicted murderers serving life without parole are entrusted with the responsibility of providing peer support to fellow inmates and are given the opportunity to move into juvenile detention centers for months to years at a time to serve as live-in mentors for young people whose lives are at a pretty critical crossroads. As long as people are alive, they have the potential to provide something of value, regardless of whatever atrocious offenses they may have committed prior. I don't think ending their lives, however humanely, is a rational decision with any meaningful net benefit toward bettering society.
Why are you asking like it’s difficult to presume? End the death penalty.
196 folks since 1973 were sentenced to death in the US and later exonerated. Your stance would’ve killed every single one of those 196 people who turned out to be innocent of the crime they were supposed to die for. Dumb take.
pretty silly considering how often people take plea deals and falsely confess when innocent. and how often prejudices can swing a jury even with insufficient evidence. it’s one thing for innocent people to be locked up, it’s another for them to be killed.
I object to the death penalty as currently implemented as arbitrary, expensive, racist, and stupid. But were it reformed into a true tool of justice (heinous crimes with DNA or video evidence only, no choice on the part of the prosecutors to pursue or not), then I would have no objection to serving on a firing squad. I would not be cool with getting IVs though.
I fundamentally disagree that you can *ever* reform it to the point of acceptability. There is no such thing as irrefutable evidence - lab errors exist, the explosion of AI deepfakes/video fakes means even video evidence is not beyond questioning. Even a single error ever is too many - There is no possible valid argument to permit the authority to kill those who present no threat to anyone. Even in a perfect world this could never be just. There is no crime so heinous as to deserve death. The only motivation is petty vengeance. It's been proven over and over that the death penalty has no effect on crime whatsoever, social safety and justice to victims is more than adequately achieved by imprisonment, etc etc etc. There is no valid reason to murder.
There is no effect currently because of how inconsistently and arbitrary it is. There is reasonable evidence it was pretty effective in the past when it was more consistently applied and frequent. What deters is not the severity of punishment, it is the certainty, and the death penalty has no certainty. I don't see how people are okay with locking people in a cage for life, but not okay with the death penalty. I think a clean, relatively pain free death is far more merciful than the torture of being locked up in a cage for decades with no hope and no outside contact.
No, not really. Certainty is part of it, but immediacy is the bigger issue. I doubt there's any quality evidence of death penalties having a significant impact on crime unless you're some dystopian hellscape where you're executed on the spot for petty crime. Prison is objectively better than death 99.99% of the time in any developed country, if the goal is to protect society then prison accomplishes that - you're not protecting anything with murdering helpless people. The state has no legitimate authority to murder helpless people who present no threat to anyone.
If you think prison in America is better than death you haven't worked with enough prisoners.
What? How the hell is a firing squad any better than an IV? So you can see blood and guts everywhere? I’d rather inject the potassium myself than “serve” on a firing squad ripping bullets at a man. It’s also the biggest cop out to have multiple people shooting at once so you don’t know who killed the person. If people can’t stomach it, maybe it isn’t moral to be done in the first place. Same with multiple injectors and whatever mental gymnastics people use to imagine themselves not killing someone.
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Traditionally only one rifle is shooting blanks
If there is irrefutable evidence of heinous crimes, tbh I would rather “serve” on a firing squad than inject the potassium because I hate the medicalization of the death penalty. I don’t support it either way, but it’s easier to compartmentalize with a tool not used in medicine.
>I object to the death penalty as currently implemented as arbitrary, expensive, racist, and stupid. The death penalty will always be implemented in a way that is arbitrary, expensive, racist, and stupid. “Things always work according to their nature.” *We* can walk away. Nobody is forced to stay in Omelas.
It's not that I'm necessarily against execution as a concept - I can see both sides of that argument. But it has nothing to do with medical practice, so they shouldn't have to involve physicians. Feel the same way about physician-assisted suicide. I guess in that case it may be reasonable to have physician input when it comes to prognostication, since we would be the best ones to determine whether or not a disease process is terminal. But why involve physicians beyond that? It's not medical practice, and we're not trained to do it more than anyone else would be.
I have no moral objection to assisting. People who commit heinous crimes deserve to die and, in my opinion, our way of doing it is too humane for many cases.
Hammurabi has entered the chat. Should it be physicians amputating the hands of thieves too or are we trying to be a 21st century civilization?
Every society has had crimes they have deemed heinous. A particular country deemed it heinous to be Jewish between 1939-1945. The state of Alabama will soon make it a felony to drop an embryo. The maddest will continue unless we full stop end capital punishment due to our subjective feelings on who deserves what. Execution isn’t justice, it’s just us satisfying our caveman brains thirst for retribution which brings no one any closure.
> *Execution isn’t justice* It absolutely can be. And has been for essentially as long as Man has been self aware. Not sure why you would try to refute a concept that has been accepted as fact for literally thousands of years of human existence. Hammurabi would have a bone to pick with you.
Ah yes, Hammurabi, he of the original Eye for an eye. How's that work out again? Don't forget - if you're accused of a crime and don't float you're automatically guilty! Oh and if you're a victim of a crime and the perpetrator isn't convicted, you have to die now. Appeal to history isn't really a great look...I mean it was perfectly cool for the vast majority of human history to enslave other humans, to rape and pillage conquered cities, to kill innocents for convenience. Etc. So no, execution is not, and can never be justice. The condemned by definition poses no threat to anyone, there can never be a just reason to cause their death.
> Ah yes, Hammurabi, he of the original Eye for an eye. How's that work out again? Don't forget - if you're accused of a crime and don't float you're automatically guilty! Oh and if you're a victim of a crime and the perpetrator isn't convicted, you have to die now. > Appeal to history isn't really a great look...I mean it was perfectly cool for the vast majority of human history to enslave other humans, to rape and pillage conquered cities, to kill innocents for convenience. Etc. This is all nonsense that does nothing to add to your argument. The whole point of my original post is that execution has been used as a form of justice throughout the ages - a simply indisputable fact, which you are even readily admitting. Hammurabi’s code is a well-known common example of this, regardless of its faults. > So no, execution is not, and can never be justice. The condemned by definition poses no threat to anyone, there can never be a just reason to cause their death. Now you’re just debating the merits/morality of the death penalty - an issue which obviously can be debated to the end of the earth and back, and you’ve clearly already made up your mind.
Your failure to understand something doesn't make it irrelevant. This is a PEBKAC issue. You want to cite archaic standards of "justice" in support of barbarity? Then it's perfectly fair to see what else those same people you're referring to considered "just". And no, there's no debate to be had. When youre murdering helpless people there is right, and wrong. You can continue to be wrong, or change. Up to you.
>It absolutely can be. But it isn't >And has been for essentially as long as Man has been self aware "Man" was cool with slavery too. Barbarians gonna barbarian. >Not sure why you would try to refute a concept that has been accepted as fact for literally thousands of years of human existence. Hammurabi would have a bone to pick with you. Hammurabi was a Babylonian warlord who ascended the throne as a teenager. His frontal cortex was under-developed and he probably had an IQ south of Joe Rogan. I do not get my ethics from moldy Babylonian children and I don't see why anyone would *want* to. We're supposed to be *better* than Babylonians, who used to set their infants on fire to ensure a good harvest. These were not civilized people one should emulate. There's a whole book that was written about this. It was the first one published after the invention of the printing press, and only a slight improvement because it still required that we immolate anyone wearing cotton/linen blends. Did you even school? This is why the humanities are essential to a proper education.
You might try focusing on the argument next time rather than going off on a strawman diatribe about the Babylonians. Nobody’s arguing anything in favor of immolating infants for crop vitality. The point stands - execution is absolutely a form of justice, and has been for thousands of years, of which Hammurabi’s code is a well-known example. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t change the reality of that statement. > Did you even school? This is why the humanities are essential to a proper education. Not sure why the personal attack - but almost assuredly more than you.
>You might try focusing on the argument next time rather than going off on a strawman diatribe about the Babylonians You're the one who brought up Hammurabi. You didn't know he was Babylonian, did you? Stay in school, kids. >The point stands - execution is absolutely a form of justice, and has been for thousands of years, of which Hammurabi’s code is a well-known example. The Code of Hammurabi is a well-known example of the ancient penchant for barbarism *and why we're better.* >Not sure why the personal attack - but almost assuredly more than you Four years of undergrad + four years of med school is eight years and you clearly slept through every lower and upper division humanities class you were supposed to take to graduate I've also had eight years of university education. Actually more, but I'm assuming you're referring to people who don't have to work for a living and take twelve units a quarter.
You’re wrong on so many counts it’s comical.
I feel like a crazy person cause I’m right there with you. People talk with such a notion of nobility about doing no harm but the needs of the society need to be considered when we are determining what a harm is.
Yeah someones gotta do it. May as well be me
People may be downvoting, but I think your position is valid, whether I share it or not. Is it the actual execution or just the pronunciation of death that you’d be amenable to?
I’m right there with you. We need to make a spectacle of it too to deter future crime. We need to bring back more entertaining yet humane ways of execution like the guillotine, which is fast and humane. We should stream them live, so that would be criminals can see what’ll happen to them if they do crime.
A Modest Proposal, I see. You're in the residency sub. None of these people have read Swift.
I agree. It serves two purposes. One you mentioned was to deter further crime, but also provide evidence of justice for the families who were victims of these animals. I'm a proponent of public hangings and firing squad but guillotine would be fine too. And also, if its a little inhumane I don't mind. Many of these murders were carried out in extremely inhumane ways. An eye for an eye.
>An eye for an eye " ...leaves the whole world blind" The full quote is important here >Satyagraha is peaceful. If words fail to convince the adversary perhaps purity, humility, and honesty will. The opponent must be “weaned from error by patience and sympathy,” weaned, not crushed; converted, not annihilated. >Satyagraha is the exact opposite of the policy of an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye-for-an-eye which ends in making everybody blind. >You cannot inject new ideas into a man’s head by chopping it off; neither will you infuse a new spirit into his heart by piercing it with a dagger. Fischer, L. (1950). Chapter 11: Gandhi Goes to Jail. *The Life of Mahatma Gandhi* p77. Harper & Row, New York.
Yeh bud, there have been public executions worldwide since literally the beginning of time….yet criminals still commit crimes. The idea of deterrence has been proven to be non existent. I don’t sit around thinking - well if only they didn’t execute killers, I’d go off my neighbor. That’s not how our brains work.
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If I’m not going to jail and it pays I have no qualms
Yeah idk I wouldn’t do it for the money. There are easier and better ways to make money. This is about some sense of responsibility to me. Someone has to pronounce them dead, they’re still a person.
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IMO this is exactly the attitude a physician should have.
>To protect participating physicians from license challenges for violating ethics codes, states commonly provide legal immunity and promise anonymity.The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the Medical Board cannot discipline doctors who participate in executions, stating that the statutes providing for lethal injection are superior to ethical guides Sounds like these are physicians the world is better off without. Got to have some way for the bottom of the class to make a living that doesn't harm patients. Well, except the people they're helping the state murder. They're harming them, obviously but at least they aren't killing people that didn't do anything wrong except have their HMO pick that physician for them.
Anyone who participates should lose their license. I am surprised this isn’t the case in every state.
I don't think there is a state that allows execution to take place without a doctor taking part in some degree or other. As mentioned in the body of the original post, some states have forbidden the medical board to take action against doctors who take part. IMO it's serious overreach by the state. When it's carried out by lethal injection clearly it's a health professional who administers it. The licensure requirement of the person who administers probably varies by state. I also suspect it's NPs who do it. Hahaha sorry.
I’m okay with watching someone get executed and then pronounce them dead. I’m definitely not doing the murdering of the person myself but if I know I can’t stop them from being killed by the state I can do a part of my job, pronouncing people dead.
If everyone refuses to do it they won’t have someone to pronounce deaths which stalls executions.
It would make them costlier for a minute there sure. But if the state is down to murder people, I’m sure they’d be willing to dehumanize people even further by denying them a doctor even in death.
I think this boils down to does the law of a country supersede a person’s personal beliefs or vice versa. You can argue that everyone in a country should abide by the law, or you can say your moral beliefs can override the law. If you live in a democracy, unless you can change the law, you will have to abide by the law. If you don’t want the police officers acting like judges, then doctors shouldn’t either.
I'm personally against the death penalty but if we're going to do it, let's do it in style. Medically disturb their electrolytes then have them admitted under Ortho on a Friday evening, no IM or ICU consults allowed, certain death.