The Death Penalty: Cruel Vengeance or Justice Served?

By James H. Lilley

Is the death penalty for a savage, cold-blooded act of murder cruel vengeance or justice served? The debate over Capital Punishment has been argued on local, state, and federal levels and still rages on almost daily. Our nation has served up the death penalty in many forms from hanging, to electric chair, to gas chamber, and even firing squad. Over the years each of these methods was damned as cruel and inhumane treatment of the person who had committed a crime of violence. So, along came lethal injection as an alternative to these “cruel” methods of carrying out a death sentence. Suddenly there was an outcry over the way the needles were inserted into the arm of the condemned, because surely they were experiencing pain.

Is the discomfort of lethal injection any more painful than a flu shot, or giving blood? All require insertion of a needle into the arm, or vein. Does the act of voluntarily taking a flu shot, or donating blood make the pin prick less painful than death by lethal injection? Or, does death ordered by the court for a violent crime somehow increase the level of pain for the condemned? Then came the argument over the dosage, the drugs employed, and were they acting quickly enough to ensure the condemned didn’t suffer. Excuse me, but what horrible pain was being inflicted upon this person who’d been sentenced to death for violently taking the life of another?

READ ON
http://www.police-writers.com/lilley_death_penalty.html