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Tennessee inmate still alive after being administered two lethal injections

47 points · 139 comments · techolic

  1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
    Oh yeah, I read about this.

    I'm pretty against capital punishment in general, so take that for what it is, but executing someone for something they did when they were eighteen really bothers me.

    I've never been a violent person but I do know that I was even more of an idiot then than I am now.

    1. sippingabonedry · · focus · HN ↗
      > for something they did when they were eighteen really bothers me

      She lured a classmate into the woods, slit her throat with a box cutter after torturing her for half an hour, bashed her skull open with a rock for good measure, then brought a piece of her skull to school the next day.

      > I was even more of an idiot then than I am now

      Do you think the above should be chalked up as normal childhood indiscretion?

      1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
        > Do you think the above should be chalked up as normal childhood indiscretion?

        I didn't say there shouldn't be consequences. I just think that executing someone who committed a crime when they were effectively a child is kind of upsetting. I do not see how you extrapolated that I think it's "normal childhood indiscretion" out of what I said.

        1. sippingabonedry · · focus · HN ↗
          I interpreted it as an implication that it should be viewed as a lesser crime due to the perpetrator's age. At 18 you can:

          • Vote

          • Fight in the military

          • Act in pornography

          • Rent a car in MI, NY, QC

          • Many other adult things

          The crime perpetrated was premeditated and particularly demonic. It's a far cry from shoplifting a Snickers bar.

          > is kind of upsetting

          Bringing a chunk of the victim's skull to school to show your friends how good you are at murdering was probably pretty upsetting to a few people, like the victim's family and friends.

          1. jrflowers · · focus · HN ↗
            Execution is a weird thing for a civilized society to do and the bizarre people that fetishize it say weird shit like “It makes sense to murder somebody if they made other people upset” to avoid talking about how it doesn’t solve any problems that aren’t already solved by life imprisonment. The justification for execution is always “I want the state to kill people because I enjoy that sort of thing”
            1. eudamoniac · · focus · HN ↗
              Society does not have an obligation to house and feed such people for decades on end. I'd rather they be killed because it should be much cheaper; whether it actually is or not by some aberration of dumb policy is not relevant to the philosophy. They are the enemy of society and are owed absolutely nothing but swift death, not room and board.
              1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
                It’s not cheaper, and it really can’t or shouldn’t be.

                In the US you have a right to appeal your sentence, which is a good thing. If the government is going to be killing people, we want to (at the very least) make sure they have dotted every “i” and crossed every “t”. You have to pay someone to read these appeals, typically an attorney or multiple attorneys and/or a judge. There can be a backlog so it can take awhile to get through all of them.

                This is inherent to how capital punishment works in the US, and anything less would be borderline tyranny, so I reject your framing of it as “aberration or some dumb policy”.

                1. eudamoniac · · focus · HN ↗
                  Well I reject your framing of it being impossible. If it is cheaper to house and feed a man for sixty years than it is to kill him, that is a policy decision, not a law of the universe. Other respectable countries manage to achieve this.
                  1. EMIRELADERO · · focus · HN ↗
                    Those policies are there to make sure all possible appeals can go through. And can you believe even then it's not enough to stop all executions of innocents?

                    At the end of the day, the death penalty's only possible justification is retribution. It does not deter crime and incapacitation of the criminal can already be achieved by locking them up. Your logic presupposes that "an eye for an eye" is a legitimate philosophy for a modern State to hold, which is reprehensible.

                    1. eudamoniac · · focus · HN ↗
                      The philosophy of a state should be that which engenders the greatest wellbeing among its citizens. People largely feel a greater trust in the state and a greater sense of justice and peace of mind when heinous criminals are killed. Ivory tower philosophizing at the cost of social unity is not so great. Some innocents will die; we accept worse consequences for smaller gains. There have only been ~140 people in the history of the death penalty who have been exonerated from appeal. 140 people die in war every day for less worthy ends.
                      1. EMIRELADERO · · focus · HN ↗
                        How do you explain the Nordic countries and Western Europe generally, where retribution has been explicitly rejected as a principle in the criminal justice system? Moreover, how would eliminating the death penalty endanger social unity?
                        1. eudamoniac · · focus · HN ↗
                          1. Cultural homogeneity; 2. When heinous criminals get to live out their days, people feel that justice is not being done, breeding vigilantes and unrest. Especially when they get released early, but even if they are never released.
                          1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
                            Sorry, is there any evidence for point 2 or is this just vibes? Violent crime is significantly lower in these countries than the US.

                            There are a billion potential reasons for this, but it doesn’t appear to be that people have started dawning costumes and LARPing as the Punisher in large numbers.

                            1. eudamoniac · · focus · HN ↗
                              Evidence for "When heinous criminals get to live out their days, people feel that justice is not being done" is the history of any society prior to 1800 and basic human nature? I don't know, read history and literature and philosophy of the premodern age, or I guess you could call it vibes sure. I believe it to be true and find it self evident.
                              1. EMIRELADERO · · focus · HN ↗
                                Well, good thing we don't live in any time prior to 1800! What even is that answer? Of course premodern societies would appeal to different aspects of human nature in different ways. The question is whether a society can sustain its own survival and welfare even when certain facets of human nature are frawned upon and discouraged. I see no reason for doubting that this is the case for the retributive instinct, at least when killing is involved.
                              2. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
                                It is decidedly not self evident given that it is directly contradicted by statistical evidence. Again, violent crime in most European countries is significantly lower than the United States. I would agree that there are lots of reasons for it but it certainly doesn’t appear that the lack of capital punishment is causing massive spikes in crime.
                                1. jrflowers · · focus · HN ↗
                                  Eudamoniac is pretty clear that this is entirely about their feelings. When the state murders somebody it feels good and when it doesn’t murder people it feels bad.

                                  > society needs to feel that the state executes justice

                                  > People largely feel a greater trust in the state and a greater sense of justice and peace of mind when heinous criminals are killed

                                  > people feel that justice is not being done

                                  (and again)

                                  > people feel that justice is not being done

                                  They’re not going to give anybody a rational argument here because

                                  > I guess you could call it vibes sure

                                  It’s like asking somebody to justify why they’re really into ABDL stuff. The important part is that they just are, and won’t be talked out of it.

                                  1. eudamoniac · · focus · HN ↗
                                    Correct. The value judgements (feelings) of the demos should be reflected in the policies that the democracy enacts and is governed by. That's part of what a government of and by the people means. Governing by any other system, like utilitarianism, or arbitrary moral principles like 'killing criminals is wrong' that the majority of constituents don't hold, needs heavy justification, and may not be justifiable in a democracy. If you'd prefer an oligarchy or monarchy wherein someone can impose their own minority value system on the people, even if that system objectively results in 'better outcomes' whatever that means to you, that's fine, but just be honest about it.

                                    In brief, it doesn't matter what "is best" in some utilitarian framework if the democracy is not attuned to that framework. It doesn't matter if the death penalty actually increases crime. What matters is that the government should be doing what the people want it to be doing. If the people really want to kill criminals, any system that prevents that is non-democratic.

                          2. EMIRELADERO · · focus · HN ↗
                            > 1. Cultural homogeneity

                            Can you elaborate on this? How does cultural homogeneity relate to the State being able to ditch retributive principles?

                            > When heinous criminals get to live out their days, people feel that justice is not being done, breeding vigilantes and unrest. Especially when they get released early, but even if they are never released.

                            That just seems like a problem for education, no? If people are told by their teachers and other figures of authority that retribution isn't good, that should be enough. Again that's how the Nordics do it and it seems to be working out for them.

                  2. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
                    Most other “respectable” countries have actually gotten rid of capital punishment entirely.

                    I think we are at a fundamental disagreement though; I think it should be expensive and difficult to execute someone. I think the slow appeals process is a good thing. It should hard for the government to kill people who aren’t a direct threat.

                    I don’t know your politics but it doesn’t matter the specifics. Imagine whichever politician that you think is most stupid and tyrannical. Do you really want to give them the ability to rapidly kill people they don’t like without at least some bureaucratic checks in place?

                    1. eudamoniac · · focus · HN ↗
                      Politicians don't convict people. It's not a political issue; the person was convicted by a jury of their peers, which philosophically should indicate something important: the body politic unanimously believes he is guilty of heinous crimes. They believe beyond a reasonable doubt that this man, for example, raped and killed a dozen infants. Then in the court of appeals it was upheld. I believe that it is better for society* in that case for that man to then be swiftly executed.

                      * In the sense that society needs to feel that the state executes justice and that such people are not being kept alive on their own dime. That breeds contempt for the system and for the state.

                      1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
                        We can certainly agree that if an innocent person is executed that is just state-sponsored murder, right?

                        The jury system of the US is a good system but it’s certainly not immune to mob mentality. It’s certainly not immune to appeals to emotion. It’s certainly not immune to any number of the things that make humans human. This is partly why we have an appeals process. If we are going to put someone to death, I think it’s better for them to be given every single avenue possible to prove their innocence so that we aren’t murdering someone innocent.

                        1. eudamoniac · · focus · HN ↗
                          We are just disagreeing about the ideal number or length of appeals, then. You can never be 100% sure; you could allow a constant state of appeal forever. This applies just as much to locking someone innocent away for life, which is also a big problem, but we don't allow infinite appeals for that either. I just think the current amount of appealing is too much.
                          1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
                            If we can’t be 100% sure then I think maybe we shouldn’t have potential state-sponsored murder of innocent people.

                            People who are a risk to normal society do need to be separated, and for that I am willing to not be 100% sure (though with plenty of chances for appeals). If we lock up someone for a crime they didn’t commit, we at least have the option to release them and potentially pay out some kind of financial settlement as a means of punishing the state for their mistakes. If you kill someone, there’s not really much of an opportunity to even try and make it right.

                      2. rurp · · focus · HN ↗
                        Politicians literally write the laws that people get convicted of violating, and they can write those laws pretty much however they want. A juror's job is not to decide if they think an act was morally wrong, it's to judge them against the law as written. Laws can and have been written in all kinds of horrible and negligent ways.
              2. jrflowers · · focus · HN ↗
                > I'd rather they be killed because it should be much cheaper; whether it actually is or not by some aberration of dumb policy is not relevant to the philosophy.

                I appreciate this rephrasing of “I want the state to murder people because I enjoy that sort of thing”

                I would ask if you think that the ~200 death row inmates that been exonerated of their convictions should be alive but uh you already answered that, unprompted

                > nothing but swift death

                “I want these people murdered because of a reason in my head, but even if the reason in my head weren’t true I’d still want to see them murdered” lmao I know it’s 2026 and it’s considered rude to kink shame but c’mon

                1. eudamoniac · · focus · HN ↗
                  No, I'm just making two claims at once. It ought to be cheaper, normatively, and thereby it ought to be done. It's kind of like "I want to see slaves freed because humans should be free, even if there exists a lynch mob that is killing all the freed slaves." The existence of the pathological problem making the claim overall worse, currently, does not affect the philosophy that the slaves should be free (and also that there should not be a lynch mob).

                  The death penalty is supported by over half of the US population; any argumentative style that attempts to belittle or mock as niche this position in a form of appeal to consensus only works in certain bubbles. Your position is the more unpopular one, lmao.

                  1. jrflowers · · focus · HN ↗
                    “My lust for blood is like my courageous and bold stance against slavery. No one would mock me for saying this” lol
          2. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
            The voting age being 18 was changed in the 70s, primarily so they could more easily justify sending 18 year olds to fight in Vietnam. Prior to 1971 it was kind of agreed that 18 year olds were still basically children.

            Even now, though, in every state in the US, you're not a full adult when you're eighteen. You're not allowed to buy alcohol until you're 21. In a lot of states you're not allowed to buy cigarettes. We've decided that, despite being "grown ups", they're still not grown up enough to be trusted with these things.

            To be clear, I'm perfectly fine throwing her in prison for the rest of her life without parole, like she would be had she committed the crime in a state without capital punishment like NY. I'm just particularly turned off by the death penalty. I can sit here and wax philosophical as to why but I'm sure you've heard the arguments and it would be a tangent.

            1. thrawa8387336 · · focus · HN ↗
              Where do you get this "Prior to 1971 it was kind of agreed"? Agreed by whom? Go read the biography of David Farragut
              1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
                I extrapolated from the fact that 18 year olds couldn’t vote prior to 1971. I will admit that “agreed” might have been a bit too strong of a word, but it seems like the United States didn’t think that 18 year olds were “full” adults yet.
            2. JuniperMesos · · focus · HN ↗
              The state-administered judicial violence of locking someone in a cage until they die of old age strikes me as pretty similar to the state-administered judicial violence of executing someone, in terms of severity.
              1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
                I don’t love the way American prisons work either, but I guess we have to agree to disagree on that particular point.
              2. ofrzeta · · focus · HN ↗
                The point (or one of the points) is that execution is reversible. I mean there are some cases of people who sat in prison for decades when it was determined they were innocent. If you accept potential failure of the legal system (which is obviously the case) how can you be a proponent of executions?
            3. stasomatic · · focus · HN ↗
              To be clear, I'm perfectly fine throwing her in prison for the rest of her life without parole, like she would be had she committed the crime in a state without capital punishment like NY. I'm just particularly turned off by the death penalty. I can sit here and wax philosophical as to why but I'm sure you've heard the arguments and it would be a tangent.

              I don't want my taxes going to private prison companies for the rest of her life.

              I also don't want to see or hear about executions with whatever methods, it's revolting, but then again, public executions in Europe stopped like what, less than 200 years ago? And the public craved it.

              Fun fact, France practiced guillotining through 1977.

              There is no middle ground.

            4. palmotea · · focus · HN ↗
              > The voting age being 18 was changed in the 70s, primarily so they could more easily justify sending 18 year olds to fight in Vietnam. Prior to 1971 it was kind of agreed that 18 year olds were still basically children.

              I think you have it backwards: "They" didn't have any trouble sending 18 year old that couldn't vote to fight in Vietnam. It was those 18 year olds who demanded a greater say in the political process because that was being demanded of them.

              <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Twenty-sixth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Twenty-sixth_Amendment_to_the_...:

              &gt; This means young men could be required to fight and possibly die for their nation in wartime at 18. However, these same citizens could not have a legal say in the government&#x27;s decision to wage that war until the age of 21. A youth rights movement emerged in response, calling for a similarly reduced voting age. A common slogan of proponents of lowering the voting age stated &quot;Old enough to fight, old enough to vote&quot;.

              Also, according to that article, there were efforts before 1971 to lower the voting age, they just couldn&#x27;t pass the very high constitutional amendment bar.

              1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
                Sure. I am just saying that until the 70s eighteen year olds weren’t even considered “full” adults with all the privileges thereof. They still aren’t given that they’re still not allowed to drink (in the US).
          3. psandor · · focus · HN ↗
            The problem with this argument is that being a few months older or younger would decide between life and death for the very same crime. Her boyfriend who was just a couple of months younger got a lighter sentence with the option of parole, partly because he was 17.

            You don’t suddenly become a different person on your 18th birthday.

        2. hakucho · · focus · HN ↗
          At 18 you know better than taking a class mate to the jungle, slit the throat and bring the skull to the class. If your gripe is about punishment its a different thing, saying that a person did the crime at 18 somehow does not count as a crime is misguided at best.
          1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
            Where did I say it didn’t count as a crime? Of course it’s a crime, and of course there should be consequences. I just have some uneasiness about killing people when they were still basically children, but as I said I am pretty anti-capital-punishment regardless.
      2. fy20 · · focus · HN ↗
        Sounds more like they to be in a mental hosptial than a prison.
        1. aaron695 · · focus · HN ↗

          [dead]

        2. thrawa8387336 · · focus · HN ↗
          No, why even bother. Irredeemable
        3. 233mhz · · focus · HN ↗
          If you spent even a single day in these you&#x27;d know it&#x27;s much more inhuman than death
      3. IntrepidPig · · focus · HN ↗
        Did you read to the part of the article where they mentioned the trauma she had gone through since being a toddler was “almost impossible to grasp”? It’s easy for me to think that if you pick a model citizen today, go back in time and put them through the same struggles, they would not fare much better in society than Christa. And yes I know going through a hardship doesn’t justify cruelty to others, but again she was, by all reasonable measures, a child at the time. The world she experienced throughout all of her formative years gave her nothing to hold on to. She did not fail us any more than we failed her first, and now she’ll be punished for it.
        1. CrimsonRain · · focus · HN ↗
          Your logic as good as all my faults and mistakes are responsibility of my parents. They can use the same arguments. So everyone&#x27;s faults are of Adam&#x2F;Eve. And then God&#x27;s for creating them. Bunch of nonse logic.

          18 is not a child. Hell even 14 is not a child. Whether it is her fault or her upbringing, it doesn&#x27;t matter: things that can&#x27;t belong in our societies need to be removed.

        2. hasviolence · · focus · HN ↗
          The idea that a poor childhood is an excuse for committing murders is highly modern and misguided.
          1. IntrepidPig · · focus · HN ↗
            Not only a poor childhood but she was still effectively a child when she committed the crime. We don’t expect children to be able to manage their emotions properly. I’m not saying let it slide obviously but I don’t see how a lethal injection makes anything better in this case, never mind a botched one.
      4. LastTrain · · focus · HN ↗
        Yeah that is all horrible but it doesn&#x27;t make me want to commit homicide.
    2. mytailorisrich · · focus · HN ↗
      For me the issue isn&#x27;t so much to execute someone for something they did at 18 (18 is plenty old enough to knowingly do atrocious things), but rather to do it 32 years later with all the time spent in jail.
      1. dyauspitr · · focus · HN ↗
        I mean I’d rather live for 32 years than have them quickly do everything and kill me at 20.
      2. JuniperMesos · · focus · HN ↗
        The US legal system allows for a great deal of time to be spent appealing death penalty cases, which usually takes years. Most people who support the death penalty support it happening much more quickly than decades after the sentence was passed.
    3. Ekaros · · focus · HN ↗
      Where should the exact cut off be? How many units of time after birth is it not too young for certain punishments? To me 18 sounds as reasonable as any. Why not even 16 in some cases. Or should it be say 21? Or 25? or 30?
      1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
        I would rather we don’t have the death penalty at all, but if that’s off the table then I would probably do the cutoff at wherever the medical community says adolescence is done.
        1. JuniperMesos · · focus · HN ↗
          The medical community would not set a hard and fast date for this; or if they did they might well go with the legal and social definition (in most Western countries) of 18 years old.
          1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
            I think the latest studies suggest adolescence can keep going until your late 20s. I agree you can’t set a firm line on that because of course these aren’t discrete things and everyone is a bit different, but maybe set an admittedly-still-arbitrary age of ~26.

            Or I would just do what the UK did and stop capital punishment since I think it’s wrong.

    4. JKCalhoun · · focus · HN ↗
      It&#x27;s wrong to give &quot;the State&quot; the right to take a life. Period.

      My opinion, of course.

      To be sure, there are crimes so heinous that the perpetrator can no longer be allowed to roam freely in society. You might even believe that, from a moral standpoint, they have forfeited their own right to life. But you still don&#x27;t give the state the power to take it.

      There are plenty of arguments for why you should not allow this, but, just an obvious one, in doing so you also give the state the right to take yours.

      1. tombert · · focus · HN ↗
        I think I am in broad agreement. If someone isn’t an immediate threat (and in the case of capital punishment they’re by definition confined and separated from society) then there’s no justification for killing them.

        I’m not a complete bleeding heart here; I am not going to pretend that the world is a worse place because we killed Ted Bundy. He was an awful human who you could make a pretty good argument for deserving to die. I just find the idea that the state is killing people pretty bad.

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