NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee executed an inmate Tuesday without deactivating his implanted defibrillator, despite uncertainty about whether the device would shock his heart when the lethal chemicals took effect.
Byron Black died at 10:43 a.m., prison officials said. Shortly after the lethal injection started, witnesses said Black told a spiritual advisor in the room that he was hurting so badly. Black looked around the room as the execution started and could be heard sighing and breathing heavily.
Black was executed after a back-and-forth in court over whether officials would need to turn off his implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, or ICD. Black, 69, was in a wheelchair, suffering from dementia, brain damage, kidney failure, congestive heart failure and other conditions, his attorneys have said.___
Then they shot him for resisting cardiac arrest
I’m thinking we should stop killing people
Black, 69, was in a wheelchair, suffering from dementia, brain damage, kidney failure, congestive heart failure and other conditions, his attorneys have said.
I’m no medical expert, but it sounds like they could have just waited a couple more years. Of course of they did then they wouldn’t have had the chance to actively kill the guy.
What was the point of wasting resources on this…?
It’s cliche by now, but, the cruelty is the point.
I hate to be cruel but why give it to him in the first place?
I mean I’m neither for the death penalty, or medical negligence for that matter, but if you where good other executing the guy, why spend the money on that?
Seems like a waste of resources if you don’t value the guys life. (Not saying I don’t, but Tennessee law makers obviously didn’t)
Either way adding more pain/suffering to an execution for no reason is fucked, even if the guy was a piece of shit.
Edit: I AM NOT IN FAVOR OF KILLING THIS MAN, OR WITHHOLDING MEDICAL TREATMENT FROM PRISONERS.
I AM QUESTIONING WHY THE HOLDEN BLOODLUSTS OF THE WORLD CARED ENOUGH TO GIVE HIM A MEDICAL IMPLANT DESPITE THE FACT THEY DONT CARE TO EVEN TURN IT OFF RIGHT BEFORE THEY FUCKING KILL HIM.
Dude was in prison for over 35 years. The state had a duty to keep him alive and well during that time.
Until they didn’t when they executed him? Again, I’m cool with him getting medical treatment until his natural death. I don’t believe in the death penalty, or cruelty to prisoners.
But if you believe in killing prisoners, why would you keep them alive until its time to kill them?
Because people have rights, even felons.
I mean maybe on paper lmao.
Seriously though, I’m not against this guy getting medical treatment.
It just seems weird that the state cared enough to give him the device but not enough to turn it off.
Almost like the point was less about keeping him alive, and more about keeping him miserable?
Again, I want to make it clear:
The death penalty should be abolished, and American prisons need to be fixed so they’re not terrifying hellholes, but actual places of rehabilition.
This just seems like a weird pretendy half-step, to tell ourselves we care about prisoners, gone wrong.
Well now you’re changing your talking point.
But if you believe in killing prisoners, why would you keep them alive until its time to kill them?
Because it’s difficult to receive the death penalty. If it was that easy, they would have offed him in 1989. Plenty of prisoners have been falsely imprisoned for longer than that. You have to be abso-fucking-lutely sure if you’re going to have the State kill someone on the people’s behalf.
It just seems weird that the state cared enough to give him the device but not enough to turn it off.
Yes. This is an unprecedented situation that the courts don’t have an answer for. That’s why it’s in the news. Nobody really knew what it would do or if it would be painful. Internal defibrillators are very new technology and the courts haven’t caught up yet. Hopefully this man’s experience informs policies and laws that prevent it from happening in the future.
Original comment:
I mean I’m neither for the death penalty, or medical negligence for that matter, but if you where good other executing the guy, why spend the money on that?
Not sure how I changed points? Both are asking why Tennessee law makers where keeping this guy alive if they planned on killing em anywho, both are NOT on the side of killing people.
Granted re-reading it, the way I asked might’ve been more obtuse and unclear, but I’m also just a bit of a dipshit.
Any who, yeah fair. A lot of that weird minutia also comes from the fact that the state isn’t a single-minded Borg, but an organization run by many internal and external factions vying for control.
No part of executions in the USA make sense until you realize all the kayfabe about humane execution is to assuage the conscience of the executioners and has nothing to do with the condemned. If you actually start looking for cruel and unusual punishment in practice you see it literally everywhere, and if you point this out then all notions of prisoner dignity disappear in a flash and suddenly wanton suffering is “the point”. That is actually the truth, but it can’t be squared with the pomp and dignity our civilization loves to assign itself. Trying to square the state’s highfalutin morality with the reality of the its actions just leads to contradictions because its simply not consistent or logical.
Yeah, that sounds pretty fucking accurate. That’s the “justice” system I know. Cruelty’s the point, even when its an unhappy accident.
denying medical care to inmates is cruel and unusual punishment. they deserve quality of life even if the state is going to murder them later.
of course, it would be a better solution overall if the death penalty was simply abolished.
Oh no I totally agree with you, I was speaking from the viewpoint of old conservative Tennessee lawmakers.
Like if you’re for the death penalty why would you care about the well being of those in deaths row.
I get why you and I care, but we don’t want to see them dead.
Just seems kinda contradictory.
If we ignore the cruelty of it, keeping death row prisoners alive still makes sense because it gives them time to attempt legal strategies to appeal the process or obtain a pardon or have their sentence commuted or rally the community for release etc etc.
Username checks out
I’m more confused as to why the government cares about someone to give them a medical implant when they don’t care enough to turn it off or keep them alive for their natural life.
Obviously the correct and moral thing to do would be to not only give him medical treatment, but to not fucking kill him.
Also what do weed and broken electronics have to do with any of this?
Nobody could find a fucking magnet?
Or even a regular magnet because I don’t know how fucking magnets work
It’s the executive branch of a republican controlled state. They’re not exactly sending their best and brightest.
I’d argue that they are indeed sending their best and brightest.
The burn ward is gonna be full after that one!
