I’ve been getting a lot of heat for my anti death penalty stance. I won’t ever support it, but If I was ever going to support the death penalty, here are my terms: every execution must be livestreamed, and the public must have the right to witness what is being done in its name. Since retribution is sacred, the public should be able to witness it. No hiding the physical reality behind closed doors, paperwork and sanitized statements.
Whoever demands the execution, whether a victim’s relative or the prosecutor, must personally press the button. If you want blood as justice, you should carry the moral weight of taking that life.
I understand vengeance. In the same situation, I would want it too. But taking a life necessarily makes you a barbarian. It is up to you to decide whether becoming one is worth the price of vengeance. The state should not distribute that moral cost across dozens of officials just so everyone can pretend their hands are clean.
Christa Pike is awake and speaking, and now her attorneys are heading to court demanding Tennessee preserve evidence from the failed attempt to execute her.
Her lawyers say Pike remains hospitalized with severe damage to her arms, including burns and blisters, and faces a lengthy recovery after surviving two doses of pentobarbital during the Sept. 30 lethal injection attempt.
The legal team wants evidence including drug lot numbers, needles and execution logs preserved as questions mount over exactly what happened inside the execution chamber.
Gov. Bill Lee has halted further executions this year and ordered an independent review of the state's actions. Pike was sentenced to death for her role in the 1995 torture and murder of fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer.