I genuinely LOLed at the headline of TFA.

I bet his victims did too.

Guy has been on death row for 31 years!?! Don't you think it's time to get off the pot and just fry him already.

The execution of the sentence needs to be unpredictable. What fear is there in knowing that you will be fed and clothed and housed until a certain day, and then you will see death in what is promised to be an humane manner? Any number of cancer patients would be relieved to know they had a finite yet predictable number of well maintained and healthy years left.

It would make for especially amusing nap-times to tell them that they are sometimes roused roughly for a final walk just as they get off to a fitful sleep

The Omaha.com logo kinda looks like an onion.

Executing a man 32 years after a crime, heinous though it was, that he committed when he was 22?

Justice served! I'll sleep better tonight.

remscheld: Executing a man 32 years after a crime, heinous though it was, that he committed when he was 22?

Justice served! I'll sleep better tonight.

Me too ! And so will the victims families .

letrole: The execution of the sentence needs to be unpredictable. What fear is there in knowing that you will be fed and clothed and housed until a certain day, and then you will see death in what is promised to be an humane manner? Any number of cancer patients would be relieved to know they had a finite yet predictable number of well maintained and healthy years left.

It would make for especially amusing nap-times to tell them that they are sometimes roused roughly for a final walk just as they get off to a fitful sleep

A few years ago I read an article that claimed that the condemned in Japan are executed this way. Once their final appeal is lost and their execution approved by the courts they're taken to a small row of cells to await their actual execution. At some random time in the next 30 days or so the guards form up in ranks and loudly stomp down the hall, pausing at the condemned's door while the others on death row cringe in fear. The condemned is then hauled out and dragged down to the nearby execution room to be fried/injected/hanged/whatever they do in Japan.

Maximum fear being the point of the exercise, so the newest guy on death row is never the one selected.

/can't vouch for the story, but it was a serious article

I don't understand why we don't just pump them full of the same stuff we use to anesthetize people for surgery and then just not ventilate them. Maybe that's too cruel, compared to doing practically the same thing and then stopping their heart.

The guy is still alive because we allow BS reasons for appeals and we allow endless appeals.
He should have dead 25 years ago.

Fry him. Hang him. Shoot him. Just kill him. I don't even care if he's innocent. In fact I hope he's proven innocent. Killing an innocent man worked out in the past.

Am I right Christians?

/blatenly stolen

Active introvert: Guy has been on death row for 31 years!?! Don't you think it's time to get off the pot and just fry him already.

When it comes to states with the death penalty Nebraska is the polar opposite of Texas; They have it but it is almost never used.

It has only been used three times since 1976, and those three spent an average of 15 years on death row.

I actually prefer where the inmate is screaming and begging to get strapped to the gurney and have it all done with - but the state or some legal right group steps in to hinder and delay the process because of the farked up legal system in place in most death penalty states.

"Kill me... kill me now.". "Ummm.. we'd like to, really we would... but we have to make sure that you're not crazy or incompetent or that your lawyers weren't a bunch of boobs or that your civil rights weren't violated... give us a few more years here, we'll get back to you on that."

/not for the death penalty
//but if you have it, at least do it right
///slashies for the Onion

"Death row inmate wants to live"

Isn't that the case with every murderer who doesn't want to be denied what they denied their victim?

Active introvert: Guy has been on death row for 31 years!?! Don't you think it's time to get off the pot and just fry him already.

The saying is "Piss or get off the pot." In that context, I think that to "fry him" would be to piss. Getting off the pot would mean they would give up any pretense that they were going to do any frying/pissing.

/I had frying pissing once. Some pills cleared it right up.

"Deat row inmate wants to live"

Your victims did too, douchebag. You didn't give them a choice, why do you deserve one?

remscheld: Executing a man 32 years after a crime, heinous though it was, that he committed when he was 22?

Justice served! I'll sleep better tonight.

I agree. It's a far cry from justice that the criminal gets to live 32 years longer than his victims. But let's agree further, whether this guy lives or dies is not about you and your sleep patterns. Try not to be selfish.

31 years.

California does the same crap. Look, either outlaw the death penalty or put the condemned to death after 10 years of appeals. Stop with these time-consuming wishy-washy ambiguous challenges that delay executions for 10 or more years. Especially with killers like Richard Ramirez and Richard Allen Davis. These aren't poor black men the cops in the South picked up who fit the 4'6''- 7'0'' black male between 16 and 80 description. These are bad bad dudes.


In California, we're executing people who have at least 2 decades of time under their belt. Not only does the state have to pay for 20+ years of housing for inmates, we then have to put up with these time consuming, money sucking appeals. A 10 year appeal process or outlawing the death penalty would save the state a butt-load of money.

California allows this crap to happen because it creates jobs for lawyers.

Sadly, it's time to think about how much money is wasted by executing someone than trying to punish a single person.

Dictatorial_Flair: I don't understand why we don't just pump them full of the same stuff we use to anesthetize people for surgery and then just not ventilate them. Maybe that's too cruel, compared to doing practically the same thing and then stopping their heart.

Bingo. Propofol + Succinyl choline - ventilator = Done.

StoneColdAtheist: The condemned is then hauled out and dragged down to the nearby execution room to be fried/injected/hanged/whatever they do in Japan.

Fricasseed, I believe...

StoneColdAtheist: A few years ago I read an article that claimed that the condemned in Japan are executed this way. Once their final appeal is lost and their execution approved by the courts they're taken to a small row of cells to await their actual execution. At some random time in the next 30 days or so the guards form up in ranks and loudly stomp down the hall, pausing at the condemned's door while the others on death row cringe in fear. The condemned is then hauled out and dragged down to the nearby execution room to be fried/injected/hanged/whatever they do in Japan.

There's actually a paradox that explains why it can't be a "surprise" to the prisoner if you tell him "an unknown date in the next 30 days".

zepher: The guy is still alive because we allow BS reasons for appeals and we allow endless appeals.
He should have dead 25 years ago.

Or we can move past barbarism, put him in prison for life without parole, and stop wasting all the money our appeal process costs. Capital punishment ends up allowing these scumbags to suck up far more resources than your standard inmate.

Moonfisher: zepher: The guy is still alive because we allow BS reasons for appeals and we allow endless appeals.
He should have dead 25 years ago.

Or we can move past barbarism, put him in prison for life without parole, and stop wasting all the money our appeal process costs. Capital punishment ends up allowing these scumbags to suck up far more resources than your standard inmate.

Our death-penalty appeals process costs so much because they're allowed 42 appeals, even for cases where there's undeniable hard proof that the guy did it and no irregularities occured during the trial. If we streamline that, then it's a lot cheaper. However, anti- death penalty activists favor endless appeals as they see stretching many cases out over a very long time so that they can win based on economic necessity (and not justice) as the way to go. It's the same thing that hard-core environmentalists do with wanting review after review of a project's impact, hoping that the developer would just go away instead.

Moonfisher: Or we can move past barbarism, put him in prison for life without parole, and stop wasting all the money our appeal process costs. Capital punishment ends up allowing these scumbags to suck up far more resources than your standard inmate.

In California, there are 12 that have literally exhausted their appeals. How many of those 12 will be executed in the next 10 years?

I would bet maybe 3?

Louisiana_Sitar_Club: Active introvert: Guy has been on death row for 31 years!?! Don't you think it's time to get off the pot and just fry him already.

The saying is "Piss or get off the pot." In that context, I think that to "fry him" would be to piss. Getting off the pot would mean they would give up any pretense that they were going to do any frying/pissing.

/I had frying pissing once. Some pills cleared it right up.

I've always heard it as "shiat or get off the pot".

Also, people shouldn't be on death row if there is the tiniest amount of doubt. Therefore if they are on death row, they should be executed immediately with a 2 cent .22 round.

CarriePrejean: StoneColdAtheist: A few years ago I read an article that claimed that the condemned in Japan are executed this way. Once their final appeal is lost and their execution approved by the courts they're taken to a small row of cells to await their actual execution. At some random time in the next 30 days or so the guards form up in ranks and loudly stomp down the hall, pausing at the condemned's door while the others on death row cringe in fear. The condemned is then hauled out and dragged down to the nearby execution room to be fried/injected/hanged/whatever they do in Japan.

There's actually a paradox that explains why it can't be a "surprise" to the prisoner if you tell him "an unknown date in the next 30 days".

Imagine how that poor bastard must be feeling on the morning of day 30... For giggles, keep him around until about day 45 when he is really going nuts!

Wait, wait,.....wait


There's a WHITE guy on death row in Nebraska ?

lennavan: "Deat row inmate wants to live"

Your victims did too, douchebag. You didn't give them a choice, why do you deserve one?

remscheld: Executing a man 32 years after a crime, heinous though it was, that he committed when he was 22?

Justice served! I'll sleep better tonight.

I agree. It's a far cry from justice that the criminal gets to live 32 years longer than his victims. But let's agree further, whether this guy lives or dies is not about you and your sleep patterns. Try not to be selfish.

You're confusing justice with revenge. Justice does not mean equating the punishment with the crime. The scales of justice aren't about balancing the crime with the punishment, they balance the equal application of the law in all cases. Killing someone for murder isn't justice or retribution, it's revenge. It's understandable - my littlest kids do it all the time - but whining "it's not fair" and exercising your own revenge fantasies under the guise of "justice" is about as selfish as it gets. Thankfully, at least I know my kids will grow out of it.

One Bad Apple: Wait, wait,.....wait


There's a WHITE guy on death row in Nebraska ?

Uhh, yeah. There are like five black people in the entire state, along with a Hispanic lady and about 10,000 Native Americans. The rest of the residents are white.

Dictatorial_Flair: I don't understand why we don't just pump them full of the same stuff we use to anesthetize people for surgery and then just not ventilate them. Maybe that's too cruel, compared to doing practically the same thing and then stopping their heart.

It's somewhat humorous that there's concern that the drugs we're using (sodium thiopenthal or whatever it is) is one of the things they're condemning. Something something unsafe.

Really? Isn't that kind of the point? Unsafe until they die?

/still favors firing squad. Frangible high-powered rifle rounds. Several to the head, several to the heart. Works every time.

rebelyell2006:

Uhh, yeah. There are like five black people in the entire state, along with a Hispanic lady and about 10,000 Native Americans. The rest of the residents are white.

So why don't we have any decent basketball teams ?


/I keed

For an advanced society to have the death penalty, I would argue that you can't be wrong once.

One Hundred and Thirty Nine (new window) isn't even close.

If you want vengeance, lock up murderers for life. That's far worse than death. If you want to save money, again, lock them up for life in a grey, boring cell. If you want deterrence, take care of your population in the first place before they commit murders.

There is no excuse for the death penalty.

That's a lovely society you have there, America. Lovely society. Death chambers, torture, assassination of US citizens, permanent detention without trial, millions in prison, brutal suppression of peaceful protesters, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, plea bargaining, the military-industrial complex, the private-prison industry (one of the few growth industries!), openly bought-and-paid-for politicians...

Bring me your huddled masses yearning to be free, indeed.Then again, I dare say your founding fathers - a gang of aristocratic, slave-owning Englishmen who didn't like paying their miniscule taxes, would have heartily approved of the circle of hell your country has become.

Representative of the unwashed masses: CarriePrejean: StoneColdAtheist: A few years ago I read an article that claimed that the condemned in Japan are executed this way. Once their final appeal is lost and their execution approved by the courts they're taken to a small row of cells to await their actual execution. At some random time in the next 30 days or so the guards form up in ranks and loudly stomp down the hall, pausing at the condemned's door while the others on death row cringe in fear. The condemned is then hauled out and dragged down to the nearby execution room to be fried/injected/hanged/whatever they do in Japan.

There's actually a paradox that explains why it can't be a "surprise" to the prisoner if you tell him "an unknown date in the next 30 days".

Imagine how that poor bastard must be feeling on the morning of day 30... For giggles, keep him around until about day 45 when he is really going nuts!

I guess CarriePrejean missed the part I bolded above. In any case, I was wrong. The execution window is 6 months. Oh, and the condemned is informed the morning of the fateful day, and offered last meal. Source (new window)

/yakisoba and a kirin, plrease

Suede head: That's a lovely society you have there, America. Lovely society. Death chambers, torture, assassination of US citizens, permanent detention without trial, millions in prison, brutal suppression of peaceful protesters, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, plea bargaining, the military-industrial complex, the private-prison industry (one of the few growth industries!), openly bought-and-paid-for politicians...

Bring me your huddled masses yearning to be free, indeed.Then again, I dare say your founding fathers - a gang of aristocratic, slave-owning Englishmen who didn't like paying their miniscule taxes, would have heartily approved of the circle of hell your country has become.

We have some nice beaches ...

Actually, it is more like seven years. Both victims were 47.

lennavan: "
I agree. It's a far cry from justice that the criminal gets to live 32 years longer than his victims. But let's agree further, whether this guy lives or dies is not about you and your sleep patterns. Try not to be selfish.

remscheld: Executing a man 32 years after a crime, heinous though it was, that he committed when he was 22?

Yet, after all this time, his victims are still dead.

Moonfisher: Or we can move past barbarism, put him in prison for life without parole, and stop wasting all the money our appeal process costs. Capital punishment ends up allowing these scumbags to suck up far more resources than your standard inmate.

Because liberals have successfully lobbied for a ridiculous, endless, expensive appeals process in administering the death penalty, does not give liberals any persuasiveness on the death penalty issue based on the ridiculous, endless, expensive appeals process.

Ow My Balls: If you want vengeance, lock up murderers for life.

So they can kill cellmates and prison guards with impunity? Plus, there's the issue that liberals really don't believe in life without parole. Once capital punishment was gone, they'd be chipping away at that too, which we saw in the 60's and 70's.

That's far worse than death.

If so, then why don't most death penalty convicts abandon all their appeals? Seems like the vast majority of them are more than willing to fight fight fight to stay alive despite your "fate worse than death." I understand that there are some mandatory appeals in capital cases, but the vast majority of them that drag on for decades are discretionary.

If you want to save money, again, lock them up for life in a grey, boring cell.

Or, streamline the appeals process. Again, most of the appeals that drag on for years are discretionary, and done as delaying tactics so the convict dies of natural causes. The defense bar is pretty straightforward about this as a tactic.

If you want deterrence, take care of your population in the first place before they commit murders.

LOL, so in this case, where this guy wanted money for drugs, we merely should have had a free drugs program so he didn't have to murder the cab drivers to get it. Genius! Does this work for bank robber too (free money)? And child rapists (free child sex)?

There is no excuse for the death penalty.

Except that our Constitution clearly authorizes it (Fifth Amendment) and ~70% of Americans want it.

Ow My Balls: For an advanced society to have the death penalty, I would argue that you can't be wrong once.

One Hundred and Thirty Nine (new window) isn't even close.

If you want vengeance, lock up murderers for life. That's far worse than death. If you want to save money, again, lock them up for life in a grey, boring cell. If you want deterrence, take care of your population in the first place before they commit murders.

There is no excuse for the death penalty.

Agreed. BUT, Switching to life in prison without parole would effectively remove the additional reviews that come with the death penalty and undoubtedly result in large numbers of innocent people in prison for life.

How many of these people would have still been exonerated if they had been sentenced to life in prison and not death? Many times it was the heightened scrutiny and reviews in death penalty cases that unearth the evidence needed for exoneration. The same flaws that allowed an innocent person to be sentenced to death also allow numerous people to be sentenced to life in prison.

Regardless of whether the death penalty remains or not, and regardless of whether the case is a capital one or not, dramatically overhauling our criminal justice system is essential. If life in prison is more of a punishment then the death penalty for someone who's guilty, what is it for an innocent person?

letrole: The execution of the sentence needs to be unpredictable. What fear is there in knowing that you will be fed and clothed and housed until a certain day, and then you will see death in what is promised to be an humane manner? Any number of cancer patients would be relieved to know they had a finite yet predictable number of well maintained and healthy years left.

It would make for especially amusing nap-times to tell them that they are sometimes roused roughly for a final walk just as they get off to a fitful sleep

Good work, sleep well, I'll most likely kill you in the morning.

For three years he said this to me.

CarriePrejean: StoneColdAtheist: A few years ago I read an article that claimed that the condemned in Japan are executed this way. Once their final appeal is lost and their execution approved by the courts they're taken to a small row of cells to await their actual execution. At some random time in the next 30 days or so the guards form up in ranks and loudly stomp down the hall, pausing at the condemned's door while the others on death row cringe in fear. The condemned is then hauled out and dragged down to the nearby execution room to be fried/injected/hanged/whatever they do in Japan.

There's actually a paradox that explains why it can't be a "surprise" to the prisoner if you tell him "an unknown date in the next 30 days".

But boy is the prisoner comes through the transom the very next day!

*surprised when the guard comes through, I meant