Death penalty gets boost in three US states

Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump's upset presidential election win has dominated global headlines, but for those against capital punishment, Election Day offered other surprise: three states voted to reinstate or otherwise support the death penalty.

The measures voted through in Oklahoma, Nebraska and California via referendum are not expected to spark a sharp rise in the number of executions, but activists say they are a step in the wrong direction.

"Those states have chosen a failed, broken policy when they had the chance to move towards a new dawn," said Shari Silberstein, director of the advocacy group Equal Justice USA.

"The death penalty's demise is inevitable. We have a long list of evidence why that's true," she added.

In 2016, the United States is on course for its lowest number of executions since 1991.

This comes as post-conviction appeals in capital cases tend to become more and more frequent than in other cases, increasing the time and cost before an execution can actually be carried out.

There is also a shortage of the chemicals needed for lethal injections because pharmaceutical firms, mainly those located in Europe where the death penalty has been abolished, refuse to supply them.

The death penalty was not a major issue in the presidential campaign, as neither Trump nor Hillary Clinton oppose it. But in three states of varying political stripes, voters chose to back it.

Truthfully, there is now a paradox with capital punishment.

Over time, it was so eroded that only the worst of multiple killers, with aggravating circumstances, qualified for it. And then, because of recalcitrant federal judges, once sentence had been passed, it is a good 20 years or more before it can finally be carried out.

However, gun liberty has now made capital punishment simple, quick and just. No before the fact involvement by the police, courts, lawyers, judges, or politicians. And who gets punished?

Not just multiple murderers, or even just murderers, and not just those who *commit* armed robbery, mugging, home invasion, burglary, child molestation, etc., but those who just *attempt* it.

In the United States, only 28 savage murderers were executed in all of 2015. Armed citizens killed many times that number *each month* of that year. At least 1,500 in 2015. Say 125 each month.

Now here is the paradox.

Since armed citizens can kill even lesser criminals, the only ones who *escape justice* are those that are caught and go through the process.

So the question for the police is, “When you catch a really vicious criminal, with damning proof, why arrest them?”

Seriously, come up with some quick means to put them out of our collective misery. Something that doesn’t cost tens of millions of dollars for trials, incarceration, and appeals.

Carfentanil is an interesting drug. It is about 10,000 times more powerful than pure morphine, so just micrograms can easily kill a person. It probably wouldn’t even be detected in autopsy. But it is so plentiful and cheap that a guy was caught in Florida with an entire kilogram of it; and another in Canada with over 4 kilograms of it. Enough to kill everyone in a major city.

But just a daub applied to a wound on the suspect, and they will be done. For good. No trial, appeals, or pardons.

Just done. Justice served. No matter what capital punishment opponents think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carfentanil

California? How the heck did that happen?

The same way that Trump happened.

The people prevailed over the totally corrupt entrenched elite system.*

* not to be confused with the "elite" of the late 18th Century during the gestation of our Constitution.
The current California "elite" are the most dull, ignorant, coarse, irresponsible and incompetent elected criminals of the last 50 years,both socially and in the fiduciary universe.

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