Posted on 05/19/2019 4:17:10 AM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- If there's one thing that tells you government in America is too big and unaccountable, it's when one branch of government stops another government from doing what it was set up to do, even if it's not the first agency's job. Case in point: Under President Barack Obama, the Food and Drug Administration stopped multiple states from carrying out executions because the agency had not approved the drugs they intended to use for lethal injection. Really.
President Donald Trump's Department of Justice is changing that.
On May 3, Steven Engel, head of the department's Office of Legal Counsel, posted a common-sense opinion that the FDA has no business approving execution drugs. "Consistent with the agency's practice in this area for several decades before 2017, we thus conclude that, when an article's intended use is to effectuate capital punishment by a state or the federal government, it is not subject to regulation under the (Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act)."
Engel's reasoning was simple. The FDA is supposed to determine if drugs or devices are "safe and effective for their intended uses -- a goal that markedly conflicts with the purpose of execution." This is something FDA officials should not have to be told.
How did this insanity get started?
In 2009, the U.S. manufacturers stopped producing sodium thiopental, a drug commonly used in three-drug lethal injection protocols. States that needed the drug began to look for supplies abroad.
In 2011, convicted killers from Arizona, California, and Tennessee sued to prompt the FDA to block the importation of sodium thiopental. In 2012, a federal judge issued a permanent injunction against the importation of the drug on the grounds it was FDA-unapproved and misbranded.
The FDA cited that injunction after it seized thiopental shipped to Arizona and Texas in 2015.
"We have single federal judges all over the country who are just deciding" that they can bend the law to their politics, argued Michael Rushford, president of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento, California. If governors and state attorneys general choose not to combat such rulings, "three people can shut down a law."
It didn't matter that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection under a three-drug protocol by a 7-2 vote in 2008. Death penalty opponents can be highly successful in gaming the system because players in that system want to be gamed.
Nor did it matter that, in 2000, the Supreme Court ruled Congress did not give the FDA authority to regulate tobacco, "because there is no safe or therapeutic purpose to smoking," wrote Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Likewise, there is no such thing as a safe execution, but if at first, you don't succeed ...
Obama's FDA went along with a bad judicial decision without regard to Supreme Court rulings and states' rights because it could grind down legal policies virtually anonymously.
Obama, by the way, said he was in favor of the death penalty. In his 2006 book, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama explained, "While the evidence tells me the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes -- mass murder, the rape, and murder of a child -- so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment."
Then he let his FDA do the bidding of death row inmates who could not win in court.
In 2015, a legal challenge to a different drug upheld Oklahoma's three-drug protocol by a 5-4 vote. Writing for the majority in the Glossip decision, Justice Samuel Alito argued, "Because it is settled that capital punishment is constitutional," it "necessarily follows that there must be a (constitutional) means of carrying it out."
All four inmates behind the suit had been sentenced to death for heinous crimes. One hired a man to bludgeon his employer to death. One murdered his 9-month-old daughter by snapping her spine in half. One murdered a food service supervisor in prison, and the fourth anally raped and murdered an 11-month-old girl.
Wednesday, President Donald Trump told the 38th Annual National Peace Officers' Memorial Service that he believes in the death penalty and "it's got to be fair, but it's got to go fast." Already, his Department of Justice had told the FDA to stick to its mandate.
"There really is a new sheriff in town," marveled Rushford, "which is wonderful."
Guillotine
These liberal a##es excuse against the death penalty is it doesn’t deter crime, it is a form of punishment for the crime. If it does deter just one crime its good if not it is your punishment period. Can we fast track these crimes so the death row inmate is not sitting on death row for his life time waiting to die, lets get it over with and move on to the next
They should use cobra venom and hand out popcorn, pigs knuckles, buffalo wings and beer to spectators over the couple of hours the venom takes to work.
Undoing more and more of the mendacity of the Kenyan Usurper everyday.
Winning!
Lead poisoning.
Perhaps. But the recidivism rate is zero.
If it saves just one child's life, it's worth it...
There’s tons of opiates sitting in evidence lock-ups,use those.
Fentanol. Enough said. It is the no cost solution. A gram of it when a milligram is an od. Problem solved. Just use seized fentanol.
Or how about putting their head under a concrete truck tire with a full load and slowly drive forward? The possibilities are endless.
Why does the left hate execution of criminals but loves doctors killing old people and calling it “euthanasia”?
There are murderers in prison who continue to kill guards and prisoners. If they’d been executed, these deaths would’ve been prevented.
Life in prison doesn’t stop a man from killing.
>>Why does the left hate execution of criminals but loves doctors killing old people and calling it “euthanasia”?
Why does the left hate execution of criminals but loves doctors killing babies born alive that survive abortion calling it palative “care”?
It is not intended as a deterrent. It is an act of justice, a balancing of the scales. While there may be a MORAL argument against it, there is no RATIONAL one.
1. The death penalty is cruel. Yes, it is. Taking a human life is cruel. But since the criminal chose to take a life, how does society equate his punishment with his crime, except by demanding from him the same price he exacted? If you steal $5 from me and repay me $2 after you're caught, how can you say justice is restored?
Secondly, if it is cruel to put a person to death, isn't it equally cruel to lock him in a cage for the rest of his life? Punishment by its very nature is cruel.
2. The death penalty is expensive. Yes, it is. Made so by the endless appeals and stonewalling allowed under liberal courts. Execute (!) the sentence swiftly and the cost goes way down.
3. Innocent people are put to death. Nonsense. Cite one example where a person later PROVED innocent was executed. I'm not talking about cases where a legal technicality resulted in a reversed conviction. I'm talking about the discovery after the fact that the person executed was not guilty of the crime for which they were executed.
Our court system is imperfect. Innocent people do get convicted. It is possible an innocent person could be sentenced to death and the sentence carried out. But how is that different than depriving a man of his freedom for dozens of years because he was wrongly convicted? True, the surviving man can always be released and resume his life, such as it is -- an option not open to the executed prisoner. But no one can restore the lost years of the former any more than they can restore the life of the latter. Absent a perfect justice system, it's a risk we take with ANY conviction.
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One can argue that the death penalty is WRONG, but that is a moral judgment, not a rational one. And it can be argued with equal validity that it is not only right, it is a moral imperative.
I understand that the reason an anesthesiologist gets paid it to bring you to the “brink of death” without actually killing you. So, why don’t we use the same drug for execution, but let them quietly slip past the “brink”. I’ve been knocked out for surgery and I can attest to the fact that it is not only painless, but you are so unaware that it is like time travel. Your perception is that the time between the time they knock you out and the time you wake up is instantaneous. You feel nothing.
Ever since my surgery 20 years ago I’ve wondered why they don’t do it this way. You take two deep breaths and you’re dead.
And abort a baby but save a vicious killer. Sick.
[These liberal a##es excuse against the death penalty is it doesn’t deter crime, it is a form of punishment for the crime.]
Hanging is good
IIRC, it is succinol choline(sp). Just enough for surgery, too much and instant death. Saw this on one of the crime shows.
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