South Carolina Senate empowers state to use electric chair

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Jeffrey Collins, Associated Press
 Updated 3:16 pm, Wednesday, March 7, 2018

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — After years without the drugs to do lethal injections, the South Carolina Senate has agreed to require condemned inmates go to the electric chair instead.

South Carolina law has empowered residents of death row to make a choice between lethal injection and the electric chair since 1995, so the lack of drugs enabled them to stay alive by choosing injections. Capital punishment essentially ended in 2011 in South Carolina, a state that had been averaging close to two executions a year.

"He picks out the option that can't be carried out, extending his life indefinitely," complained a sponsor of the bill, state Sen. William Timmons.

The proposal passed 26-12 on Tuesday and was given a final procedural vote Wednesday. It now goes to the House, where it is expected to face even less opposition.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/us/article/South-Carolina-Senate-approves-electric-chair-for-12734457.php

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Sen. William Timmons.

[GaryCnf]

1. The irony of this

Is that these right wing ghouls just ended executions in SC for another decade. The electric chair is as unconstitutional as hell. Two red state supreme courts, Nebraska and Georgia, have tossed it. What's more, in Nebraska they had a massive evidentiary hearing that will serve as a roadmap for challenges in other states.

FIRC

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Compassionate Conservatism is a terrible thing to waste

Turn on the juice!

[3Hotdogs]

8. --- turn on the juice.

Carlin: (Paraphrase) It would just be a delight for these sick people to attach an electrode to each of the guy's nuts and turn on the juice.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. Yes. Compassionate Sadism

can't say he was blindsided

[hatrack]

3. Why not pay-per-view? Why not breaking on the wheel?

Fucking redneck barbarians.

[3Hotdogs]

10. In the same riff, Carlin proposed eliminating state budget deficits by charging

pay-per-view executions.

[Farmer-Rick]

4. Next up, they agreed to electrocute an elephant

To punish the animal for killing his abusive handler.

[3Hotdogs]

7. If the elephant story is the one I know about,

the handler wasn't abusive. Rather, the elephant had an abscess and the handler hit the elephant on the side of its mouth, causing extreme pain. The elephant responded by attacking the handler.

[Farmer-Rick]

13. I didn't know that about Topsy

I knew the elephant attacked and killed some people. The poor creature must have been in great pain. But the greedy, barbarian and vicious people who made a spectacle of her death are the same type of people who want to bring back electricution of people.

[mahannah]

5. Rope or bullets...they don't care.

[democrank]

6. Freaking barbarians

[longship]

11. Burned alive until dead.

A tortuous way to go.

Google Ruth Snyder some time. Also, it took five jolts to kill Ethel Rosenberg. Torture!!!

End the death penalty!

[Shoonra]

12. A definite improvement for several reasons

The decision to replace lethal injections with the electric chair undoes a serious mistake.
The lethal injection was introduced on the promise that it was painless and quick. That was a lie. Prisoners had to be repeatedly jabbed with needles by near-amateurs, causing considerable and needless pain not associated with previous methods, and were made to lie flat on tables for many minutes waiting for the procedure to finish.

At the same time we - including potential jurors - were conned into believing that the death penalty was so painless that we hardly hesitated to condemn men to death, even when we might have doubts about their degree of guilt.

The electric chair involves less physical pain, is a somewhat quicker start-to-finish, and allows the prisoner to sit up with some dignity to make his final remarks. And, by returning to this century-old process, the rest of us must seriously consider each capital sentence.

Those who are opposed to death sentences on principle should not want the process in use to be too "pretty", so that everyone approaches this matter with some solemnity and reflection.

[Farmer-Rick]

14. Not so sure about the electric chair being less painful

If contacts are not done just right, if the victim is not properly shaved, or if the jell or wet sponges are applied too sparingly then it's likely the person will burst into flames. It's a 38 second actual electric current going through the victim.

Let's face it the state murdering a person is a horrid and barbaric practice and should be ended.

[alarimer]

15. Anyone who votes for this should have to attend each and every execution.

They should have to watch and see the brutality.