Capital Punishment Reform

If the state is going to kill someone, they should do it quickly, efficiently, and with as little pain as possible inflicted on the offender. I knew one of the wardens who electrocuted murderers at our state prison. Warden Neal said the process was not torturous, and he believed the inmate felt little if any pain because the current moved faster than the neurons that convey pain signals to the brain. We still have a functioning electric chair in Nashville. I do not think firing squads are necessary to terminate those sentenced to die. The Communist Chinese use a single shot to the base of the skull where it connects to the neck, and is almost always quickly fatal. That is messy to the condemned and those who witness it, but there is a speed and certainty to it. I do not think Christa Pike is among the worst of the worst, just a woman who was under the influence of drugs and at only eighteen when she participated in a brutal murder, too young to have her cerebral cortex fully developed to make fully rational decisions that an older person likely might have. I am not saying Pike is an exemplary or even decent person, but she did NOT deserve to be tortured relentlessly by my homestate acting in my name, but against my conscience.