The Daily Dose/April 4, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
The US Supreme Court ruled this week that the condemned inmates do not have the right to a painless execution. They ruled 5-4 in a suit filed by Missouri inmate Russell Bucklew who has a rare medical condition that he says will result in severe pain if he is given death-causing drugs, a violation of the 8th Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. His suit had been dismissed by both district and circuit courts.
The majority’s opinion was written by Justice Neal Gorsuch, Like you probably did, we read the majority opinion:
As originally understood, the Eighth Amendment tolerated methods of execution, like hanging, that involved a significant risk of pain, while forbidding as cruel only those methods that intensified the death sentence by “superadding” terror, pain, or disgrace. To establish that a State’s chosen method cruelly “superadds” pain to the death sentence, a prisoner must show a feasible and readily implemented alternative method that would significantly reduce a substantial risk of severe pain and that the State has refused to adopt without a legitimate penological reason.
Bucklew’s attorneys offered nitrogen gas as an alternative, but this was dismissed by the district court and upheld by the circuit court. Bucklew was not otherwise challenging the legality of his execution in general, or lethal injection procedure specifically, nor is this a last-ditch appeal based on some halfwit claim of innocence. Bucklew had never denied committing the 1996 murder of a man who had the nerve to be living with his ex-girlfriend.
Fine, then, let’s just line everybody up and slit their throats with a dull knife because if a painful state-sanctioned death does not violate the 8th Amendment we don’t think anything does. In fact, we’ve long felt that death itself is an unusual punishment.
Friends, how much vengeance do we, collectively as a nation, need to extract? Isn’t it enough that murderers are put away for the rest of their lives?
We think it is. The government does not need to be providing painful deaths to old, sick men. Besides, this nation has executed innocent people, which is reason enough to shut the whole system down.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow is obliged to retrieve two restaurant trays from the hotel, while at the retailer he has a discussion about the merits of cheap birdseed vs premium birdseed. Today’s Diary.
Earlier, a guy came thru with both kinds of birdseed, the cheap five tons for $3 stuff, and primo stuff you need a loan for…I asked him if he noticed a difference in the types of birds each type of feed attracted and he said oh yeah and, in fact, used the cheap stuff to throw on the ground, for what he termed “junko” birds…The fancy birds get the good stuff in the feeders.
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On This Date
In 1841 – President of the United States William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia, a mere 31 days after taking office, the shortest presidential administration in American history. Vice President John Tyler, amidst significant debate as to whether he was president or acting president, succeeded Harrison and, due in no small part to his insistence in the matter, was recognized as president of the United States.
In 1986 – Wayne Gretzky of the Edmonton Oilers has three assists as the Oilers lose to the Calgary Flames 9-3. The first assist gives Gretzky 213 points on the season, a new NHL record, breaking the mark he had established in the 1981-82 season. Gretzky finished the season with an NHL-record 163 assists, a mark he broke earlier in the season with his 136th assist.
In 1981 – Being With You by Smokey Robinson is at #1 on Billboard’s soul chart – then known as the Hot Soul Singles chart – for the first of five consecutive weeks. It was Robinson’s second #1 as a solo act on the soul chart and Being With You also peaked in the runner-up spot on Billboard’s Hot 100. Robinson had also gone to #1 four times on the soul chart as a member of the Miracles.
Quotebook
The only graceful way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can’t ignore it, top it; if you can’t top it, laugh at it; if you can’t laugh at it, it is probably deserved.
Russell Lynes
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The Tampa Bay Lightning have are 60-16-4 this season and join the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens and 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings as the only NHL teams to win 60 games in a season. They have two more games left to play.
