I have a drug they can use as a substitute. Lead. Injected with a .40cal Glock.

yea. go for the green alternative. Rope is reusable. And if its hemp rope, maybe the hippies will support capital punishment.

So in 120 days we cant execute 14 people? Seriously how much of a shortage is there? I mean it cant be THAT much of a shortage. I bet they could find it cheaper over the internet in Canada! Although I do agree with wendy and bs that a rope is more economical since it is inexpensive and best of all REUSABLE!

Also as Politically Incorrect states below, hanging would allow for harvesting of organs which might otherwise be damaged from the drug used in the lethal injections.

I strongly suspect the reality of this "Shortage" is found in the statement 'Company has said it objects to drug's use in executions'Any way to throw roadblocks into the process of dispensing justice. If they find another supplier I'll bet all sorts of delays, tests, etc. will ensue.

Sort of like the Immigration thing. All sorts of reasons why it cannot be done that are effective and propounded by those opposed to the practice - And who are in the minority but able to push their agenda just the same.

So a private company should be told by the government what to do? Isn't this what everyone's rage is about? It is the companies choice not to sell the drug. Why doesnt the goverment get in the business and just make their own?

I can also see about a company or a doctor not wanting to dispense the drug because of it's intended use. If a pharmacist can refuse to issue 'Plan B'...why can't a company?

Also, there are dozens of other drugs that are more humanne then what we currently give. propofol for instance can do the trick pretty quickly, it would only take one large dose. The recepient would simply fall asleep.

We are using a combination of drugs that was identified in 1970...

We have snake venom that will kill anyone in small amounts within 4 seconds. Why not increase the dose? Oh yeah, because companies have contracts and subsidies that dont, and should not exist in this time. Our government gives out no bid contracts all of the time based on the companies connections to a senator or whatever. We have devolved into what we escaped England from.

Whenever anyone talks about the deficit remember that we pay the oil companies that make tremendous profits 10 billion in subsidies. BP will pay the 20 billion claimant fund with tax payer subsidies.

You are paying for BP's failure.

These drugs are used every single day in operating rooms all across the Country; is it a different manufacturer or do they allot only a certain amount for executions? At our hospital we have had shortages of propofol (Diprivan) and even metoprolol succinate (Toprol), but never heard of KCl, pancuronium and sodium thiopental shortages from the pharmacy dept, anaesthesia, or OR depts.

Why not just produce it in Gov. labs? The gas chamber or electric chair is also available. We will now have inmates looking to commute to life sentences on a cruel and inhumane argument.

Only in a country full of sissy ass laws could this happen. There is no shortage of bullets or rope. Damn how stupid. What a lame ass excuse. Better yet give them to the victims family and let them take care of creeps. Let them get closure and feel better.

I heard the drug cartels have an endless supply of heroin.

I couldn't have said any better HS321! You must be a brother from another mother 'cause You Rock! In fact, we here in Utah put 4 of those bad b!tc#e$ in one of our inmates earlier this year. It took good ol' Ronnie Gardner all of 2 minutes to die. Can't get much quicker than that with lethal injection. The only thing that pissed me off was that the fifth bullet was a blank. Gardner should have been given that one, too. That's almost like saying he was 80% executed. That way, each of the police officers that participated in that execution can say that he was able to help put that criminal in the grave--0% repeat offender!!!!!!!!!!!

Bring back the public hanging and guillotine!!

ignorance and stupidity is whats holding up executions, bullets are abundant

Yes a rope will do! However the politicians will need to give back millions of $ in bribes to the drug co.

"Food and Drug Administration said there are no FDA-approved manufacturers of sodium thiopental overseas"

Whaaaaaa.................t?

@hs321 - Although lead poisoning is a good idea, I don't know why they just don't substitute Drano

@ brodog - Yeah, we wouldn't want an uncertified drug to hurt the poor fellow....

In China all that’s required is a single bullet to the head, cheap and effective. As others have mentioned, a rope is an ecologically sound method since its non-polluting and reusable.

Dust off Old Sparky and put him back to work !! Nothing like a well done dirtbag !!

I think they should have their organs harvested while they are still alive to preserve the freshness!

A baseball bat or bullets. Excelent. The rope. Perfect.

You guys are just plain sick.

fire up the chair!

Hey, Denton! How would you like it if you had the organs of someone unworthy to exist? I sure the hell WOULDN'T! I'd rather die than to accept some part of someone who never should have had a pulse in the first place. I agree with most abortions, then some of those inmates would have never been able to take their first breath, walked, or even babbled "Mama."

The depends on the bullet and the gun. You could potentially get many more with a high-powered rifle.

But seriously, it can be frustrating sometimes hearing about how humanely we treat these convicted murderers. We ought to just inject them with an anesthetic (which they won't run out of) and chop off their head. That way we can harvest their organs to donate to those in need! They sure don't need them anymore...

Why even waste money on the anesthetic? AIR is free... inject a syringe full in their veins and watch the fun!

THe biggest reason we kill them humanely is because we are trying our best not to be like them. ALso I think it is for the people who actually administer the execution. THroughout the years the other methods have taken a toll on past henchmen.

You're right utty. That's also why one member of the firing squad was sometimes given blank, plausible deniability.

improperly applied the chair will "Burn" the convict to flinders

Good!!! Anyone up for a BBQ!!!!

TC: You would think differently if one of your most important loved ones was murdered, using methods that are far more cruel and unusual than the state would ever allow for a death row inmate. If they can't find the drugs, then I see no reason why they can't bring back the age-old guillotine. It's a bit messy, but is also considered as the most reliable and painless form of execution.

Perhaps if this country could get rid of the backwards thinking, revenge happy, blood thirsty idiots like you and the other pro death penalty morons this country seems to be full of, we could leave the countries like Saudi Arabia and China behind and join the rest of the civilized world and ban the death penalty all together! But I guess unless Glenn Beck and Limbaugh tell you morons to oppose it, you'll just keep supporting the outdated notion of state sponsored murder as some sort of retribution and punishment. We kill people to show that killing is wrong. Brilliant.

Really proD? What should we do with viscious, cruel, depraved, rapists, and murderers? Should we house them for 80 years? Hot meals, college educations, and dying peacefully in their sleep. Meanwhile we mourn for our family members that were raped, tortured, and cut down for doing nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which "rest of the civilized world" are you referring to BTW? Almost a third of the world is Muslim - they stone women, sometimes to death, for simple things like choosing not to marry an arranged husband. And there are many, many other nonmuslim countries that also have the death penalty.

IBuyChinese I have had two loved ones murdered and never would support the death penalty. Two wrongs don't make it right. You people who are pro-death penalty are sick and twisted, and please don't start quoting the bible passage "An eye for an eye" because the bible is also full of rape and incest and I would hope you were humane enough to oppose that.

Sissy.

338 winchester magnum would work just fine. Might make harvesting organs chancy but.........

Overdose of any barbiturate should do it. What's with this making death comfortable crap?

tell that to someone like dr petit, his baby girl burned to a bed post after being raped, his older babygirl burnt and wife strangled, and him living after being beat with a bat, the 2 guys wher captured on the seen, do you think they should live ?, i think the problem for people being put to death that never did nothing wrong is a problem with our court system, the prosecutor and judge work for the same campany, the state they are in, alot of them play golf together, the jury beleives cops dont lie so it is everyone against you and then you, judges should come from out of state on these type of cases, cops can lie in court, it is almost imposible to prove purgery on them or unless you had money like oj, but if you lie its no a problem for them to prove, you see how much transcrips cost the defendents, the state just has to type them for the cost of ink, they should also make the jury understand cops are reguler people that are capable of lieing, anyways i beleive in the death penalty but i dont like the way our court system works, there are lots of people serving time or put to death that did nothing at all, but dont blame the death penalty, blame our horible system, oj probly did it, but i was glad at least once someone was able to prove those cops wrong and how they lied, its a bad way of trying someone

I think languishing in an isolated prison cell day after day until you die is by far more painful than being executed by the system.

ProD they don't kill to show killing is wrong. It is done to make that killer pay for what was done. Perhaps you would let the darlings come and stay at your home instead of going to prison or paying for what they did. Would you open your home to them? If you don't want the poor little misunderstood murderer mistreated that's the least you can do. Try to have a few released into your custody. Please do the world a favor.

Hey, TC! If you think that this article made you sick, you are not alone. In fact, I got some Pepto that we could share!!!

That is the point isn't it. I suppose one is too many of those...especially if it's you.

Speaking for my self I am not so stupid as to do anything to go to prison much less the execution chamber.

Mistaken identity and you don't have to do anything stupid, it happens. You live alone?

I'm quite sure that there aren't too many "innocent" prisoners on death row.

I simply can't see how anyone could possibly confuse me with a murderer when I obey the law, don't hang out with questionable people that do questionable things. Nope, I'm pretty damn sure that I'm safe.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

That is all.

Most of us are not STUPID enough to commit a crime that would warrant our execution as a majority of us are decent law abiding citizens. Speak for yourself.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

That is all.

Wish I could thumbs up this link 100 times.

All you people...Go on your computer. Type in "The Innocense Project"....Read everything there with an open mind....None of those people there could be Convicted or even Accused...UNTIL THEY WERE !

You have to work very hard to go to prison and even harder to go on death row. Death penalty cases go on forever. Lawyers fight to take death penalty cases. If no lawyer after 20 years can't get your sentence overturn then you deserve to be on death row.

Here you go. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/523. Read the executive summary.

But hey, lets chop their heads off. Doesn't matter if they were declared innocent since they were convicted right?

wrongly accused. are you REALLY that dumb? killing one saves so many. and if you love them, you pay the 40k per year. im taxed enough, thank you.

Are you really that dumb to believe that there aren't wrongly accused individuals that have been acquitted? Judging from your post I would guess so. Also, you seemed to lack an understanding of cost... don't worry I'll try to fix that. It cost more to kill them then to keep them alive. How about you foot that bill.

So, a two tiered approach is called for. First, tighten the evidence requirements necessary to hand out a death sentence; second, if the prisoner meets those tighter standards, expedite the process and make it easier for the states to carry out the sentences. If you eliminate chance for an erroneous conviction there's no need for the endless appeals. Also, once any doubt as to guilt has been removed, there's less need in most people's eyes for coddling such as making sure the criminal is comfortable as they die and nonsense such as requiring alcohol to be used in starting the IV. (What, do the dead get infections???)

That's where the problem is FlaEMT. How would you eliminate the chance for an erroneous conviction? Should you financially support the convicted in their quest to prove their innocence? Should you delay the final execution time by another decade to give them more time? Should you have a jury of 20 people instead of 12?

Paying for their case is very expensive, delaying the execution time is also expensive and if you picked a jury of 20 people instead of 12 you would never get a conviction of a crime.

People say that's how we should handle it. Increase the standards for cases and hasten the judgment but I don't think anyone thinking that has actually taken the time to design a perfect justice system... If you have I would love to hear it.

Death penalty cases are dragged on for years while all possibilities and/or appeals are exhausted and you still have cases that are considered borderline or where a defendant simply couldn't afford the fees needed in a 10-20 yearlong case. How would you fix that one? $$$

Most people don't like that option so why not take the cheaper route that has a 0% chance of the state executing an innocent person. Also, here's a question for you. What is the escape rate of death row inmates? Valid question for those worrying about the possibility of a death row inmate committing another crime. Here's one convering the escape rates of prisoners in the general population.

http://www.slate.com/id/1007001

About half a percent escape rate. That includes prisoners from minimum security facilities that have been re-termed by some as "correctional resorts" and we can be pretty sure that the actual escape rate of maximum security facilities are much lower. But we'll assume half a %. So out of around 3200 death row inmates you would expect less then 16 of them to escape. Out of those less then 16 that escape how many of them would take that opportunity to commit another crime as opposed to laying low to avoid going back to prison? Hard to come up with that statistic since it's not well tracked nationally and is crime specific. But, less then 100%.

So is that much less then 16 possible escapes worth the possibility of executing several innocent people?

Here's a site covering the number of people removed from death row after much effort went into their cases from outside sources, such as students, free lawyers, etc. Notice I didn't say prosecutors or law enforcement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exonerated_death_row_inmates

Illinois was particularly interesting...50% exoneration rate from 1977 to 2000, 13 out of 25 exonerated... Can anyone say whoops our bad?

I don't know about you but... I'm not liking these numbers I'm seeing... nor do I think they'll improve much by people talking about applying tighter standards and shortening the waiting time on death row.

Then let's revamp the Constitution to allow for juries to be comprised of, say, 9 people. You know, like the US Supreme Court. It obviously doesn't matter what a jury of 12 peers have on the matter. It just matters what a bunch of overpayed and over-tenured group of justices think should be done instead. Heck, they run the government anyways. The Supreme Court has their docket full of putting their noses into the business of the legislative branch as well as trying like hell to make states' constitutions ineffective. As far as having a jury of 9, then we'll just have to make it democratic and majority vote rules. That way the courts could run a teensy bit better. Plus, you don't have to pay taxes on paying the other three jurists.

We could simply accept the fact that technology and law enforcement has advanced enough that the majority of the wrongful convictions would not happen anymore. We could also accept that if we were to actually enforce the death penalty within a year of them being found guilty, it would create an actual punishment that people would fear rather than laugh at knowing that they're just going to get life in prison which could be superior to their current life.

When death-row inmates commit more violence in prison, they should be executed immediately. They've further proved that they are not worth keeping alive on tax payer money.

Do you realize that it costs over $40,000 a year to house inmates? That's almost 2x the poverty line for a 4-person family, let alone a single person. We can't afford it. We need to execute those on death-row more quickly and efficiently and stop imprisoning for victimless crimes.

Majority is not 100%. How many innocent people would you be willing to kill to be able to kill them within 2 years of their verdict. Many many cases that have been overturned with regards to the death penalty were overturned more then 2 years after the verdict was given...

My thought is that you limit death to "smoking gun" cases, while all others get life without parole. When a guy is shot and captured in the commission of a crime, it pretty much does eliminate all chance of a wrongful conviction. There are plenty of other cases out there where there is also no chance of it being the wrong person. Those would be the ones with a quick death sentence. If there's any reasonable way that future evidence could prove it was someone else, whether likely or not, they would get life, though.

And what do you do in cases where the inmate has as mental condition. Smoking gun cases differ from person to person.... Do you think that lawyers that prosecute death penalty cases don't currently think they have a slam dunk smoking gun case?

The problem is that people that say they have 100% certainty of guilt can be wrong a small percentage of the time. Look at times before genetic testing. Who could have predicted that such a revolutionary invention could be used in this fashion. Should we wait until it's possible to read someones mind? The death penalty involves intent as well as action. Someone kills someone else in a heat of passion. Murder 2 not murder 1. You would have to know what was in their mind at the time of the killing. You'd have to know if they had planned it. Define 100% proof of malicious intent.

If you try to set up a system that does that you will still have incorrect applications of it. Ideals of a system are very often not what happens in the application of that system. That is the fundamental problem here with the death penalty. So the question becomes is a reduction in the number of wrongfully convicted cases acceptable because you'd be hard pressed to find a system that gets rid of them entirely.

Doggysaywhat,

HUH?????

fry em all. let God sort em out.

David, Did you know that the Great State of Texas has a web site where you can go to see who is scheduled to be excuted on what day, what their crime was it also does an update after each execution as to what the last words the condemed had to say.

Marie-that is truly disturbing, somewhat like a sporting event, I'd be ashamed to say I was from Texas!

Stormrider,

I AM from the Great State of Texas and to be quite frank with you, I'm glad you are NOT from here.

In this day and age of forensic evidence, it's pretty hard to be convicted of a crime that you did not commit. The people of this Great State of Texas voted on capital punishment and that is the way it is. You do the crime, you do the time or whatever punishment the judge/jury doles out. If you don't want to do the time, don't do the damn crime!

ProD,

May I ask just who the hell are you to call anyone stupid, an idiot or a moran? Just because they don't see things your way does not make it so. I just love you individuals that resort to name calling. You can't seem to make your point any other way.

In God We Trust!

LazyLRanch - It's m-o-r-o-n; maybe ProD was on to something.

Texas has already executed a number of people that were, in truth and fact, innocent. Oops, damn DNA evidence a little too late.

Doesn't anybody think it just a little ironic that one of the drugs used to kill people has to be approved by a federal agency (FDA) established to protect the health and safety of people?

Life without parole costs about 5% of seeking, obtaining, and executing the death sentence (no pun intended).

PH: It's so EASY to know what to do about anything - when you are ignorant of all salient facts.

There's a thread running through this story suggesting that suppliers and hospitals don't want to have anything to do with providing drugs for killing. Maybe the vet industry is taking the same stand. I helped my 13 year old once in a life all time best friend Newfoundland out of this world a while back and I was wondering why we can't make the process this simple for human executions. I'm a total death penalty opponent, but if they're going to do it, do it right.

They sure have. They also get three hot and a cot plus medical (which some of our veterans of wars can't even afford) paid for by yours and my taxes.

Could be that the drug is not in the formulary of Medicare Part D.

Marion Berry , the mayor of DC ,could probably hook em up with some killler @!$%#.

Um, the ACLU does not receive tax money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aclu

It took nearly a thousand years to develop our current legal system. I'm always amused when someone claims to know what a "clear cut case" looks like. Fortunately, the legal system protects us from fools like you.

the ACLU has nothing to do with this shortage. This is a PRIVATE Company that does not want to be in the lethal injection business. Isn't that their right as a PRIVATE COMPANY?

No Robert unfortunately it doesn't protect us from fools like him.... He could be a juror deciding a wrongly accused case...

We are in the business of supporting hundreds (thousands?) of lawyers and paralegals costing the taxpayers millions of dollars to argue and appeal capital cases. It seems the scheme is to make things so expensive to kill the convicted that keeping them alive in prison is the lower cost alternative. And some states do not have the death penalty. Wealthy murderers (?OJ?) get off with life or not guilty and some scum bags (like Henry Lee Lucas, reprieved to life in prison by none other than G. W. Bush!) slip by. I don't have a hard core position, I just can't stomach lawyers, who are obsessed with the process, and the government, the entity that never makes a mistake. Example, prosecutors who still claim someone is guilty even after being confronted with uncontridictable evidence to the contrary. Really, the must be afraid of the resulting civil liability!

Well all I can say is that inmates on death row rarely are found inocent because by doing that would say that state made A mistake. By doing that would question the death penalty itself.And they dont want to do that. actualy you would be surprised what it costs to execute A inmate.vs giving alternatives. it is so sad.Primarily cuz, it wont bring anyone back.It rarely satisfies anyone. Except votes for the governer of that state.For the person who,commited the crime, his suffering is over.He stops paying on that day. frm jjdet141@hotmail.com

I can see how that could be a problem in this day and age. LMAO

I heard is was because it contained too much transfat.... ;-)

I doubt they'd find a supply from Canada, they are civilized enough not to use the death penalty.

I know,let them all go and live in stormriders nieghborhood,won't take long to figure out why these folks are getting executed.You know how it works some of you have to become a victim to figure these things out.

JC as I clearly stated in post 7.4 I have had two loved ones murdered, witnessed by me and I would never promote the death penalty.

I have had two loved ones murdered, witnessed by me and I would never promote the death penalty.

I admire your principles......but you are the definition of a fool.

Thats where we are different,I would have killed the idiot myself.

I didn't have the gun!