Letter writer: N.C. should end capital punishment

Posted on by Letters
Graphic by Lori Deaton

Murder is immoral. Since I was a child, this has been the only evident truth I have been told. Then why capital punishment?

In 2015, Gov. Pat McCrory [signed] the Restoring Proper Justice Act, resuming the death penalty in North Carolina. …

In 2007, … a de facto moratorium placed a hold on the death penalty due to medical concerns. …

The N.C. Medical Board refused to have any more physicians assist executions. …. Capital punishment opposes physicians’ and doctors’ Hippocratic Oath, a vow to save patients lives and uphold specific medical standards. Physicians are patient advocates, and healers are not medically licensed to kill. …

Without the service of the physicians, the lethal injections provided can be highly dangerous [if] injected incorrectly, causing an elongated and painful death. If medical experts rule capital punishment as inhumane, why does McCrory believe it is justified?

North Carolina is stating a hypocrisy — we murder people who murder people to show that murder is unlawful. A cease needs to be placed on capital punishment. The medical field illustrates that it is a contradiction in policy and disrupts medical ethics.

— Carson Goodwyn
Chapel Hill

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7 thoughts on “Letter writer: N.C. should end capital punishment”

  1. boatrocker

    I for the most part agree, but the only argument for capital punishment?…

    Make sure the defendant is proven 110% guilty by a fair trail, so when they are put to death, Reagan’s privatized prison system cannot make money off of the incarceration of a human being. Civilized countries refer to that as slavery.

    Making money off of prisoners is beneath contempt. Period, though soul-less free market capitalist koolaid-drinking sheeple would argue to the contrary for worshiping the Almighty Dollar.

  2. Phil Williams

    I agree insofar as medical professionals should not be asked to violate their oath by participating in an execution. However, for certain heinous crimes, capitol punishment should be the penalty and it should be carried out soon as possible following the conviction and sentence, with the possibility of only one appeal – and that only if there was a true error in the trial. Certain crimes have left no room for reasonable doubt due to multiple eyewitnesses, irrefutable hard evidence, etc. (ie Dylan Roof, James Holmes, any number of serial killers or murderers of children). If a lethal injection improperly administered by non-medical personnel is too cruel or unreliable, then the method should be changed to the gallows or the firing squad, and administered by a State or Federal executioner or a trained rifle team.

  3. Snowflake (Social Justice Worrier)

    If they want to be humane, I wonder why they don’t use carbon monoxide?

    • boatrocker

      Carbon monoxide? Wow.
      For pets, it’s phenobarbital for the big sleep. A bit more civilized than a piece of garden hose and the front seat of a car.

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