Animal Rights: Judge Fogel Revisits Death Penalty

The brutality of the lethal injection method has given some people, including Governor Jeb Bush, pause. While the First Brother’s decision to halt Florida executions is garnering media coverage, a potentially far more important decision was handed down by Judge Jeremy Fogel in a U,S. District Court (San Jose) case. Judge Fogel ruled that the way California inmates are executed probably violates the Constitution, but more importantly, he suggested a remedy for the violation. And that remedy is to confer animal rights upon humans- to change the method of execution to the one used by your local veterinarian when you want to put the family pet to sleep: anesthetic overdose.

Death penalty proponents will no doubt rejoice over this suggestion. It is a way to make ourselves feel less uncomfortable with the idea of state sponsored killing. It makes the process sort of wholesome and as familiar as Fido. It is good social hygiene, and while , as Kent Scheidigger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports the death penalty said, “It’s unfortunate that we have another delay. But is does appear that there is at least one path to a constitutional procedure.”

How soothing- and how morbidly ironic. This rationale only lacks one murderous virtue: it is not as efficient as it might be-yet. When such a system is up and running , it will no doubt be more less noticeable than the old one, criminals will have been fully robbed of their humanity, and we can get back to business as usual.

Tags: Politics