March 19, 2021 • 20 mins
With lethal injection and electrocution pretty much off the table in most states, some are reconsidering firing squad as a form of capital punishment. Is it really more humane than other methods of execution? You be the judge.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:30):
Welcome back to Ken Zoo, Killers, Homicide and Sweet Tea. Hey Keim,
Hey, are you feeling spring yet? It's one day until it's officially
spring. I can't believe it.It was only a storm two weeks ago.
I am going to home depot thisafternoon to pick me up some maters
in some peppers. So yeah,maters, maters by eaters. Well,
(00:56):
I'm afraid that Jody's favorite beloved ofit, hibiscus, has been the dust,
even though our little twig of afig hung in there. She's a
tough little fig anyway. So yeah, maybe home depots in our future too.
Maybe home depots in our future fora sponsor who actually they are so
(01:19):
thank you very much anyway. SoI want to start off this forensic Friday
with a question, what do y'allthink of a firing squad for a method
of execution? Kim, you haveany thoughts or you can save them.
A bullet costs a lot less thanelectricity. Well, there's a there's a
bunch of reasons for this, andthen let me and we go into that.
(01:42):
So execution by firing squad in thepast sometimes called facilading from the French
word fusil, which means rifle,is a method of capital punishment, particularly
common in the military and in timesof war. Execution by shooting is a
fairly all practice some reasons for itto use, or that firearms are usually
(02:06):
readily available, and a gunshot toa vital organ such as the brain or
your heart as often will kill yourelatively quickly, not to mention Kim's reasons.
So the last time a firing squadwas used in the United States was
in twenty ten, when Ronnie LeagueGardner was executed in Utah for the nineteen
(02:28):
eighty four murder of an attorney duringa failed courthouse escape. Now, if
y'all do the math, think howlong he was on death row? Right
now, this is where it getsinteresting. So Tuesday, a couple weeks
ago, March the second, twentytwenty one, South Carolina senators added a
firing squad to the electric chair asalternatives if the state can't execute condemned inmates
(02:53):
by the way of lethal ejection.The Senate then approved the bill on a
key thirty two to eleven vote,which I kind of like, with several
Democrats joining Republicans in the proposal,which would allow South Carolina to restart executions
after nearly ten years. Now.There's a reason for that. Under current
(03:15):
law, inmates have a choice betweenlethal injection and death by electrocution. If
the inmate chooses lethal injection, thestate cannot force them to die by means
of electrocution, so by default,the inmates execution gets pushed back until the
state can obtain the necessary drugs.Since the drugs are not available and haven't
(03:38):
been for a while, they pickedthe method that can't be done now,
wouldn't you right? Well, ofcourse that would only be smart of them.
Well, of course, the SouthCarolina is just one of nine states
that maintains an electric chair. Itnow becomes the forced state to allow a
firing squad with Utah, Oklahoma,and Mississippi, according to the Death Penalty
(04:00):
Information Center, which I find itvery interesting. It's a very interesting site
if y'all want to check the DeathPenalty Information Center. Meanwhile, South Carolina
Governor Henry McMaster asked for lawmakers togive him any way he could to restart
executions since a few inmates have exhaustedtheir appeals but their death sentences can't be
(04:21):
carried out. A Republican and aDemocrat. Both former prosecutors proposed adding the
firing squad. State Senator Dick Harputlian, I love that name. Dick Harputlian
said that the death penalty is goingto stay the law here for a while.
If it's going to remain, weought to be humane. He continued
(04:42):
to say, hanging is brutal andoften leads to decapitation, and in electrocution,
the condemned are burned to death.Justice Sonia Sotomayer argued in author versus
Done in twenty seventeen quote, inaddition to being near instant, death by
shooting may also be comparatively painless,and historically, the firing squad has yielded
significantly fewer watched executions. Remember allthose stories we talked about way back in
(05:09):
some of our earlier stories, Kimabout how the executions would be watched,
and both with electrocution as well asthe lethal injection because they really didn't have
anybody that knew what they were doing. Oh yeah, I believe that episode
was called the Executioner's Song. It'sa forensic Friday episode. If anybody wants
to go back and listen to it. Yeah, it's pretty interesting, not
(05:30):
just because I did it, butbecause it does take it from a perspective
of the executioner and how he reallygot yanked into something he never had intended
to be. And it's kind ofa psychological point of view. So anyway,
So if bringing a firing squad isn'tinteresting enough, all this got me
to thinking about hoods and blindfolds,because that's how my mind works, right,
(05:53):
and how we always see in moviesor history books, how some of
the condemned prisoners have hoods at theirexecutions or offer blindfolds. Right, y'all,
remember that. I know you've allseen this. So why do they
do that, you may ask?And here's why. With the electric chair,
for example, the hood hides thefacial expressions from those who are witnessing
(06:14):
the execution. A person's face cancontort, discolor, bleed, swell,
grimace, salivate, vomit, andshow other unpleasant responses no matter how quickly
that death comes. And being electrocutedcan also cause the body to swell so
much so that the eyeballs pop outof your head. The sudden extreme temperature
(06:35):
in the body can also cause theeyeballs to melt. I'm thinking of it
waiters of the lost art remember whenthey melt. Yeah, yeah, that's
why prisoners often have their eyes tapedshut before they're executed. Not that I
think that would matter, because wouldn'tyou think of tape would melt? But
whatever. But even further back,before the electric chair, people have been
(06:57):
blindfolded or hooded, and even theexecutioner may have been hooted normally he was
if you think about that too.The custom of blindfolding the victim before execution
is nearly universal, but not reallyfor the reasons you might think. The
custom of blindfolding was to protect theexecutioner. The blindfold was one strategy to
(07:17):
protect the executioners and the onlookers fromthe supernatural revenge of those executed. I
find this very interesting in most modernreligions, which you can reduce and take
down to superstitions. I'm not sayingreligions are, but many religions have elements
of superstition. There is a primortalfear of the dead, and because it's
(07:42):
believed that the dead are rather theirsouls being immortal, are able to take
their revenge on the living in manyunpleasant ways. The most dangerous of the
souls of those who die a prematureor a violent death, including death by
execution, as they are reasonably believedto have the strongest reasons to seek revenge.
(08:03):
Right. This makes the executioners particularlyvulnerable and make sense for them to
blindfold the victim and prevent the soulfrom identifying the individual responsible for the death.
I don't like calling them victims thoughthey're really not victims. They are
getting there what they deserve for beingmurderers. You know. Well, yeah,
but I'm talking about very, veryHistorically, a lot of people were
(08:26):
killed just for the you know,they were killed for being on the wrong
side of the track or whatever.But yes, I know what you're saying.
I agree with you there. Soanyway, the eyes are especially important
in this context, as it wasuniversally believed that the seat of the soul
was in the ice. Again,another strategy was for the executioner. This
is like, I think, adouble whammy and double protection layer. Here
(08:48):
the executioner wore a mask so toavoid recognition, So I don't I don't
want the condemned see in me,but I don't want anybody else see in
me either. The classical executioners costumein the past and I'm sure y'all cannot
sub conjure in your head is wherehe's got a hood and he's fully covered
his face. The executioners had moreearthly reasons to hide again, like we
(09:11):
were saying, because mostly they fearedrevenge from the condemns, relatives and followers.
Their disguise also protected them from thesocial stigma attached to the job at
hand. And as we were referringto our other episode, the executioners song,
Yeah, he told no one,including his wife, that he was
an executioner. He hid that secretfrom his family and friends because of the
(09:35):
stigma for I think what was likeforty plus years or something. But anyway,
so back to our regular executioners.So as for the person facing execution,
the blindfold does really little to howit actually causes spatial disorientation and may
increase the fear of a suddenly invisibledanger. Now from the executioner's point of
(09:56):
view, Primarily, the blindfold howprevent the condemned from flinching. By not
seeing the squad, the individual isless likely to move suddenly, and this
is important as accurate shots to theheart are important in assuring a quick and
relatively painless death, and sort ofto this fact, the Nazis would recommend
(10:18):
that the person being executed would faceaway from the shooter or shooters, as
they found the soldiers were losing theirmorale killing people over and over while looking
at them in the eye. Canyou imagine so facing away helped improve their
productivity, so to speak, andturn the soldier into a more capable killing
machine. They also do comment onwhen there is a firing squad that there
(10:43):
is usually only one person that hasleft out bullet, so there is still
an idea in each man on thesquad that possibly he had nothing to do
with it. So there's a lotof psychology going on here. So regarding
how the idea of painless, JohnW. Deering allowed an electrocardiogram recording of
(11:05):
the effective gunshot wounds on his heartduring his nineteen thirty eight execution by firing
squad, I find that kind offorward thinking and interesting. And afterwards his
body was donated to the University ofUtah School of Medicine at his request.
Crazy Hunt. So y'all may allknow by now how Kim and I feel
about the death penalty, and Ifeel that those who lean towards the death
(11:28):
penalty. Want to see justice now? Wikipedia defines justice as in its broadest
sense, is the principle that peoplereceive that which they deserve, with the
interpretation of what then constitutes deserving beingimpacted upon numerous feels, with many differing
viewpoints and perspectives, including the conceptsof moral correctness based on ethics, rationality,
(11:54):
law, religion, equity, andfairness. At his core, I
see it as a very primal urgethat vengeance and justice go hand in hand.
So much goes into the process ofdeath and our emotions connected to it,
from the murder itself to crying outfor justice, to the point of
fulfillment of the sentence, whatever itmay be. I totally agree with Kim's
(12:16):
fiscal reasonings that it costs more tohouse the prisoner on death row, and
then also the obvious reasons of whatif the person was wrongly convicted. This
brings us back to a whole conceptof justice. Do you want to see
the lights go out of the condemnedeyes or would you rather just be a
little detached. I don't know howI would feel, Kim, What do
you think? Well, yeah,I'm not a death penalty proponent, so
(12:41):
I mean, if you're going toexecute somebody, the quicker way is the
best way. The one that putsthem out fastest is by far the best
way. And as we know,sometimes lethal injection and electrocution don't work right
away. We've had instances where ittook twenty to thirty minutes to lecturecute someone
to death, and to me,that's cruel and unusual punishment. So you
(13:05):
know, the only problem with puttingeverybody in life without parole is building more
prisons. But right, yeah,I just really don't think I could,
like I've said before, give someonethe death penalty. I'd rather they spent
the rest of their days in asmall cell just thinking about what they did
and how they wouldn't be there ifthey hadn't done it. Yeah, but
(13:30):
I agree with you. I doagree with you on the financial side.
But from an emotional side, Iwant justice. You know, maybe I'm
more by nature. I think I'mmore vengeful because I'm a scorpio. Sorry,
but it's just true. And soyeah, I would want to go,
I would go and watch. Imight feel completely different if I had
(13:52):
a family member who was murdered andthat was their murderer. I don't know,
because that hasn't happened to me,right, I don't know how I
would feel, you know, soright right, I'm sure there's a lot
of conflicted feelings, a lot ofconflicted emotions and everything. But like I
say, as I as I starteddown this road, it was more about
(14:13):
them bringing them the firing squads backbecause of just getting through it, you
know, getting through the death penaltyand finally delivering their sentence, which you
know obviously they've been sidestepping it.I mean, who wouldn't if you were
the prisoner. That's that's when Istarted to think about, well, you
know, would you really go andwatch this? And what about the people
(14:37):
that were really having to face toface this. I mean, there's there's
so much too taking someone's life.I mean, I couldn't put down an
animal without looking at it and takingaway that the eyes. It really comes
down to looking into the soul,which I feel is the eyes. But
anyway, that's my little bit ofinterest here. Well, I do think
(14:58):
it's interesting. It's actually pro alot less expensive. I don't know if
it is or not. That I'mjust guessing that it's less expensive than lethal
injection. I don't think it's actuallythe process that may or may not be
noteworthy for expense. I think theexpense is where you said before, is
how long do they stay on deathrow? How long can they appeal?
(15:20):
How many times do they go throughthis around and around and cost the taxpayers
money? Money? Money? Youknow? Well that's what I was getting
to. Well, I totally agreewith you there, So there's really like
you know, which is really cheaper. The execution itself is actually such a
tiny amount of any right. AndI hate to bring it down to money
because it's not it's human lives andit's you know, this may be an
(15:43):
awful, horrible person, but dowe have the right to take their life?
Because I don't want to be politicalor anything like that, just my
question is do we have the rightto take someone's life roof? Should we
leave that up to a higher power? You know, if you believe in
a higher power. I do believein a higher power. I also think
I'm probably a whole lot less elevatedthan most people want to hope, and
(16:06):
I would like to see someone begiven the equally what they did to someone
else. That's why this has beensuch a hot debate. For decades because
nobody really can agree on it becauseit's such a difficult and sensitive and emotional
subject. Right, Well, that'swhat I was saying before. I feel
like it's a very primal thing.You know. We want vengeance, we
(16:29):
want justice, And what justice isto us is you took from me,
I'm taken from you. That's sovery basic. Not that it means it's
right or wrong. It just ishow many people still feel. Well now,
I'm not saying that I don't thinkthey deserve something, and you know,
justice to me would be them gettingexactly what they give. Those who
(16:49):
torture, those who rape, thosewho molest children should get back in kind,
right right in my idea, Idon't mean, I don't mean not
executing him should mean they just havea happy life. We know, I
think we all know what you mean, and it is it is a hard
decision in the big picture. Itis, I mean, some people are
(17:10):
real black and white and other peopleare very gray. And I think and
at the end of the day,most people are very gray. And that's
why there hasn't been a definite decisionmade on this, you know. Anyway,
So if y'all want to let usknow you what you think I mean.
We're loving to hear from you aboutany old subject. And again,
Kim has set up the most wonderfulsite for us. It's Kadzookillers dot com
(17:36):
where you can leave us thoughts andcomments and anything you want to and also
don't forget to catch us on ourTuesdays where we have a longer episode with
another great stories for you, andthen on our Sisters show to Chicks in
a Crucifix, which is much morefun and lighthearted because we like to laugh
too. We like to make y'alllaugh. And I think Kim might want
to tell you about our newsletter.Oh yeah, we got a new newsletter
(18:00):
out in a couple of weeks andit's going to be a monthly newsletter.
So if you'd like to sign upfor that, you can go to Kudzu
Killers dot com. It's right thereon the front page of our website and
you can sign up to be onour email list to get our newsletter.
That's all we're going to use youremail for. We're not going to solicit
things. We're not going to sellyour email. We're not like that.
We would hate that if someone didthat to us, So we're not going
(18:21):
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maybe even once every two months,depending on how productive we are.
And you know, that's all thatemail is going to be used for.
So if you'd like to know what'scoming up on our show, if you'd
like to know a little bit aboutus and what we're up to and maybe
some fellow podcasters who have some greatshows out there, sign up for our
newsletter and we'll send it to youonce a month and you can see what's
(18:44):
up with Kudzue killers. Oh andthere's another thing that Kim wants to tell
you about having nicety with us,right, yeah, I guess so you
can tell it. You can buyit. You can also if you go
to that website, you can buyus. You can go to a website
buy us a coffee, and youcan if you don't want to, you
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Lark totally needs new headphones. She'sgot her team cup out y'all.
(19:08):
If you want to, you know, become a part of our production staff
basically by yeah, giving us acouple bucks here and there. It does
cost us to fund up the showout there. We're happy to do it,
we love doing it, but youknow, by iced tea once in
a while or it's not an obligatorything. You can just do it whenever
(19:30):
you feel like it. If youfeel like it's so that's buy me a
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you can go to our website andclick on the link right there on the
front page. Yeah, this islark, shameless by mean nice tea,
meant by me headphoneshones. Well,anyway, until we hear from y'all and
(19:51):
until we see you on Monday andteam today, y'all don't bear the bodies
of that by buy y'all. Hi
Welcome back to Ken Zoo, Killers, Homicide and Sweet Tea. Hey Keim,
Hey, are you feeling spring yet? It's one day until it's officially
spring. I can't believe it.It was only a storm two weeks ago.
I am going to home depot thisafternoon to pick me up some maters
in some peppers. So yeah,maters, maters by eaters. Well,
(00:56):
I'm afraid that Jody's favorite beloved ofit, hibiscus, has been the dust,
even though our little twig of afig hung in there. She's a
tough little fig anyway. So yeah, maybe home depots in our future too.
Maybe home depots in our future fora sponsor who actually they are so
(01:19):
thank you very much anyway. SoI want to start off this forensic Friday
with a question, what do y'allthink of a firing squad for a method
of execution? Kim, you haveany thoughts or you can save them.
A bullet costs a lot less thanelectricity. Well, there's a there's a
bunch of reasons for this, andthen let me and we go into that.
(01:42):
So execution by firing squad in thepast sometimes called facilading from the French
word fusil, which means rifle,is a method of capital punishment, particularly
common in the military and in timesof war. Execution by shooting is a
fairly all practice some reasons for itto use, or that firearms are usually
(02:06):
readily available, and a gunshot toa vital organ such as the brain or
your heart as often will kill yourelatively quickly, not to mention Kim's reasons.
So the last time a firing squadwas used in the United States was
in twenty ten, when Ronnie LeagueGardner was executed in Utah for the nineteen
(02:28):
eighty four murder of an attorney duringa failed courthouse escape. Now, if
y'all do the math, think howlong he was on death row? Right
now, this is where it getsinteresting. So Tuesday, a couple weeks
ago, March the second, twentytwenty one, South Carolina senators added a
firing squad to the electric chair asalternatives if the state can't execute condemned inmates
(02:53):
by the way of lethal ejection.The Senate then approved the bill on a
key thirty two to eleven vote,which I kind of like, with several
Democrats joining Republicans in the proposal,which would allow South Carolina to restart executions
after nearly ten years. Now.There's a reason for that. Under current
(03:15):
law, inmates have a choice betweenlethal injection and death by electrocution. If
the inmate chooses lethal injection, thestate cannot force them to die by means
of electrocution, so by default,the inmates execution gets pushed back until the
state can obtain the necessary drugs.Since the drugs are not available and haven't
(03:38):
been for a while, they pickedthe method that can't be done now,
wouldn't you right? Well, ofcourse that would only be smart of them.
Well, of course, the SouthCarolina is just one of nine states
that maintains an electric chair. Itnow becomes the forced state to allow a
firing squad with Utah, Oklahoma,and Mississippi, according to the Death Penalty
(04:00):
Information Center, which I find itvery interesting. It's a very interesting site
if y'all want to check the DeathPenalty Information Center. Meanwhile, South Carolina
Governor Henry McMaster asked for lawmakers togive him any way he could to restart
executions since a few inmates have exhaustedtheir appeals but their death sentences can't be
(04:21):
carried out. A Republican and aDemocrat. Both former prosecutors proposed adding the
firing squad. State Senator Dick Harputlian, I love that name. Dick Harputlian
said that the death penalty is goingto stay the law here for a while.
If it's going to remain, weought to be humane. He continued
(04:42):
to say, hanging is brutal andoften leads to decapitation, and in electrocution,
the condemned are burned to death.Justice Sonia Sotomayer argued in author versus
Done in twenty seventeen quote, inaddition to being near instant, death by
shooting may also be comparatively painless,and historically, the firing squad has yielded
significantly fewer watched executions. Remember allthose stories we talked about way back in
(05:09):
some of our earlier stories, Kimabout how the executions would be watched,
and both with electrocution as well asthe lethal injection because they really didn't have
anybody that knew what they were doing. Oh yeah, I believe that episode
was called the Executioner's Song. It'sa forensic Friday episode. If anybody wants
to go back and listen to it. Yeah, it's pretty interesting, not
(05:30):
just because I did it, butbecause it does take it from a perspective
of the executioner and how he reallygot yanked into something he never had intended
to be. And it's kind ofa psychological point of view. So anyway,
So if bringing a firing squad isn'tinteresting enough, all this got me
to thinking about hoods and blindfolds,because that's how my mind works, right,
(05:53):
and how we always see in moviesor history books, how some of
the condemned prisoners have hoods at theirexecutions or offer blindfolds. Right, y'all,
remember that. I know you've allseen this. So why do they
do that, you may ask?And here's why. With the electric chair,
for example, the hood hides thefacial expressions from those who are witnessing
(06:14):
the execution. A person's face cancontort, discolor, bleed, swell,
grimace, salivate, vomit, andshow other unpleasant responses no matter how quickly
that death comes. And being electrocutedcan also cause the body to swell so
much so that the eyeballs pop outof your head. The sudden extreme temperature
(06:35):
in the body can also cause theeyeballs to melt. I'm thinking of it
waiters of the lost art remember whenthey melt. Yeah, yeah, that's
why prisoners often have their eyes tapedshut before they're executed. Not that I
think that would matter, because wouldn'tyou think of tape would melt? But
whatever. But even further back,before the electric chair, people have been
(06:57):
blindfolded or hooded, and even theexecutioner may have been hooted normally he was
if you think about that too.The custom of blindfolding the victim before execution
is nearly universal, but not reallyfor the reasons you might think. The
custom of blindfolding was to protect theexecutioner. The blindfold was one strategy to
(07:17):
protect the executioners and the onlookers fromthe supernatural revenge of those executed. I
find this very interesting in most modernreligions, which you can reduce and take
down to superstitions. I'm not sayingreligions are, but many religions have elements
of superstition. There is a primortalfear of the dead, and because it's
(07:42):
believed that the dead are rather theirsouls being immortal, are able to take
their revenge on the living in manyunpleasant ways. The most dangerous of the
souls of those who die a prematureor a violent death, including death by
execution, as they are reasonably believedto have the strongest reasons to seek revenge.
(08:03):
Right. This makes the executioners particularlyvulnerable and make sense for them to
blindfold the victim and prevent the soulfrom identifying the individual responsible for the death.
I don't like calling them victims thoughthey're really not victims. They are
getting there what they deserve for beingmurderers. You know. Well, yeah,
but I'm talking about very, veryHistorically, a lot of people were
(08:26):
killed just for the you know,they were killed for being on the wrong
side of the track or whatever.But yes, I know what you're saying.
I agree with you there. Soanyway, the eyes are especially important
in this context, as it wasuniversally believed that the seat of the soul
was in the ice. Again,another strategy was for the executioner. This
is like, I think, adouble whammy and double protection layer. Here
(08:48):
the executioner wore a mask so toavoid recognition, So I don't I don't
want the condemned see in me,but I don't want anybody else see in
me either. The classical executioners costumein the past and I'm sure y'all cannot
sub conjure in your head is wherehe's got a hood and he's fully covered
his face. The executioners had moreearthly reasons to hide again, like we
(09:11):
were saying, because mostly they fearedrevenge from the condemns, relatives and followers.
Their disguise also protected them from thesocial stigma attached to the job at
hand. And as we were referringto our other episode, the executioners song,
Yeah, he told no one,including his wife, that he was
an executioner. He hid that secretfrom his family and friends because of the
(09:35):
stigma for I think what was likeforty plus years or something. But anyway,
so back to our regular executioners.So as for the person facing execution,
the blindfold does really little to howit actually causes spatial disorientation and may
increase the fear of a suddenly invisibledanger. Now from the executioner's point of
(09:56):
view, Primarily, the blindfold howprevent the condemned from flinching. By not
seeing the squad, the individual isless likely to move suddenly, and this
is important as accurate shots to theheart are important in assuring a quick and
relatively painless death, and sort ofto this fact, the Nazis would recommend
(10:18):
that the person being executed would faceaway from the shooter or shooters, as
they found the soldiers were losing theirmorale killing people over and over while looking
at them in the eye. Canyou imagine so facing away helped improve their
productivity, so to speak, andturn the soldier into a more capable killing
machine. They also do comment onwhen there is a firing squad that there
(10:43):
is usually only one person that hasleft out bullet, so there is still
an idea in each man on thesquad that possibly he had nothing to do
with it. So there's a lotof psychology going on here. So regarding
how the idea of painless, JohnW. Deering allowed an electrocardiogram recording of
(11:05):
the effective gunshot wounds on his heartduring his nineteen thirty eight execution by firing
squad, I find that kind offorward thinking and interesting. And afterwards his
body was donated to the University ofUtah School of Medicine at his request.
Crazy Hunt. So y'all may allknow by now how Kim and I feel
about the death penalty, and Ifeel that those who lean towards the death
(11:28):
penalty. Want to see justice now? Wikipedia defines justice as in its broadest
sense, is the principle that peoplereceive that which they deserve, with the
interpretation of what then constitutes deserving beingimpacted upon numerous feels, with many differing
viewpoints and perspectives, including the conceptsof moral correctness based on ethics, rationality,
(11:54):
law, religion, equity, andfairness. At his core, I
see it as a very primal urgethat vengeance and justice go hand in hand.
So much goes into the process ofdeath and our emotions connected to it,
from the murder itself to crying outfor justice, to the point of
fulfillment of the sentence, whatever itmay be. I totally agree with Kim's
(12:16):
fiscal reasonings that it costs more tohouse the prisoner on death row, and
then also the obvious reasons of whatif the person was wrongly convicted. This
brings us back to a whole conceptof justice. Do you want to see
the lights go out of the condemnedeyes or would you rather just be a
little detached. I don't know howI would feel, Kim, What do
you think? Well, yeah,I'm not a death penalty proponent, so
(12:41):
I mean, if you're going toexecute somebody, the quicker way is the
best way. The one that putsthem out fastest is by far the best
way. And as we know,sometimes lethal injection and electrocution don't work right
away. We've had instances where ittook twenty to thirty minutes to lecturecute someone
to death, and to me,that's cruel and unusual punishment. So you
(13:05):
know, the only problem with puttingeverybody in life without parole is building more
prisons. But right, yeah,I just really don't think I could,
like I've said before, give someonethe death penalty. I'd rather they spent
the rest of their days in asmall cell just thinking about what they did
and how they wouldn't be there ifthey hadn't done it. Yeah, but
(13:30):
I agree with you. I doagree with you on the financial side.
But from an emotional side, Iwant justice. You know, maybe I'm
more by nature. I think I'mmore vengeful because I'm a scorpio. Sorry,
but it's just true. And soyeah, I would want to go,
I would go and watch. Imight feel completely different if I had
(13:52):
a family member who was murdered andthat was their murderer. I don't know,
because that hasn't happened to me,right, I don't know how I
would feel, you know, soright right, I'm sure there's a lot
of conflicted feelings, a lot ofconflicted emotions and everything. But like I
say, as I as I starteddown this road, it was more about
(14:13):
them bringing them the firing squads backbecause of just getting through it, you
know, getting through the death penaltyand finally delivering their sentence, which you
know obviously they've been sidestepping it.I mean, who wouldn't if you were
the prisoner. That's that's when Istarted to think about, well, you
know, would you really go andwatch this? And what about the people
(14:37):
that were really having to face toface this. I mean, there's there's
so much too taking someone's life.I mean, I couldn't put down an
animal without looking at it and takingaway that the eyes. It really comes
down to looking into the soul,which I feel is the eyes. But
anyway, that's my little bit ofinterest here. Well, I do think
(14:58):
it's interesting. It's actually pro alot less expensive. I don't know if
it is or not. That I'mjust guessing that it's less expensive than lethal
injection. I don't think it's actuallythe process that may or may not be
noteworthy for expense. I think theexpense is where you said before, is
how long do they stay on deathrow? How long can they appeal?
(15:20):
How many times do they go throughthis around and around and cost the taxpayers
money? Money? Money? Youknow? Well that's what I was getting
to. Well, I totally agreewith you there, So there's really like
you know, which is really cheaper. The execution itself is actually such a
tiny amount of any right. AndI hate to bring it down to money
because it's not it's human lives andit's you know, this may be an
(15:43):
awful, horrible person, but dowe have the right to take their life?
Because I don't want to be politicalor anything like that, just my
question is do we have the rightto take someone's life roof? Should we
leave that up to a higher power? You know, if you believe in
a higher power. I do believein a higher power. I also think
I'm probably a whole lot less elevatedthan most people want to hope, and
(16:06):
I would like to see someone begiven the equally what they did to someone
else. That's why this has beensuch a hot debate. For decades because
nobody really can agree on it becauseit's such a difficult and sensitive and emotional
subject. Right, Well, that'swhat I was saying before. I feel
like it's a very primal thing.You know. We want vengeance, we
(16:29):
want justice, And what justice isto us is you took from me,
I'm taken from you. That's sovery basic. Not that it means it's
right or wrong. It just ishow many people still feel. Well now,
I'm not saying that I don't thinkthey deserve something, and you know,
justice to me would be them gettingexactly what they give. Those who
(16:49):
torture, those who rape, thosewho molest children should get back in kind,
right right in my idea, Idon't mean, I don't mean not
executing him should mean they just havea happy life. We know, I
think we all know what you mean, and it is it is a hard
decision in the big picture. Itis, I mean, some people are
(17:10):
real black and white and other peopleare very gray. And I think and
at the end of the day,most people are very gray. And that's
why there hasn't been a definite decisionmade on this, you know. Anyway,
So if y'all want to let usknow you what you think I mean.
We're loving to hear from you aboutany old subject. And again,
Kim has set up the most wonderfulsite for us. It's Kadzookillers dot com
(17:36):
where you can leave us thoughts andcomments and anything you want to and also
don't forget to catch us on ourTuesdays where we have a longer episode with
another great stories for you, andthen on our Sisters show to Chicks in
a Crucifix, which is much morefun and lighthearted because we like to laugh
too. We like to make y'alllaugh. And I think Kim might want
to tell you about our newsletter.Oh yeah, we got a new newsletter
(18:00):
out in a couple of weeks andit's going to be a monthly newsletter.
So if you'd like to sign upfor that, you can go to Kudzu
Killers dot com. It's right thereon the front page of our website and
you can sign up to be onour email list to get our newsletter.
That's all we're going to use youremail for. We're not going to solicit
things. We're not going to sellyour email. We're not like that.
We would hate that if someone didthat to us, So we're not going
(18:21):
to do that. We're simply goingto send you a once a month newsletter,
maybe even once every two months,depending on how productive we are.
And you know, that's all thatemail is going to be used for.
So if you'd like to know what'scoming up on our show, if you'd
like to know a little bit aboutus and what we're up to and maybe
some fellow podcasters who have some greatshows out there, sign up for our
newsletter and we'll send it to youonce a month and you can see what's
(18:44):
up with Kudzue killers. Oh andthere's another thing that Kim wants to tell
you about having nicety with us,right, yeah, I guess so you
can tell it. You can buyit. You can also if you go
to that website, you can buyus. You can go to a website
buy us a coffee, and youcan if you don't want to, you
know, assist in getting Larks somenew headphones, or if you want to,
Lark totally needs new headphones. She'sgot her team cup out y'all.
(19:08):
If you want to, you know, become a part of our production staff
basically by yeah, giving us acouple bucks here and there. It does
cost us to fund up the showout there. We're happy to do it,
we love doing it, but youknow, by iced tea once in
a while or it's not an obligatorything. You can just do it whenever
(19:30):
you feel like it. If youfeel like it's so that's buy me a
coffee dot com, slash cut,Zoo Killers pod or like I said,
you can go to our website andclick on the link right there on the
front page. Yeah, this islark, shameless by mean nice tea,
meant by me headphoneshones. Well,anyway, until we hear from y'all and
(19:51):
until we see you on Monday andteam today, y'all don't bear the bodies
of that by buy y'all. Hi
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