On the killing of killers

Nothing in my objections to this execution in particular have anything to do with Wood or his particularly nasty crimes. The questions of (a) is killing killers just and (b) is it administered justly (i.e., are those who deserve this punishment actually the ones being so punished) are a different debate to have.

For me, the bottom line is that if states are having to keep secret their magical formulae and purchasing practices for drugs to execute prisoners, because the companies involved don't want it known — that should say something, should it not?  The state should be keeping secrets only for a compelling reason: personal privacy, national security, that kind of thing.  Not because it's more convenient to keep it secret. Especially when they're doing it wrong, and leaving people dangling along the path to death for two hours (reducing us to debates over whether he was "snoring" or "snorting and gasping for breath").

'One thing I object to is that this has been called a "botched" execution. It actually was not. This wasn't Clayton Lockett, who died in agony in Oklahoma after the death squad blew out the vein through which he was supposed to be poisoned. This time, the procedure worked the way it was supposed to work. Only the mystery drugs didn't, C'est la guerre, to paraphrase Jan Brewer, who intends to continue her secret medical experimentation on death-row inmates, because this is America, where we are nothing if not just.'

Amen.