Cruel and Unusual: What Happened to Christa Pike

I'm not sure if it's the algorithm or because it's actually national (or international) news, but the failed execution of Christa Pike has been an absolute shitshow. As citizens of the United States, we should feel shame for what the government has inflicted upon her.

I would suggest that as a survivor of a state-sanctioned execution, Christa Pike is now having her constitutional rights violated as guaranteed by the Eighth Amendment: the freedom from cruel and unusual punishments. In this case, Ms. Pike went into a drug-induced sleep with the full expectation that she would not wake up. And now has to suffer the absolute mindfuck of waking up in a hospital.... alive.  I can't comprehend the psychological trauma that she is experiencing and will continue to experience for the rest of her life, not to mention the physiological trauma. 

The state of Tennessee has an obligation to uphold the rights of its residents. And if the state chooses to end the life of someone in its custody, then they should be absolutely sure that the process will have the intended outcome. In this case, the process included an injection of a supposedly lethal dose. And if that didn't work, then the next step is just "do it again." I've watched enough Grey's Anatomy to know that when a procedure doesn't go as planned, the team stops and reassesses before going forward. If the protocol doesn't build that in, that's a flaw in the process, not the people. Any reasonable risk analysis would see the gaps.

As a technologist, we find stability in processes that are repeatable and frequent. That frequency builds confidence that the expected outcome will come to fruition. If we do ten deployments per day, we are more confident that they will be successful than if we did one deployment every six months. Logically, this practice goes for other things too. If you are going to get your knee replaced, you'd go to a doctor that has performed the procedure successfully in the last couple weeks. We don't execute people very often in any state, and we don't seem to be very good at it, and we don't have the means to practice and get any better. So let's just stop. 

Just to make my biases known here: 
  • I oppose the death penalty. I believe Gandalf said it best in The Fellowship of the Ring: 
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.

  • I don't question whether Christa Pike is guilty of the crime for which she was convicted. If there is such a question, then it's not necessarily relevant to this conversation. 




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