Woolsey: Hang Snowden High

It’s still a capital crime, and I would give him the death sentence, and I would prefer to see him hanged by the neck until he’s dead, rather than merely electrocuted.

— Former CIA director James Woolsey, telling CNN that leaker Edward Snowden should be convicted of treason and given the death penalty in the wake of the terrorist attack on Paris.

Rather than Give Up Capital Punishment, Majority Would Opt for Alternate Methods of Execution

8%


Of respondents in a new NBC News poll suggested hanging as an alternative to lethal injection, while 20% favored the gas chamber, 18% were for the electric chair and 12% for firing squad. One in three said that if lethal injections are no longer viable — because of drug shortages or other problems — executions should be stopped altogether rather than returning to more primitive forms of execution.

Oxymoronic Quest for ‘Humane Execution’ is Moronic

The oxymoronic quest for humane executions only accentuates the absurdity of allowing the death penalty in a civilized society. It’s understandable that Supreme Court Justices have tried to make the process a little more palatable; and there is a meagre kind of progress in moving from the chair to the gurney. But the essential fact about both is that they come with leather straps to restrain a human being so that the state can kill him. No technology can render that process any less grotesque.

— Jeffrey Toobin, writing in the New Yorker.