Defense for Suspect in U. Idaho Murders Tries to Take Death Penalty Off the Table
“means of lethal injection or a gunshot as conceived of by the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) would violate his right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment”
If he is found guilty, and he should be, the death penalty should be an option. Four students were murdered in a horrific fashion.
FOX News reports:
Bryan Kohberger’s defense team opposes death penalty: ‘Cruel and unusual’
Bryan Kohberger’s defense team is opposing the death penalty for the quadruple Idaho murder suspect on multiple grounds.
Kohberger, 29, is charged with four counts of murder and burglary after he allegedly killed Xana Kernodle, 20; Ethan Chapin, 20; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; and Madison Mogen, 21, on Nov. 13, 2022.
Among Kohberger’s defense attorneys’ arguments against the death penalty are their claims that “Idaho has no viable method for killing” in a capital punishment case, the state’s method for obtaining a death penalty punishment is “unconstitutional,” a capital murder case cannot be prepared in 10 months, and the death penalty violates the “prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.”
Executing Kohberger “by means of lethal injection or a gunshot as conceived of by the Idaho Department of Corrections (IDOC) would violate his right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment and his right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” his attorneys wrote.
They also argue that death by firing squad, which is the second legal execution method in Idaho after lethal injection, “is not and was never constitutional.”
In other documents filed Thursday, Kohberger’s defense states that “punishment which does not comport with the evolving standards of a modern, civilized society is cruel and unusual.”
“The vast majority of modern, civilized society has already abolished capital punishment because the execution of human beings by governments is recognized to be a violation of the dignity and spirit of human beings,” his attorneys wrote. “The institutional killing of civilian prisoners affronts the modern, civilized world. The United States has been routinely condemned by the international community for continuing to execute its own people.”
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Comments
The Supreme Court has repeatedly and emphatically rejected this argument.
And the countries that have abolished capital punishment are hardly “modern” or “civilized”. On the contrary, they are barbaric, refusing to do justice even when there is nothing preventing it. We do not look to them for our values.
The Bible, the ultimate source of right and wrong, says that murder corrupts the earth, and that the earth cannot be forgiven for the blood that was spilled on it, except by the spiller’s blood.
The death of the murderer is supposed to be the punishment not solitary confinement for years or even decades followed by death.
I would be able to agree with you if we didn’t place the barbaric practice of decades of solitary prior to execution which I think does rise to the level of cruel and unusual.
I know nothing you said contradicts what my concern is but why can’t they just be housed in general population while awaiting their execution?
I agree with you, but I suppose the reason is that they have nothing to lose and therefore are more of a risk for violence.
I am glad we could agree. Wardens have more than enough authority over prisoners to coerce them into better behavior, but overall I think we could agree that it should be death penalty without a period of torture first.
<blockquote.And the countries that have abolished capital punishment are hardly “modern” or “civilized”. On the contrary, they are barbaric, refusing to do justice even when there is nothing preventing it. We do not look to them for our values.
Three 20th century coupsters/putschists were “mercifully” not executed, but imprisoned and later released from prison. I refer to Adolf Hitler, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez. The world would have been much better off if those three had been executed.
It has to be cruel AND unusual, not cruel OR unusual.
Executions in this day and age are certainly unusual… but in this killer’s case, cruel is off the table.
The argument that death is cruel and unusual punishment for murder is absurd.
They would be on much firmer ground however if they argued against solitary confinement on death row.
Considering most murderers end up in gen pop I really don’t see why we can’t put murderers given the death penalty over to general population and stop torturing them while they await their sentence.
The death penalty was established for just this kind of cold blooded killer. He is a menace to the community.