House of Eratosthenes

A judge in Ohio says the state’s method of putting prisoners to death is unconstitutional because two of three drugs used in the lethal injection process can cause pain.

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge said Tuesday the state’s lethal injection procedure doesn’t provide the quick and painless death required by Ohio law.

Burge said Ohio must stop allowing a combination of drugs and focus instead on a single, anesthetic drug.

Occasionally, around these parts, we make fun of strutting martinets like this by introducing the possibility of an executive or legislator who desires to repeal the law of gravity. Imposing one’s dictatorial compulsions on technology seems almost as nuts as imposing it over laws of physics…so I’d be interested in this single-drug execution method.

You don’t have to indulge in extravagant delusions to infer this is really all about outlawing executions. It’s a very effective technique. Guillotine, hanging, etc…they’re already out of the question. And yet, I have not read of the lethal injection being evaluated as what it is — a humane alternative to those. Nor have I heard of anyone in a position of authority opining, as they’d surely have done by now if they upheld the public safety as a primary ideal, that with injection facing these various problems we should think about bringing back something else, like something previously banned in favor of injection. Firing squad, hanging, electric chair, gas chamber.

Nope, this isn’t about public safety or justice; it’s about promulgating phony feel-good liberalism.

A little bit of further research substantiates what I suspected right away. This decision wasn’t handed down because of any pain that was actually felt by anyone but because the idea popped into someone’s head that it might happen.

Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge says Ohio must stop using a three-drug combination for executions and focus instead on a single, anesthetic drug. He based his decision on testimony from two anesthesiologists who said the last two drugs administered create the risk that the prisoner will experience pain. [emphasis mine]

The risk is enough to bring down a ruling saying ya gotta stop. Think on the implications of that.

The public safety has been jeopardized for reasons that deal with compassion and humanity. And — something else, because if compassion and humanity defined the primary motive, it would be quite reasonable to hold out for a Pedro Medina incident and then say “well that’s just gross, we can’t have that.” After it happens. Give me something to investigate, as soon as there’s investigating to be done…on that day give me a call. Meanwhile, strap ’em down and shoot ’em up.

That is not what was done here. Judge Burge conjured up some science fiction about a cocktail that hasn’t been invented — which is one objection I have, but let that go for now — and handed down a ruling that all others must be banned, because of a hypothesis. So we have a new “Burge Rule”: If someone somewhere merely suspects you might be inflicting pain, you have to stop, and you let people live whom the law has already determined live at the expense of the public safety and trust.

This is not what you do when you hand down humane rulings. This is what you do when you show an anxiety to do same. Publicly. When you’ve got something to prove. When you want to prove it superlatively. When you’re schmoozing after someone — saying, essentially, “no, wait, that isn’t compassionate enough for you? I can do better.”

This is outside of a judge’s job description. That should be good enough to overturn it. But on top of that, my personal reasons for despising this behavior, in my opinion, make good sense and others should put some thought into adopting those reasons as their own:

I have never had terribly warm fuzzy feelings for people who are in a great big hurry to prove how nice they are. Being nice, insofar as it continues to be an asset that will be helpful to people, is something you can just be. That may not be good enough for someone, but if that’s the case, it says a lot more about them than it does about you.

What of those wretched souls who keep trying and trying and finding more and more creative ways to showcase their niceness? Perhaps, among them, Judge Burge would be the first specimen I’ve met who’s really a nice guy. But I doubt it a lot. In my experience…they’re compensating for something. They have reasons to doubt how nice they are, and are working so hard to fool people into thinking something they themselves know is not true.

And I don’t think that trend will ever be spoiled. Selling the truth is easy. If you have to keep wailing away on it, it usually isn’t truth.

Speaking for myself, I think prioritizing the safety of our women and kids over the painless treatment of those who’ve been convicted of murdering them, in my opinion, would be very, very nice.

Update 6/14//08: Oh my, look what we have here, thanks to the sharp eye of Debbie Schlussel. It’s our good Judge James Burge himself! But shown dispensing his wisdom from behind his desk, from a different camera angle. Now I see where small-tee-tim the Godless Heathen’s comments were coming from (below)…

Explains quite a bit, doesn’t it?

Brings to mind something I said at the beginning of this month:

Twenty-first century American liberalism in a nutshell: That which builds or preserves must, at all costs, be destroyed; that which destroys must, at all costs, be preserved.

I’m just shocked that this judge is some Che/Obama lover. Shocked I say.
- tim | 06/13/2008 @ 15:54

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Our New Burge RuleFriday, June 13th, 2008

Our New Burge Rule
Friday, June 13th, 2008