The Morality of Capital Punishment

Hanna Riley made her opinion visible on her article titled: Alabama Likely To Botch The Execution Of An Already Dying Man on the Huffington Post. She states that the death penalty fails to pass the test of constitutionality and logic. The man she bases her opinion on is Doyle Lee Hamm and was sentenced to death by lethal injection on February 22, 2018. The article is well constructed because every time she makes a point, she backs it up with factual evidence. I believe anyone can read this and in the end agree with her somewhat. In the beginning she gives the reader the medical condition of Hamm and her supporting evidence hyperlinked with it. She then goes on to talk about how unusual Hamm’s case is because even though he’s already dying of cranial and lymphatic cancer, he’s still being executed. With factual evidence she also states that because he’s terminally, ill it’ll be hard to find a vain to put the lethal injection in which will result in a “gruesome” death with “unnecessary pain”. This will cause his veins to rupture and to make for a disturbing and disastrous result. She uses factual evidence to support that lethal injections are a dangerous procedure to take as a form of execution because she compares Hamm’s case with previous botched executions using that same technique. She mentions the botched executions of Alva Campbell, Angel Diaz, and Clayton Lockett’s where they take more than 30 minutes to be pronounced dead. Death from a lethal injection usually occurs within 7 minutes but not being able to find a sustainable vein and instead injecting it into tissue, can result in a gruesome and painful death. Riley then provides a medical observation made before Hamm’s execution. It said that the only usable vein could even burst if the attempt were to happen. After writing about the potential dangerous of using a lethal injection, she then supports her opinion, about the death penalty being unconstitutional, with political implications. Riley mentions the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution-which indicates that we as humans have the right to “a life free of cruel and unusual punishment.” Riley also mentions that the Supreme Court has protected prisoners medical needs; in Estelle v. Gamble the court ruled, "ignoring serious medical needs of prisoners unconstitutional." With those two political implications, she showed that the system had failed Hamm. In her conclusion, Riley addresses that her point will always be debatable because people believe in the importance of retribution. I agree with her somewhat because I have my opinions about it as well. She structured it well because she put the disturbing and upsetting points in the beginning and her opinion at the end. She made her opinion look less important than the facts. Note that she works at the Southern Center for the Human Rights in Atlanta and has no relationship whatsoever with Doyle Lee Hamm or his legal team.

Overnight Government Shutdown

This is the second time the U.S. government shuts down the government. The first was for a strategy on immigration and now it was more of an “aimless drift” according to Time's What to Know About the Overnight Government Shutdown article. The goal of the shutdown this time was to seal a deal for “Dreamers” because their protection from deportation expired in March. This was a battle between the Democrats and the Republicans and instead of coming to an accord on that, the idea of shutting the government is what closed the deal. During the government shut down, a two-year $400 billion agreement is the only thing that senate leaders offered to support both parties. As you can see, the goal to help the “Dreamers” is nowhere in that bill. So, was the government shut down helpful?
This is worth reading because it educates readers on what happened during the government shutdown and tells us if it was worth it.