# Question about death sentence in usa : why not applying it right after the sentence?



## Noctosphere (Sep 21, 2018)

Because from what i heard a couple of weeks ago, there are tons of criminal sentenced to death still in USAs prisons
Why dont they kill them right after the sentence?
I heard about the lack of that lethal product
But what about a bullet in the head like in old time? It would be painless, so it wont be against his rights, no?

Also, what the hell is in that lethal product that make it so hard to produce?
Seriously? Enlight me please


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## friz2000 (Sep 21, 2018)

I'm not an expert on this, but I believe there's a large delay between the sentencing and carrying out the sentence due to legal reasons. For example, the defendant has the ability to make an appeal. That can take up to years with how slow our courts are...


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## Noctosphere (Sep 21, 2018)

friz2000 said:


> I'm not an expert on this, but I believe there's a large delay between the sentencing and carrying out the sentence due to legal reasons. For example, the defendant has the ability to make an appeal. That can take up to years with how slow our courts are...


I see
Well, we have the Jordan law here in Canada about delay in court
If the prosecution is too slow to start, charges drop
Lot of guy accused of murder got away because of that

Its pure stupidity


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## Tigran (Sep 21, 2018)

Well one of the problems in the US is... Our system sucks donkey ass. 

People who were found guilty of crimes, but have evidence that they are not, even enough to go to a new trial, has to have it approved by a judge. So the judges often take time, and then we have problems with the fact that said re-trial requests are often sent to the same judge that actually tried the cases the first time, so they tend to reject it, even if valid evidence is found, and then 20 years later, they finally get free because the last appeal finally finds a judge to even show that it's the wrong person all together.

Basicly, the US justice system is fucked up.


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## Noctosphere (Sep 21, 2018)

Just checked, apparently, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is still imprisonned
5 years after the bombing and 3 years after being sentenced to death


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## Taleweaver (Sep 21, 2018)

Noctosphere said:


> I heard about the lack of that lethal product
> But what about a bullet in the head like in old time? It would be painless, so it wont be against his rights, no?


I'm no expert by any means, but I suspect these two things are related.

Basically: it's illegal to kill anyone. The death sentence is one of the few exceptions, but what happens if an innocent man/woman is executed? That would make the executioner a murderer. No matter how slim the chances, nobody wants to have THAT happening. I guess that's the reason, because I've read that that product is produced/distributed in such a way that the makers of the product don't know (for certain) that it's going to be used in a death row execution.

A bullet to the head would spell catastrophe with anyone who has any views of ethics ("hey...that blonde guy is a criminal...does that mean I'm in my right to shoot him as well?"). And it's only until there's one screw-up that there'll be a major scandal. The relatives of the criminal have rights as well. They shouldn't be put up with the image of their (former) friend or family get shot like a dog.


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## FAST6191 (Sep 21, 2018)

Noctosphere said:


> 5 years after the bombing and 3 years after being sentenced to death



As was mentioned it is to allow time for the appeals (which are automatically lodged when the sentence is passed). Killing a person is kind of final, can't really take it back and try to make amends if the prosecution was in error (which also includes not being able to demonstrate sufficiently well in a legal sense), if the evidence they used is unsound (there are multiple forensic techniques that have since been disavowed) or there is better evidence found or able to be analysed.
The general concept underpinning law in most places is "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" and to have an innocent person suffer death would not be a thing you as a society want.
Looking at it https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence?page=6 says 163 people exonerated since the 1970s out of 1481 https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/views-executions people executed in a similar timeframe, and this includes people to this very day and convicting in recent times (that is a little under 10% failure rate to achieve a solid enough conviction).



Noctosphere said:


> I see
> Well, we have the Jordan law here in Canada about delay in court
> If the prosecution is too slow to start, charges drop
> Lot of guy accused of murder got away because of that
> ...


Most places you would want to live have something similar, and consider it a human right. In the US it would be "right to a speedy trial". It stops you from being held in limbo if you are charged, or the prosecutors delaying a case to keep you in prison despite them not having enough evidence to get a conviction.

To that end it is anything but stupidity from where I (and most people concerned with human rights) sit.


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