The Science and Economics of Legal Murder

Poor Texas. Here in Texas we like to kill our convicts. We kill them with the greatest frequency of any other state in the Union. We kill some of them and then find out afterward that the evidence that convicted them was based on bad science or poor information.

Or lies.

Poor Texas. Texas is running out of options in what to include in its cocktail of chemicals to humanely waste our fellow man.

It says so right here in this article in the Austin American-Statesman:

“As Texas prison officials face the likelihood that one of the three drugs used in the nation's busiest execution chamber might no longer be available, they are facing another reality: The cost of executions is skyrocketing as well.”

“A year ago, it cost the Texas Department of Criminal Justice $83.35 to carry out an execution. But since the state was forced to switch from one powerful sedative to another, the cost is now $1,286.86.”

So you see, not only has the price of whacking a convict risen by 15,439% the product used in the whacking, pentobarbital, is most likely going to be taken off the availability list by its manufacturers if it is to be used in executions.

See, if we can’t get the death penalty overturned legally, there are other means including putting pressure on drug companies not to sell its powerful sedatives to corrective institutions.

So now it looks like the sedative of preference will come down to the drug of choice by the convicted former care giver to Michael Jackson. Propofol.

After all, if it can kill the spirit of the King of Pop, it should do just fine against Texas convicts – innocent or guilty.

Personally, I would much prefer it if executions were done in public squares, and the preferred method of execution was a combination of evisceration followed by beheading.

Legalized murder should be horrible in its enactment, and not softened by the humane use of expensive drugs. Because in the end, the result is the same.