The state of Missouri on Tuesday executed Brian Dorsey for the 2006 murders of his cousin, Sarah Bonnie, and her husband, Benjamin Bonnie, after an effort to have his life spared failed in recent days.
Dorsey’s time of death was recorded as 6:11 p.m, the Missouri Department of Corrections said in a news release. The method of execution was lethal injection, Karen Pojmann, a spokesperson for the department, said at a news conference, adding it “went smoothly, no problems.”
The execution of Dorsey, 52, occurred hours after the US Supreme Court declined to intervene and about a day after Missouri’s Republican governor denied clemency, rejecting the inmate’s petition – backed by more than 70 correctional officers and others – for a commutation of his sentence to life in prison.
Dorsey and his attorneys cited his remorse, his rehabilitation while behind bars and his representation at trial by attorneys who allegedly had a “financial conflict of interest” as reasons he should not be put to death. But those arguments were insufficient to convince Gov. Mike Parson, who said in a statement carrying out Dorsey’s sentence “would deliver justice and provide closure.”
Those are all valid concerns but still not “the most brutal method of execution the US has ever employed” IMO. That’s what I take issue with. If you look at edge cases for hanging, firing squad, electric chair etc. you’ll find far more brutal executions due to complications.
For most people it’s a quick death. If nitrogen or helium asphyxiation wasn’t available, I’d go for lethal injection.
Lethal injection gets botched badly enough that people notice it 7% of the time, the highest of any execution method. And again, those are the botchings we know about, because the method is designed to hide its failures. We have evidence (which I’ve already cited) that this may happen up to 40% of the time. In contrast, the next highest rate of botchings is gassing with 5%. I stand by my statement (which was hedged). Between how awful the botched deaths might be and the sheer number of them relative to how many are performed, it could well be the most brutal method.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/botched-executions
I think that’s the real issue here. We will not ever know the severity unless they stop administering the paralytic.
I’m not sure why something like a simple barbiturate overdose isn’t enough for these people. The cruelty seems to be part of the point, as if knowing the specific date and time of your death isn’t cruel enough.