
Why does God need public records? In Alabama, that’s a real question - inflatableDodo
https://www.al.com/news/2019/07/why-does-god-need-public-records-in-alabama-thats-a-real-question.html
======
b_tterc_p
Why does the state need to obtain illegal execution drugs?

Let’s say you’re the prison. You’re supposed to execute a prisoner tomorrow.
You don’t have the drugs to do so.

You could either fail to execute the prisoner, or take a fairly large risk and
get illegal methods. Would the prison really lose face if it just said that it
didn’t have the means to carry out the execution and thus did not?

~~~
tokai
Its really expensive to have people sitting on death row?

~~~
b_tterc_p
Shit. Yeah that’s it and is retrospectively obvious. The prisons probably are
responsible for operating under their assigned budgets, which means they need
to literally kill off their liabilities.

I wonder what correlations exist between prison profitability and inmate death
rates.

~~~
rayiner
At least as of 2009, no state housed death row inmates in private prisons:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/us/24prison.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/us/24prison.html).
In Alabama, death row inmates are housed and executed in Holman, a public
facility. Moreover, Alabama has just 1% of its prison population in private
prisons. Many states that have the death penalty (Missouri, Arkansas,
Louisiana, Kansas, etc.) have no private prisons at all.

~~~
b_tterc_p
That’s good, but not contradictory of the point above. A public, not for
profit prison presumably still has to operate on a budget. I did say
“profitability”, but I suppose I really meant ability to operate.

If prisons are held accountable to their finances, which I assume they are,
they’re put into a position where expensive inmates who are budgeted to die
must die, else they threaten the entire prison.

------
caymanjim
> When the DOC deposed her, Isner had to answer deeply personal questions
> about her faith, her social media habits, her adopted children, her
> political beliefs, her charitable donations, her work history and just about
> everything you might imagine apart from the only question that mattered —
> whether the DOC documents are public records.

IANAL but I don't think she "had" to answer these questions. I'm not defending
Alabama at all here, but depositions are not an open forum where anything
goes. She is legally required to answer truthfully, but she doesn't have to
answer at all if the question isn't germane. Maybe she opened the door to some
of the questions by providing a religious basis for her information request,
but most of these questions are completely irrelevant. She should have refused
to play the game.

~~~
inflatableDodo
You do not have to answer, but if you do not, I presume the state, under the
interpretation it has made of the law, can use your refusal as a basis for
refusing your request for public records.

~~~
caymanjim
Declining to answer probably wouldn't have helped her cause, but I doubt
anything she said would have stopped them from refusing. Hopefully now she at
least has evidence of bias or misconduct that will serve as ammunition for her
appeal against the ruling. I just wish she'd taken a stand against their
absurd questions and stood up for the principle.

Then again, I still let the TSA and customs perform intrusive searches and ask
intrusive questions (that have no bearing on safety) when I travel, because I
want to get on with my life. For example, when I return to the US (as a
natural born US citizen), immigration will ask me what the purpose of my trip
was, where I went, etc. They have no legitimate reason for this, I legally
don't have to answer any of the questions, and they cannot refuse me re-entry
(assuming they accept the validity of my passport), yet I play their game
because at the end of a 10-hour flight and a 2-hour queue, I don't feel like
sitting in a cell for 72 hours while they process me.

~~~
cannonedhamster
The purpose of your trip is actually valid. It can trigger certain customs
limitations on monetary value that you can legally return to the country with.
It's obtuse, but it's a valid question. It's also important to note that you
have zero civil liberties, even as a citizen, within 100 miles of a border to
the United States, of which an airport has been considered I've in some cases.

TSA security theatre on the other hand is a whole different ball of wax. Very
little of what they do contributes more to security than prior measures or
alternative, less intrusive measures. The fact that programs where you can pay
to avoid it exist prove this point. They already have the same level of access
to every person thorough the dragnet of law enforcement and intelligence
databases that every single air traveler gets processed through. When it's
trivially easy to spot numerous gaps in security in every single airport I've
been to, it's more a statement to the fact that most people are good than it
is to the fact that we're good at catching bad guys. An airport just needs to
be a less viable target and bad guys will go elsewhere that's easier.

------
gregoryexe
"In 2015, the federal government seized drugs the state bought illegally off
the black market. The shoddy, shady sources for the deadly cocktails have
become a weak spot death penalty opponents have leveraged."

wat?

~~~
Griffinsauce
Murdering people legally is hard. It's a good indication that it _should_ be
impossible.

~~~
javajosh
I say this as an opponent of the death penalty, there is nothing intrinsically
difficult about killing someone, and I would guess that the ways a person can
_legally_ be killed have grown smaller and smaller over time by opponents of
the practice. This is identical to the strategy used by anti-abortion
advocates who chip away at access and timing and so on, and it's ethically
questionable IMO.

~~~
roywiggins
There's absolutely nothing stopping states from reinstituting the firing
squad: [https://www.npr.org/2018/11/05/664548834/tennessee-death-
row...](https://www.npr.org/2018/11/05/664548834/tennessee-death-row-inmates-
request-death-by-firing-squad)

The reason why states can't source drugs to use them for killing is because,
surprise, the corporations that manufacture them refuse to sell them for that
purpose.

~~~
pmiller2
The corporations refuse because they’re afraid of the PR backlash. Let’s not
hide the fact that it’s all about money.

~~~
nulbyte
Fair enough, but that doesn't negate their refusal to sell them for that
purpose. They refuse to sell them for that purpose because they know the state
will pay far less than they would otherwise lose from public scrutiny. I'm
okay with that.

~~~
pmiller2
It doesn’t negate it, but it does taint it. You know that if they thought the
calculation would come out the other way and they’d make money, they’d be
actively soliciting prisons to buy their drugs for executions.

------
jameskilton
Regarding illegal execution drugs, John Oliver did a segment on lethal
injections:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lTczPEG8iI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lTczPEG8iI)

tl;dw: No physician worth his/her salt will go anywhere near prescribing drugs
for lethal injection (Hippocratic Oath and what not) so states and prisons use
non-medical-trained personnel to choose, source, and administer the drugs.

~~~
FireBeyond
It's a bit more nuanced than that. For one, look at Oregon, and many other
countries where euthanasia/assisted suicide is legal, and (I believe) has a
legitimate and worthwhile place. As far as Oaths go, many physicians do not
swear that any more, or do a modified / modern version (apropos of anything
else, the Oath forbids "cutting the flesh", which would be problematic for
surgeons).

~~~
pmiller2
That is true, but “first, do no harm” is still a part of many versions of the
oath taken by physicians. In any case, it is still one of the, at times
conflicting, principles at the core of medical ethics.

------
mherdeg
This is a remarkable deposition transcript. Attorney Harmon comes off as quite
a character.

------
gchamonlive
Honest question. How religious people in these states reconcile these two
contrasting ideas, the first one being believing in the bible and thus in the
10 Commandments, and the second being allowing people to be executed under
their administration?

~~~
deogeo
The 10 Commandments are Old Testament, which the New Testament supersedes, no?
Same logic as how stoning of adulterers got canceled.

~~~
koenigdavidmj
Even those who believe this acknowledge that many of the commandments are
repeated, either in word or in idea, in the New Testament. Debates continue
today about whether an image of Jesus is an idol, or whether the Sabbath
commandment is repeated in any fashion, but "thou shalt not kill" is directly
restated in the text, and emphasis added on heart motive as well. (In other
words, Jesus calls people out who use harsh words but don't stab people as
violators of the commandment.)

In any case, the word means murder, not any killing. This is plainly true in
that soldiers are not immediately called to abandon their posts.

~~~
deogeo
Sure, but, from a Biblical legalistic point of view, then the appropriate New
Testament passage should be cited.

------
rolltiide
Strategically, why do we need Alabama? Why do we need to tolerate that
theocracy existing under the union anymore?

~~~
frankbreetz
Are you proposing we get rid of Alabama? How would that work?

~~~
rolltiide
Massive sanctions

Primarily withholding of highway funding again

Alabama didn't even get electricity without the feds, theyre very financially
tied up with the feds to masquerade as representative of a developed nation

We can single out Alabama without mentioning Alabama specifically

They’ll get the benefits of being a state after conforming and dissolving
their theocratic government

------
bluGill
I'm not convinced she should get these records. While it is all public, it is
also sensitive so you should have to justify your access.

That is the prisoners in question have some privacy that should be respected.

~~~
mikeash
The state is using illegal drugs, administered without the care or advice of a
doctor, to kill its citizens and you think it should remain secret for the
sake of the privacy of the condemned? I can’t even.

~~~
bluGill
The article is confusing, from what I can gather she is interested in praying
for those about to be executed and wants their name.

There is lots of other text about drugs and such in their, but it doesn't seem
to be the subject of her request. Instead I read it as a side discussion.
Worth investigating - and thus worth the records, but the forms would be
filled out differently if so.

~~~
inflatableDodo
> _When Isner asked for Alabama’s death row execution protocols, she had to
> give a reason on the Department of Corrections’ public information request
> form._

> _Isner has strong opinions about the death penalty (like a lot of people
> do). She’s an ordained minister, although she doesn’t lead a church (her
> husband does, though). Later she would run for Congress against Rep. Martha
> Roby (Isner lost)._

> _When she filled out the form she said what a lot of politicians and
> preachers say when confronted with a prickly question: She wanted to pray on
> it._

> _Next to “Proposed Use of Records” she wrote: “As a member of the clergy, I
> feel a spiritual obligation to pray over executions. To do this most
> effectively, I need to have a detailed understanding of how executions are
> carried out.”_

Can you indicate which bit of this is confusing to you?

And did you just conjour up the bit about her wanting their names, entirely
from whole cloth? As it is nowhere is the text.

