NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/06/man_too_fat_for_execution/

An American death row inmate claims he's too fat for execution.

With a lawsuit filed in federal court on Friday, the Associated Press reports, attorneys for the 5-feet-7-inch, 267-pound Richard Cooey say the executioner's needle would have trouble finding his veins. And even if it did find his veins, they insist, his heft would lessen the effect of the needle's initial lethal injection drug - an anesthetic meant to dull the pain.

"All of the experts agree if the first drug doesn't work, the execution is going to be excruciating," Cooey's lawyer Kelly Culshaw Schneider told The AP.

The suit says that Cooey is taking medication for migraine headaches. Considering his beefiness, lawyers argue, this medication could neutralize the anesthetic, and that means Cooey would be less than asleep when executioners administer the two other lethal injection drugs - which are actually lethal.

Richard Cooey was sentenced to death for raping and murdering two women in 1986. If he's not too fat, he will face execution on October 14. He was originally scheduled for execution in 2003, when he wasn't as fat, but he received one of those last minute reprieves. ®


Is the a new way of getting off death row? Or will there be forced exercise and dieting so that inmates are healthy enough to die?

Thoughts?

Only in america... *sighs*

He raped and killed two women. Did he care about their suffering? Or that of those who knew them? He doesn't deserve rights. Get rid of him. Don't care how.

We could overfeed him til he dies of morbid obesity. :p

He raped and killed two women. Did he care about their suffering? Or that of those who knew them? He doesn't deserve rights. Get rid of him. Don't care how.

What about if the courts wrong and he didn't rape and kill two women? The problem with the death penalty is unless you can be 100% sure that he did it, then you always have the chance for a misscarriage of justice. At least with life-imprisonment you can still be alive and do some things, even if you have been incarserated wrongly.

Eh? What's prison food like in America? Banquet three times a day?:confused:

Maybe they should administer the drugs in a different way. In the middle of a large pie would seem appropriate for this sicko

He was originally scheduled for execution in 2003, when he wasn't as fat, but he received one of those last minute reprieves.

So he's been planning this all along?

We could overfeed him til he dies of morbid obesity.

Maybe we can get him to be fatter than the fattest guy in the world, that dude down in Mexico.

We could overfeed him til he dies of morbid obesity. :p

Would that be cruel or unusual?

That said, I'm sure there are much worse ways of going.

He raped and killed two women. Did he care about their suffering? Or that of those who knew them? He doesn't deserve rights. Get rid of him. Don't care how.

Translation: "He murdered someone? Let's murder him, because two ultrawrongs make a right!"

Would that be cruel or unusual?

That said, I'm sure there are much worse ways of going.

Cruel? Maybe. Unusual? Not so much. :p

In Ohio, he won't get off death row. Here, in the Buckeye state, if we can't inject you to kill you, we sit you in a nice wooden chair called "Ol' Sparky" and send 2000 volts of electricity through you.

In Ohio, he won't get off death row. Here, in the Buckeye state, if we can't inject you to kill you, we sit you in a nice wooden chair called "Ol' Sparky" and send 2000 volts of electricity through you.

I'm not sure fat is the best conductor of electricity, I could be wrong.

How does he get so fat? Surely a prison can exercise prisoners and provide reasonably healthy diets, helps even an innocent person.

Isn't prison about rehabilitation (well, not death row I guess), they've lost various rights already, the right to be enormously obese should also be taken away.

Cruel? Maybe. Unusual? Not so much. :p

LG, you're the best.

Isn't prison about rehabilitation (well, not death row I guess), they've lost various rights already, the right to be enormously obese should also be taken away.

I disagree. The punishment is death. If he wants to feed his face, so be it. Taking away his right to stuff his pie-hole is an unnecessary add on.

Would that be cruel or unusual?

That said, I'm sure there are much worse ways of going.

I'm not sure fat is the best conductor of electricity, I could be wrong.

How does he get so fat? Surely a prison can exercise prisoners and provide reasonably healthy diets, helps even an innocent person.

Isn't prison about rehabilitation (well, not death row I guess), they've lost various rights already, the right to be enormously obese should also be taken away.

Barringtonia, perhaps I can do a little by way of enlightenment.
High security prisons, such as those that house the death chamber in Ohio are not in place for rehabilitation. They are there for punishment. Studies have shown that 70% of inmates are repeat offenders. Rehabilitation only works for those who are habilitated in the first place. Many inmates know of no other way to live than in prisons. That's the sad truth of it.

Secondly, I'm nearly fifty years of age. I'm 5'8 1/2" tall and weigh 206 lbs. This guy is NOT extremely obese. What you won't hear about or read in the press is that this guy has gone without water for months to make his veins collapse and has a network of well-meaning people sending him boxes and boxes of junk food. He has orchestrated this with a purpose; to try to save his lousy, murdering neck. We in Ohio won't stand for it.

I disagree. The punishment is death. If he wants to feed his face, so be it. Taking away his right to stuff his pie-hole is an unnecessary add on.

Really? For me, the punishment is sitting around for years without nothing to look forward to except death, a reprieve here, a new date there, enough to send one insane.

I partly disagree with the death penalty because it's not so much a punishment in itself, I'd have to check but I think putting someone to death tends to be costlier overall than life imprisonment as well.

Maybe LG is right, maybe the real punishment is letting him get enormously, depressingly obese.

I have large issues with the prison system anyway, it's all built on a lie to satiate desire for revenge and 'justice' rather than a means of maintaining a healthy society. The lie of rehabilitation, cowardly politicians and irresponsible media.

Yet I digress.

Translation: "He murdered someone? Let's murder him, because two ultrawrongs make a right!"

Yea they do, especially if it will decrease the strain the government puts on my wallet. Its so much cheaper to kill the bastards than to keep them in prison.

I agree with barringtonia

This man commited abhorrent acts againt his fellow humans, he deserves to die, regardless of how, if the injection won't work then try a firing squad.

So he's been planning this all along?

It doesn't seem out of the question.

Yea they do, especially if it will decrease the strain the government puts on my wallet. Its so much cheaper to kill the bastards than to keep them in prison.


Not true. Although I am strongly for the death penalty, numerous studies have shown that executing a person proves to be as much as FIVE TIMES more expensive than letting them live forever behind bars.

Our mandatory court appeals process makes it necessary that a MINIMUM of four different appelate jurisdictions (local, county, district, state, perhaps federal) all go through the entire court transcript. This is painstaking and many, many very well paid experts are used over an extensive period to accomplish this......and that's before any Supreme Courts even start.

Secondly, and again you won't read about this in any newspaper; the overwhelming majority of those sentenced to extensive or even life terms do not serve the entire term of their sentences. If we "locked 'em up and threw away the key", I'd be against the death penalty. But, the sad truth is, it just doesn't work that way in the penal justice system.

I hope this helps!

We could overfeed him til he dies of morbid obesity. :p

Seconded! :tongue:

Maybe LG is right, maybe the real punishment is letting him get enormously, depressingly obese.

Seconded! :tongue:

As a secondary benefit, it'll make escape attempts much more difficult. :)

Eh? What's prison food like in America? Banquet three times a day?:confused:

We've been asking that ourselves for a while now.

Eh if you're going to kill him, why not just shoot him in the face?

Murdered and raped two women? What we need to do is make the environmentalists happy, gather up a large number of piranhas from the Amazon, put them in a large tank, and slowly lower him into the tank. Well fed critters makes environmentalists happy, right?

Or perhaps bring back the Firing Line! When executions cost less than $10 for ammunition (including the blanks), everybody wins.

Eh if you're going to kill him, why not just shoot him in the face?

Why not drop him from an airpalane flying over an uninhabited island from 10,000 meters?

If he would survive then let him go free. :)

Eh if you're going to kill him, why not just shoot him in the face?
Because the bleeding heart Liberals say that that isn't humane enough. Shouldn't that be quick? Quicker than hanging, or electrocution?

Murdered and raped two women? What we need to do is make the environmentalists happy, gather up a large number of piranhas from the Amazon, put them in a large tank, and slowly lower him into the tank. Well fed critters makes environmentalists happy, right?

Or perhaps bring back the Firing Line! When executions cost less than $10 for ammunition (including the blanks), everybody wins.
Two states still have the firing squad.

Two states still have the firing squad.
Two states have the right idea, then.
I say all fifty of our states need it. We also need to have a temporary government program to analyze how to reduce the cost of executing criminals.

However, there is an err in the statement that "executing criminals costs five times more than putting them up in prison," it's more like only twice as much because of the average damage done by said criminals to public property, various insurance costs, et cetera.

Because the bleeding heart Liberals say that that isn't humane enough. Shouldn't that be quick? Quicker than hanging, or electrocution?
Aye I don't really get how killing someone can ever really be made humane... obviously "execution by firing napalm down their boxers" isn't really on, but "firing squad" sounds fair enough.

Aye I don't really get how killing someone can ever really be made humane... obviously "execution by firing napalm down their boxers" isn't really on, but "firing squad" sounds fair enough.

Well, I can consider "death by pieing" to be humane:tongue:. Yeah, but I see what you're saying.