Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: MillCreek on September 21, 2020, 03:09:38 PM
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https://www.npr.org/2020/09/21/793177589/gasping-for-air-autopsies-reveal-troubling-effects-of-lethal-injection?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR1z97jb6iM99IfiySSkGyhB0fCv8VQo6yFaLZgZdSl3rXC2j01w6yfQO8Q
I know many people care less about the suffering of someone being executed, but if someone is being executed on my behalf as a citizen of the State, I want it to be done quickly and with a minimum of pain and terror. Perhaps lethal injection does not meet that standard.
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Don't know why we ever got away from a bullet to the brain stem.
Instant lights out.
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I don't think lethal injection is necessarily the best choice (as has been discussed here a number of times, massive heroin OD or nitrogen asphyxiation seem like better and cheaper methods), but I notice that the article starts out with the following:
He had received simple instructions: Interpret the levels of an anesthetic in the blood to determine whether the inmates were conscious during their execution.
So the doc is tasked by lawyers opposing the death penalty with determining if the executed prisoners were conscious during their execution, but instead goes down the path of investigating pulmonary edema?
I don't see any additional reference to his initial analysis in the article, which leads me to believe he probably found that they were suitably sedated. If that's the case, even if the prisoner's lungs were laboring and their body was undergoing a process that would be very painful to a conscious person they are not experiencing that suffering through the sedation. Unless he also found that the prisoners weren't properly sedated, this shows that the drug selection was properly constructed to avoid suffering.
If we are supposed to discount the sedation, wouldn't we prosecute surgeons for torturing people? After all, cutting people open is associated with extreme agony ...
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JHC
We can put people to sleep for operations so why the big problem with doing so for an execution?
I've had three operations and each time it was lights out once they did the injection
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JHC
We can put people to sleep for operations so why the big problem with doing so for an execution?
Yeah, I don't get that. In fact people seem to be able to figure out how to painlessly suicide all the time.
To Mike's point, it's because our "civilized" society feels a clean looking death is more important than a quick death.
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Further down in the article, there is much discussion about if the inmates are properly anesthetized such that they do not feel pain. There is legitimate reason to think that in many cases, they are not. Also, the protocol in many states is to also administer a paralytic at the same time, so even if the inmate was not sedated at all and able to feel pain, you cannot tell since the inmate cannot move, speak, or twitch.
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I don't see why we don't treat lethal injection just like a rapid sequence intubation (RSI), a little milk of amnesia (Propofol), some succinylcholine, and then instead of intubating a big ole whopping dose of potassium. It should be over before the Propofol wears off. If the short half life of Propofol is a concern you could follow the rapid action of that with a dose of Ketamine which has a longer half life. My 2 cents worth. I think a sealed environment and replacing the O2 with N2 would still be a good way to go for putting people to sleep forever.
bob
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I don't see why we don't treat lethal injection just like a rapid sequence intubation (RSI), a little milk of amnesia (Propofol), some succinylcholine, and then instead of intubating a big ole whopping dose of potassium. It should be over before the Propofol wears off. If the short half life of Propofol is a concern you could follow the rapid action of that with a dose of Ketamine which has a longer half life. My 2 cents worth. I think a sealed environment and replacing the O2 with N2 would still be a good way to go for putting people to sleep forever.
bob
Give 'em a mild tranquilizer first if they want it. Then a respirator mask; switch it from breathable air to N2 with a silent valve, or one that clicks every 2 seconds whether it does anything or not. Industrial N2 or N2-Argon mix should be fine.
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Further down in the article, there is much discussion about if the inmates are properly anesthetized such that they do not feel pain. There is legitimate reason to think that in many cases, they are not. Also, the protocol in many states is to also administer a paralytic at the same time, so even if the inmate was not sedated at all and able to feel pain, you cannot tell since the inmate cannot move, speak, or twitch.
You are correct, I missed that.
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Rope is cheap and gravity if free.
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Rope is cheap and gravity if free.
Back in the day, the British certainly thought they had perfected the art of hanging and the long-drop method with the drop calculated by weight and careful placement of the noose seemed to work pretty well.
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If we can't just bring back hanging, why not C02 asphyxiation? It's good enough for livestock.
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If we can't just bring back hanging, why not C02 asphyxiation? It's good enough for livestock.
CO2 asphyxiation triggers a suffocation and panic reflex.
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CO2 asphyxiation triggers a suffocation and panic reflex.
I might have that wrong, ask Charby. I was at the Butcher last week, and he was telling me about how they kill hogs. It's a double elevator system, a door opens, hogs go in, get gassed and elevated, door next to that opens, empty. rinse and repeat all day.
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With my livestock I use a scary sharp knife and cut the throat. They lose consciousness in a few seconds, and are brain dead within a minute or two.
But that's messy, and not painless (pain is minimal but not zero). Death hurts though, and part of our problem is a weird insistence that death not hurt.
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IMO, I don't think the death needs to be painless, just that we don't use a method calculated to increase the pain. IMO, quick is more important than painless. That said, we have all brought up ways to do this. It isn't that hard until the lawyers get involved.
The problem here is a bunch of lawyers getting involved who are not interested in a painless, humane death. They are trying to undermine and get rid of the death penalty itself. This is just the method they are using to do it. IMO, it is best not to indulge their crap too much.
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IMO, I don't think the death needs to be painless, just that we don't use a method calculated to increase the pain. IMO, quick is more important than painless. That said, we have all brought up ways to do this. It isn't that hard until the lawyers get involved.
The problem here is a bunch of lawyers getting involved who are not interested in a painless, humane death. They are trying to undermine and get rid of the death penalty itself. This is just the method they are using to do it. IMO, it is best not to indulge their crap too much.
Completely agree with all of this.
The quick and relatively painless death is because we do not wish to engage in cruelty. For our own benefit, not because we're particularly concerned about the feelings of murderers and rapists. (Who also deserve the death penalty, Supreme Court decision be damned.)
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Rope is cheap and gravity if free.
Maybe so but then the lawyers fees become cost prohibitive, thanks #fatbastard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Rupe)
bob
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Maybe so but then the lawyers fees become cost prohibitive, thanks #fatbastard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Rupe)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Ketchum
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Ketchum
Well, the desired outcome was achieved. >:D
bob
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Hmmm... I've wondered if an efficient means of execution wouldn't be just to handcuff the perp, weigh them down, and toss them in the ocean.
Would that be cruel and unusual?
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Hmmm... I've wondered if an efficient means of execution wouldn't be just to handcuff the perp, weigh them down, and toss them in the ocean.
Would that be cruel and unusual?
As a lifelong scuba diver, drowning is way, way down my list as an easy death. No thanks.
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I'm a big proponent of the "big hole" method.
Once the person is duly and properly tried, convicted and sentenced and a basic review and any requisite appeals have been speedily concluded, bring in a big back hoe, dig a deep hole, toss the condemned person into the hole and fill it in. No superfluous steps like actually killing the condemned first needed but parking the backhoe over the filled in hole overnight might be a good idea.
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Well, the desired outcome was achieved. >:D
bob
And I really doubt it was any more traumatic for the condemned than if it had gone properly. Perhaps less, even. Instant loss of cerebral fluid pressure and blood pressure probably brought about unconsciousness faster than breaking the upper cervical spine. It was traumatic for the executioner and the witnesses; that's not a bad thing.
Some things can be too efficient. I think executions are one of those things. But when you kill a rabid animal you don't torture it to death, you dispatch it as humanely as is practical. I think that's a pretty good standard for executions. The guillotine is probably really not that bad, except for the leading up to it part. I still think asphyxiation with an inert gas (not CO2) is better, but maybe that gets back to the "too efficient" thing.
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Relevant John Wayne movie quote, regarding the "too efficient" thing.
Morton : You're going to shoot us, ain't you Chisum?
John Simpson Chisum : I thought about it. Then I thought about something Henry Tunstall once said. He watched a man walk to the gallows... saw him hang. He said it was ghastly. Well, I've seen men hang, and that's the word - ghastly. You two are going to hang.
I don't care what anyone says about the death penalty not being a deterrent. It WOULD be if we still had the ghastly spectacle. Your hardened shithead probably isn't all the worried about being put to sleep like a beloved family dog. Nothing really scary about that.
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I suspect the being humane part is more about those tasked with the decision and responsibility to carry out the execution.
Ghastly might be a better deterrent but what does it do to those on the side of justice?
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(https://bigmemes.funnyjunk.com/pictures/Lego+hanging_80c282_4164064.jpg)
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I suspect the being humane part is more about those tasked with the decision and responsibility to carry out the execution.
Ghastly might be a better deterrent but what does it do to those on the side of justice?
Saw the movie "Pierpoint" about the British hangman. Lead actor thought it would be a great screed against capital punishment. I thought it was the opposite. Not going to sign up to be a hangman. But it was impressive the attention to detail and concern for the condemned but without excusing their crimes.
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I don't care what anyone says about the death penalty not being a deterrent. It WOULD be if we still had the ghastly spectacle. Your hardened shithead probably isn't all the worried about being put to sleep like a beloved family dog. Nothing really scary about that.
I agree.
Bring back public executions.
Execute them in groups. Rapists, murderers, child molesters, people that use their cell phones in the movie theater....
After the violent criminals are executed the encore is those former members of the justice system (judges, prosecutors, police) that were convicted of prosecutorial and/or judicial misconduct in capital cases. Perjury, falsification of evidence, withholding exculpatory evidence... the sort of thing that gets a not guilty person onto death row.
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https://youtu.be/eVQyzHJwThY?t=38
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Hmmm... I've wondered if an efficient means of execution wouldn't be just to handcuff the perp, weigh them down, and toss them in the ocean.
Would that be cruel and unusual?
For serious, real child molestation, I think so. For general capital punishment, no.
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I suspect the being humane part is more about those tasked with the decision and responsibility to carry out the execution.
Ghastly might be a better deterrent but what does it do to those on the side of justice?
True.
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Wait a second...
just infect the condemned with Corona Virus.
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Last year, we had about 16,214 murders in the USA.
We also had 22 executions.
We have already abolished capital punishment in the USA for all practical purposes.
:mad:
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Last year, we had about 16,214 murders in the USA.
We also had 22 executions.
We have already abolished capital punishment in the USA for all practical purposes.
:mad:
And none of those 22 executions were for any of the 16,214 murders last year....or the previous year.
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And none of those 22 executions were for any of the 16,214 murders last year....or the previous year.
Or the previous decade, but more likely two.
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^^^The delay, the lack of deterrence, and the enormous cost of death penalty cases, are all reasons why I would not shed a tear if it was eliminated formally all across the country.
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I've never bought that the death penalty is a deterrent.
It is a punishment.
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I've never bought that the death penalty is a deterrent.
It is a punishment.
Well, yes.
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^^^The delay, the lack of deterrence, and the enormous cost of death penalty cases, are all reasons why I would not shed a tear if it was eliminated formally all across the country.
Our government, unfortunately, is such that I don't trust them at any level to fairly apply the application of capital punishment.
I'm not opposed to capital punishment in principle.
I'm opposed to the corruption in our government that disqualifies it from having that power over it's citizens.
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If we had 10k executions for murder a year, I strongly suspect it would be both a deterrent and a punishment.
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If we had 10k executions for murder a year, I strongly suspect it would be both a deterrent and a punishment.
We'd then also likely be killing 50-100 innocent people a year.
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/Exonerations-in-the-United-States-Map.aspx
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/browse.aspx
As I've said before here, I'm 100% for the death penalty, but only with multiple, independent, absolutely concrete sources of evidence. Or the murderer freely confessing (like in a selfie video with a bodycam during the murder, not "He confessed during interrogation").
Otherwise, things like lying witnesses occur at an appalling rate (see the link above). How many times have we angrily discussed here, some innocent college kid getting railroaded for rape because a girl was mad at him?
Edit: corrected my number estimates.
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That's where holding those guilty of judicial and/or prosecutorial misconduct as well as anyone found guilty of perjury, subject to the same maximum penalty that their intended victim would have received, up to and including the death penalty, might serve to improve the the accuracy of the process.
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I suspect the being humane part is more about those tasked with the decision and responsibility to carry out the execution.
Ghastly might be a better deterrent but what does it do to those on the side of justice?
We managed capital punishment for all of recorded history... I don't honestly know.
That said, I'm for the general concept, but there are concerns. Truely bad guys need to die, but the "justice" system getting it right 100% of the time? Impossible, and I don't trust the same system to get lesser things right.
I'm still all for hanging rapists, murderers, pedos, and those that camp out in the passing lane/don't use turn signals.
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We managed capital punishment for all of recorded history... I don't honestly know.
That said, I'm for the general concept, but there are concerns. Truely bad guys need to die, but the "justice" system getting it right 100% of the time? Impossible, and I don't trust the same system to get lesser things right.
I'm still all for hanging rapists, murderers, pedos, and those that camp out in the passing lane/don't use turn signals.
For all of recorded history we have been murderous savages. The crimes that got the death penalty haven't always been real capital. I support the death penalty too, for those subject to the UCMJ. Different club, different rules. Here at home we get it wrong enough to not do the death penalty. Additionally, much of the evidence that can be used to convict someone is too complex for the lay juror to determine its veracity. So when DNA and other high tech stuff comes in it becomes a battle of who's lab is more corrupt and who can pay for better experts and lawyers.
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We'd then also likely be killing 50-100 innocent people a year.
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/Exonerations-in-the-United-States-Map.aspx
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/browse.aspx
As I've said before here, I'm 100% for the death penalty, but only with multiple, independent, absolutely concrete sources of evidence. Or the murderer freely confessing (like in a selfie video with a bodycam during the murder, not "He confessed during interrogation").
Otherwise, things like lying witnesses occur at an appalling rate (see the link above). How many times have we angrily discussed here, some innocent college kid getting railroaded for rape because a girl was mad at him?
Edit: corrected my number estimates.
I respect that argument. I think it is by far the best argument against the death penalty.
I do not agree with it however.
Punishing criminals is by far the most basic, undeniable function of legitimate government through all history and in every major religious tradition that I am aware of.
Every human action causes harm and death to some individuals- medicine, transportation, policing, electicity generation and so.
The question is not "Will this ever cause a human being to die?" but "is it worth doing despite the fact that it may kill an innocent person?"
For example, I have read that, on average, 390 children die yearly from drowning in swimming pools and spas in the USA.
That is about four times the maximum number of potential innocent deaths you attributed to the death penalty.
I do not think it follows that, because hundreds of children die yearly from drowning in home swimming pools, that home swimming pools should be banned by law.
That is because there a benefits to swimming pools- healthy excessive, fun, and teaching people how to swim, and so on. It is actually possible that home pools decrease drowning deaths be teaching children to swim.
In the same manner, I want you to consider the benefits of killing murderers. Dead murderers can no longer kill guards and other prisoners (which happens a lot in the usa- the murder rate of prisoners in the USA is about 5 per 100k yearly). They can no longer get on parole and murder others. They can't escape and murder others. Their deaths will, in my opinion, deter other potential murderers (at least if the death penalty were swiftly and universally applied to convicted killers). I believe very strongly that a quick, universally applied death penalty would decrease the murder rate. I could be wrong. I don't think so though.
Another benefit of killing murderers is that they are evil people who deserve to die. And it is the most basic function of the state to kill them. It is time for the state to start doing its job and get rid of these people.
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Pb, comparing the application of the death penalty to innocent persons convicted of crimes they did not commit to accidental deaths is a very poor rationale. The two situations are not even remotely similar. You may want to rethink that.
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I might have that wrong, ask Charby. I was at the Butcher last week, and he was telling me about how they kill hogs. It's a double elevator system, a door opens, hogs go in, get gassed and elevated, door next to that opens, empty. rinse and repeat all day.
Different animals have different systems. Most burrowing animals, for example, are better at detecting O2 levels, while humans, who aren't supposed to spend lots of time in restricted tunnels by evolution, only measure CO2 levels in the blood, and don't monitor O2 directly.
CO2 asphyxiation, or better yet include a trace of CO (carbon monoxide), is pretty quick, but still very nasty as others say - people will strive mightily for air until they lose conciousness.
The thing with the elevator might be that because the pigs are all dead by the time the elevator reaches the top, people don't see their reaction during the gassing stage.
I'll note that there are certainly videos out there of pigs reacting violently to being exposed to high CO2 concentrations.
Here's a study that clearly shows that it isn't a "clean" stun(kill), at least much of the time:
https://www.grandin.com/humane/carbon.stun.html
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Pb, comparing the application of the death penalty to innocent persons convicted of crimes they did not commit to accidental deaths is a very poor rationale. The two situations are not even remotely similar. You may want to rethink that.
Nope- the point is that every activity has both costs and benefits- swimming pools and the death penalty are alike in this.
We do activities that are not 100% safe because they have benefits as well as costs.
We should not ban the death penalty using rational "if it saves just one (or a hundred) life, it is worth it!"
Doing so would get rid of the benefits of the death penalty.
If you don't like the pool example, consider this these:
Should be ban guns because of the huge number of innocent people shot, both criminally and accidentally? (If it saves just one life!)
No; that ignores the benefits of gun ownership. Preventing tyranny, crime etc.
Just like the argument that the death penalty should be banned because it cannot be 100% safe ignores the benefit of killing murderers.
Another example that has become very clear lately: should we defund the police because they sometimes accidently kill innocent people?
Lots of people now seem to think so.
I don't... because that would deprive us of the benefits of the police in reducing crime.
Exactly like getting rid of the death penalty for fear of sometimes accidently killing an innocent deprives us of the benefits of killing murderers.
If you think there is no benefit to executing murderers, then nothing I am saying will matter to you.
If you consider that there are benefits to executing killers, then you should consider that perhaps the death penalty should not be eliminated even if it cannot meet the impossible standard of perfection.
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All of what Pb said.
If we want justice done, and the innocent to be spared from suffering, we must have the death penalty.
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Pb, again you are comparing accidental deaths to deliberate killings through the application of the death penalty. Not even remotely similar situations.
To those here in favor of the death penalty, how many executions of innocent people are you willing to accept? At what point do you draw the line and say "x amount is too many, we may need to rethink the death penalty"?
My attitude used to be, "Hang'em high and often!" As I grew older and hopefully somewhat wiser, I came to understand just how often inept or even corrupt justice systems tend to be at all levels. I realized we cannot trust them with imposing the death penalty on anyone because they get it wrong sometimes, occasionally deliberately, and end up executing an innocent.
For me, one execution of an innocent person is too many. "Oops, sorry, we'll do better next time" doesn't cut it when the government screws up and takes an innocent life. If the government could get it right 100% of the time, then I'd gladly go back the "Hang'em high and often!" mindset. But we know that isn't possible.
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Pb, again you are comparing accidental deaths to deliberate killings through the application of the death penalty. Not even remotely similar situations.
To those here in favor of the death penalty, how many executions of innocent people are you willing to accept? At what point do you draw the line and say "x amount is too many, we may need to rethink the death penalty"?
I can't answer for Pb, and I certainly won't answer such an ill-crafted question myself. Making it a numbers game doesn't make sense. It's not about numbers, and if you will only accept 100%, then you're not looking for a number, anyway.
The failure to execute, swiftly, the vast majority of those convicted of capital crimes is part of the corruption. It makes no sense to reform the justice system in a way that denies justice to murder victims. That would be like "reforming" the military so that it no longer guards its naval bases. Or doesn't fuel its aircraft, or whatever simile makes more sense to you.
To put it another way, our court system has a duty to (among many other things) treat each suspect fairly and impartially. It has an equally important (and indeed more foundational) duty to execute murderers. Those are among its duties. It has no excuse for failing on either of those.
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The schism around the death penalty here seems to be at root who still has trust in the system, who still has confidence the system has justice as its primary goal?
The system we currently have is not just, it is arbitrary, is influenced by connections, money and is anything but "blind', it is nakedly political.
The whole legal establishment is a giant lawfare, obfuscation of justice, byzantine bureaucracy money making complex.
Some of us are farther along in realizing just how, I was going to say corrupt, evil the system has become.
Every day we hear how our justice system not only doesn't support justice but in many cases it enacts the very inversion of justice.
It took decades of bad judges getting appointed to get here and I'm not sure how long it will take to undo the damage.
No offense intended to our legal and judicial members here, I'm sure you folks have stories that both support my contention and also offer glimpses of hope.
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I can't answer for Pb, and I certainly won't answer such an ill-crafted question myself. Making it a numbers game doesn't make sense. It's not about numbers, and if you will only accept 100%, then you're not looking for a number, anyway.
The failure to execute, swiftly, the vast majority of those convicted of capital crimes is part of the corruption. It makes no sense to reform the justice system in a way that denies justice to murder victims. That would be like "reforming" the military so that it no longer guards its naval bases. Or doesn't fuel its aircraft, or whatever simile makes more sense to you.
To put it another way, our court system has a duty to (among many other things) treat each suspect fairly and impartially. It has an equally important (and indeed more foundational) duty to execute murderers. Those are among its duties. It has no excuse for failing on either of those.
It's not an ill-crafted question, fistful. You are simply unwilling or unable to answer it. Your complaint about the "failure to execute, swiftly, the vast majority of those convicted of capital crimes" implies you are good with the occasional execution of an innocent person. Apparently, it's part of the price that must be paid for justice. :facepalm:
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IMO, there are two questions that are often combined, but are really separate.
1. Do you think the death penalty is a valid punishment for murder or other serious crime?
That is not a complicated question.
2. Do you think our justice system is faulty and should be improved.
This is also not a complicated question. However, it is not specific to the death penalty. Injustice is a problem no matter what the sentence is.
My issue is I feel there are people who will ban the death penalty because of injustice and then sit back happily thinking they accomplished something and do nothing further. The solution is to try to fix the injustice, not ban only one of the possible penalties.
Also, there are differences in how the 50 states and the federal govt handle capital crimes. This is not something easily fixed.
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We seem to be getting into a binary area of "apply the death penalty liberally" or "don't apply the death penalty at all". There is the middle ground. As I said earlier, I am for the death penalty but under current conditions, believe it should only be applied very carefully. Two simple examples:
1) A nutjob dons his battle rattle, including his Gopro, and runs into a nightclub killing people. Additionally there are security cameras. Additionally there are 100 witnesses. Fry him without delay.
2) Police find a woman's body in an apartment with a knife in it. The knife has the husband's DNA on it. The two of them were in a heated argument over alimony the day before. The husband shouted, so that neighbors could hear, "I should kill you!" Do we fry the husband? Or is the knife left over from when they were living together? Did she cheat on her current boyfriend, who heard about the argument and took precautions when stabbing her with a knife from her kitchen drawer?
In instance #2, a ton of factors could either railroad the husband or else, through diligent work, discover it was the boyfriend. I wouldn't want to be the husband without a solid alibi in a city with a less than diligent police force. Iwould certainly hope, that even unjustly sitting in prison, I might be able to eventually prove my innocence.
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Agreed, in cases where there is absolutely no doubt as the the what and who of the case the death penalty should be applied as expeditiously as possible.
And again, to cut down on the crooked scum in the "justice system" we need a law that those found guilty of trying to railroad a person either through perjury, fabrication of evidence, withholding exculpatory evidence or any judicial or prosecutorial misconduct those guilty of that get the maximum sentence they could have set their victim up for up to an including the death penalty.
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IMO, there are two questions that are often combined, but are really separate.
1. Do you think the death penalty is a valid punishment for murder or other serious crime?
That is not a complicated question.
2. Do you think our justice system is faulty and should be improved.
This is also not a complicated question. However, it is not specific to the death penalty. Injustice is a problem no matter what the sentence is.
My issue is I feel there are people who will ban the death penalty because of injustice and then sit back happily thinking they accomplished something and do nothing further. The solution is to try to fix the injustice, not ban only one of the possible penalties.
Also, there are differences in how the 50 states and the federal govt handle capital crimes. This is not something easily fixed.
This is pretty much what I think. Yes, I believe capital punishment is valid for capital crimes, but only if the justice system were perfect and never convicted innocent people. Since the justice system is not perfect, and likely never will be, in my view capital punishment should be taken off the table.
I wish the system were perfect, as there are absolutely despicable people rightly convicted of heinous crimes that should assisted on their trip to Hades.
I truly believe we have one of the best justice systems in the world. However, it suffers from the incompetence, indifference, or outright corruption of some few people operating within the system. And it will always be this way.
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Agreed, in cases where there is absolutely no doubt as the the what and who of the case the death penalty should be applied as expeditiously as possible.
And again, to cut down on the crooked scum in the "justice system" we need a law that those found guilty of trying to railroad a person either through perjury, fabrication of evidence, withholding exculpatory evidence or any judicial or prosecutorial misconduct those guilty of that get the maximum sentence they could have set their victim up for up to an including the death penalty.
Except that there have been many cases where there was absolutely no doubt about someone's guilt and they were sentenced to life terms without parole for their crimes. Then the "oops moment" occurs, new evidence comes to light and/or prosecutorial misconduct is made known, and suddenly the absolutely guilty person isn't.
An incarcerated person can be released when this happens. A dead person cannot be resurrected after they have been wrongly executed. And we'd probably not even know that someone was wrongly executed. Who would expend the time and effort on a dead person?
I like the idea of going after cops and prosecutors that knowingly engage in misconduct and making them subject to the same sentences of those they wrongly convict. But being realistic, we know this will never happen. The system protects itself.