Chinese Death Mobile

[MA-Caver]

Apparently the Chinese have decided that going through courts and dragging prisoners across their (vast) country is a waste of time to carry out their death penalties. Sooo..http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-06-14-death-van_x.htm. With that in mind... Sheesh.

Could would this happen in our country? Probably not... only time will tell ... say 20 years down the road maybe? Or even, sooner.

I'd personally like to see this discussion stay focused on the method that they're doing it rather the moral implications. If you're against the death penalty (which is your right to choose so) then perhaps this discussion isn't for you. It's the idea of going from town to town to carry out a sentence of death rather than send the condemned to a place of executions and/or build execution locations. Cheaper for them anyway.

Twenty-five years later, in 2004, Zhang met retribution once more, after his conviction for double murder and rape. He was one of the first people put to death in China's new fleet of mobile execution chambers.

The country that executed more than four times as many convicts as the rest of the world combined last year is slowly phasing out public executions by firing squad in favor of lethal injections. Unlike the United States and Singapore, the only two other countries where death is administered by injection, China metes out capital punishment from specially equipped "death vans" that shuttle from town to town.

Makers of the death vans say the vehicles and injections are a civilized alternative to the firing squad, ending the life of the condemned more quickly, clinically and safely. The switch from gunshots to injections is a sign that China "promotes human rights now," says Kang Zhongwen, who designed the Jinguan Automobile death van in which "Devil" Zhang took his final ride.

 

[OUMoose]

I'd personally like to see this discussion stay focused on the method that they're doing it rather the moral implications. If you're against the death penalty (which is your right to choose so) then perhaps this discussion isn't for you. It's the idea of going from town to town to carry out a sentence of death rather than send the condemned to a place of executions and/or build execution locations. Cheaper for them anyway.

I don't see how buying expensive vehicles, paying "physicians", funding transportation, and funding supplies of injection meds is cheaper than a round to the back of the skull behind the building. Moral and criminal implications aside, it really does boggle the mind that this type of activity is not only acceptable, but condoned.

 

[Grenadier]

As far as I am concerned, it's no different than executing someone in San Quentin, etc. Dead is dead, regardless of the location of the execution. If it cuts down on their costs, then so be it. Nobody in public is going to see what goes on in that van, and it's really the same as if someone were executed at one of the execution sites. If they honestly can harvest organs from the condemned individual's dead body in a more timely manner than they would from the firing squad, then at least the condemned individual can make one last contribution to society.

Still, I really doubt that we (the USA) will use this kind of vehicle to create a roving execution site. We execute very few people each year, and the cost of keeping them the lot of them alive throughout the appeals, etc., would probably dwarf the cost of what any of these mobile stations would cost. If I recall correctly, since we generally only send those condemned to die to a certain group of institutions, we really don't have transport those individuals anywhere. China, on the other hand...

Now, that being said, even though I am pro-death penalty for those who truly deserve it, I am *NOT* one to favor Chinese justice. The death penalty should only be used in cases where someone has been proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt, and I would suspect that the Chinese courts have a different idea of that than what I do.

 

[Marginal]

As far as I am concerned, it's no different than executing someone in San Quentin, etc. Dead is dead, regardless of the location of the execution. If it cuts down on their costs, then so be it. Nobody in public is going to see what goes on in that van, and it's really the same as if someone were executed at one of the execution sites. If they honestly can harvest organs from the condemned individual's dead body in a more timely manner than they would from the firing squad, then at least the condemned individual can make one last contribution to society.

What's left salvageable after a lethal injection? The poisions tend to shred any organs they come in contact with.

 

[Shaolinwind]

I'm still not entirely certain why 2 shells to the skull isn't effecient enough. You can do that in your back yard. And honestly.. So what about a missed shot that maimes? Another bullet, we're done.

Apparently the Chinese have decided that going through courts and dragging prisoners across their (vast) country is a waste of time to carry out their death penalties. Sooo..http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-06-14-death-van_x.htm. With that in mind... Sheesh.

Could would this happen in our country? Probably not... only time will tell ... say 20 years down the road maybe? Or even, sooner.

I'd personally like to see this discussion stay focused on the method that they're doing it rather the moral implications. If you're against the death penalty (which is your right to choose so) then perhaps this discussion isn't for you. It's the idea of going from town to town to carry out a sentence of death rather than send the condemned to a place of executions and/or build execution locations. Cheaper for them anyway.

 

[Grenadier]

What's left salvageable after a lethal injection? The poisions tend to shred any organs they come in contact with.

This was based on the claim by Amnesty Intl, in the linked article:

China's critics contend that the transition from firing squads to injections in death vans facilitates an illegal trade in prisoners' organs.
Injections leave the whole body intact and require participation of doctors. Organs can "be extracted in a speedier and more effective way than if the prisoner is shot," says Mark Allison, East Asia researcher at Amnesty International in Hong Kong. "We have gathered strong evidence suggesting the involvement of (Chinese) police, courts and hospitals in the organ trade."

 

[Marginal]

Interesting. Watched a documentary on the guy that was executed then sliced apart in tiny increments for that visible man project. The upshot was, usual US methods tend to ruin most organs so executed prisoners weren't useful for organ transplants.

 

[FearlessFreep]

Well, yeah. *Most* methods of slicing a person into little pieces tend to leave the pieces not very useful

 

[Marginal]

No, his organs were already ruined by the lethal injection. He'd given his body to science, which then proceeded to freeze him and shave layers off of him.

 

[FearlessFreep]

Really, really hard to play it deadpan on the internet : )

 

[Don Roley]

Why do they need a van to do the deed?

I would think that a few guys traveling with a suitcase and ordering a prison or a hospital to let them use a room for the act would be less expensive and give less grist for the foreign press.

 

[hongkongfooey]

Bring back public beheadings. Charge admission to cover the costs of keeping the prisoner locked up.

 

[Shaolinwind]

Bring back public beheadings. Charge admission to cover the costs of keeping the prisoner locked up.

Funny, effective, but barbaric. Well barbaric tends to be hilariously effective anyhow doesn't it?

 

[Shaolinwind]

Why do they need a van to do the deed?

I would think that a few guys traveling with a suitcase and ordering a prison or a hospital to let them use a room for the act would be less expensive and give less grist for the foreign press.

Don't forget how superstitious the Chinese are, even these days. I don't think too many hospitals would want to say "yeah execute someone in this room, and make it snappy we need to move some jaundiced babies in here later."