Teaching the Eye Not to See: How Modern Execution Methods Sanitize Cruelty (www.jurist.org)

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This article does not seek a “better” method. Instead, it argues that the law often mistakes sanitization for progress. Modern execution methods do not resolve the issue of cruelty. They only manage its appearance.

As societies experiment with new forms of executing people, the deeper constitutional problem is not only that an execution method may inflict severe pain. It is that the law’s comparative framework can treat cleaner presentation as improvement even when the State has merely repackaged terror, bodily distress, and coercive violence in more technical form.

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[-] Doomsider@lemmy.world 3 points 23 hours ago

"These changes may not erase cruelty, but simply alter how it is performed, narrated, and justified. Modern execution methods do not abolish cruelty. They teach the eye not to see it."

This is wrong. Killing someone is cruel even if you could do it painlessly. It is not justice, it is revenge and produces nothing other than more murderers.

this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026

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