OCTOBER 10, 2007 --

LPR has, previously, suggested that denial of
nourishment (DON) replace lethal injection as the accepted form of capital punishment and, thereafter, noted that the United States Supreme Court may rule, this term, on the constitutionality of death by lethal injection.

If the Court rejects lethal injection executions,
this, in LPR's view, would not preclude the DON method. Indeed, this is the method that
concludes performances of Verdi's opera "Aida. The traitor Rhadames is sentenced to death by entombment (and is joined by Aida -- how she got into the tomb to die with her beloved, I do not know).

Here is LPR's suggestion how DON can work. The condemned is given the last meal. Thereupon, the condemned is gets an injection to induce coma, which will be the functional equivalent of "vegetative state." The coma state injection (CSI) is maintained until peaceful demise. And, of course, the "last mile" will be a walk to a secure hospice, not to an execution room.

In view of the Terri Schiavo precedent the DON form of execution can be neither cruel nor unusual.

LPR allows that persons sympathetic to the
American-bashing aims of Iran's president Ahmadinejad might find death by stoning or beheading acceptable.

Persons objecting to capital punishment might consider legislation defining murder as an intentional act committed without reference to right and wrong. Such legislation would replace death row with insanity lane.

For LPR, if hanging was good enough for Saddam.... Hmm, was that really Saddam Hussein who was executed?