In April 2014, Clayton Lockett was executed in an extremely brutal manner. He was locked in a dark room, knowing that the press and his loved ones were about to witness his death. Instead of being injected with a serum that would relax his muscles and put him to sleep, Lockett's body reacted negatively and went haywire for 40 minutes. The Oklahoma prison system got what it wanted, in the worst way possible. He died from cardiac arrest due to the stress placed on his body by a lethal injection, not the injection itself. In his essay Death and Justice, Edward Irving Koch attempts to defend capital punishment by arguing that it is necessary, and yet things like this happen. The methods of execution are terrible and should never be used due to their inhumanity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay America has evolved over the ages using various methods of execution, such as burning, hanging, gassing , lethal injections, the electric chair and even shootings. team. None of these methods are perfect and can all be applied incorrectly, creating a scenario similar to what Clayton Lockett had to experience. No human should ever have to endure the unfathomable feeling of what they must have experienced. David Von Drehle said: “Lethal injection was supposed to be a superior alternative to electrocution, gassing or hanging, all of which are known to turn out horribly. But when pharmaceutical companies began refusing to supply their drugs intended for lethal use and stories of botched injections became commonplace, the same legal qualms that had pitted courts against earlier methods were raised over the injections. fatal. America is trying to improve capital punishment, but no real progress is being made. Take for example Joseph Wood. He was by no means a good person, but he didn't deserve to be tied to a chair for 2 hours in immense pain because the executioners simply couldn't kill him. Edward Irving Koch attempts to challenge the “barbaric” nature of capital punishment by recounting it. to find the cure for cancer. Koch says: “Ultimately, we might learn to cure cancer with a simple pill. Unfortunately, that day has not yet arrived. Today we face the choice of letting cancer spread or trying to cure it with available methods, methods that one day will almost certainly be considered barbaric. But to give up and do nothing would be much more barbaric and would certainly delay the discovery of a possible cure” (Koch). Koch tries to connect two completely unrelated topics to make capital punishment more humane. Treatments like radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and ablation/radicalization surgery are done to try to stop the cancer because no other methods are available. Doctors who attempt to stop cancer with the best available methods cannot be considered “barbaric.” There is a difference between having to do something and choosing to do something. Treatments are also things to which the patient consents. The inmate committed a crime that deserves punishment, but does not deserve incomprehensible pain due to experimental formulas or unregulated execution techniques. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized document now from our expert writers. Get..