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March 9, 2025 - Lionel Nation
01:16:31
First F*ring Squad Ex*cution in 15 Years – The Chilling Final Moments of Brad Sigmon
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One of the most fascinating stories and subjects to me is that of capital punishment.
In the world, in the annals of talk radio, it was always considered the...
The death subject.
The kiss of death.
Not being punny, but it would just destroy any chance of anybody listening to anything you said because, frankly, nobody cared.
It never did anything.
Nobody even wanted to listen to what you had to say.
People were so angry, so disgusted, so sick of what these people had done that, frankly, they said, I don't want to hear any of your arguments.
It doesn't matter.
I don't care what they do in other countries.
I don't care what you think the Bible says.
I just don't care about it at all.
Period.
End of discussion.
Well, this week we had what amounts to a firing squad.
First time, I believe, in 15 years.
And a fellow named Brad Sigmund, who was a complete and total nullity.
A waste of time.
Somebody that I don't care about.
In the least, for a moment.
But the subject is, do we, as a Christian nation, as some people say, as a spiritual nation, as a good nation, as a good people, as a sentient, do we in any way lose any of our humanity by advocating this?
Do we?
Do we, my friends?
Or don't we?
Today, On Lionel Nation, we're going to be discussing this in its incredible detail.
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Now my friends, this morning I wanted to let you know we have a wonderful story, a wonderful piece on Mr. Epstein.
It's called Gaslighting America.
The Epstein files release as a sham while you'll never know the truth.
Excuse me.
We'll never know the truth.
And you've been played.
And you know it.
But you know why.
So that's a wonderful piece.
That's been really playing big today on X, as it were.
Big, big, big on X. It was like big, big...
Oh my God, it was so gross.
But before we go on, this is one of the subjects which I love.
I have loved this story forever.
I love the issue because what I want you to do...
And what I want to impart upon you is the love of the debate.
Not what you think, not what you know, not what you think, but the love of the debate.
It's one of the most important issues ever, and why it's important, and why you should pay attention.
And the reason why is simply this.
I love to ask the questions.
It's my nature.
I like to ask things about...
Things I already kind of know the answer to, but I love the debate process of it.
And it's been one of those things which I have loved forever because it's about morality, and it's been one of the things which I have seen for the longest time.
I don't know what the word is.
Basically, one of the greatest examples of inconsistency.
Now, the church, the Catholic church, so that you know, I am a retired Catholic, and I'm not even sure about that.
I honestly, in full disclosure, I've been saying things my whole life because I went to Catholic school, I went to, you know...
But I never really bought into it.
Certain things I don't really understand.
Like these J.D. Vance meme stories.
Maybe that's funny to you.
Maybe I'm missing the point.
I just don't know why that's important.
Anyway, whenever the notion of capital punishment comes, it's very important.
I was in Florida where we were the, oh my god, it was the capital punishment capital of the world.
I mean, we did Ted Bundy.
I will never forget when Ted Bundy was Finally put down like a dog.
There was a place in Florida called Rayford and they also called well it was the death house as it were.
And whenever we had anything there was one kind of small road that people would go on.
They would drive to the prison.
And it was just big enough to hold a hearse.
And this hearse would come, you know, down the road.
And you had people across the street, across from each other, on this little thin road, arguing and complaining.
And you had protesters for, protesters against.
Nobody liked Ted Bundy.
Ted Bundy was in terms, if ever you really want to spend some time Let me just see if I can say this.
I've got to be very, very careful because of algorithms, as you can imagine.
If ever you really want to show or delve into the notion of depravity, find out, if you can, what really happened, what he did.
And if you really want to see depravity, forget what you think about Knowing whatever.
You really have not I say this interestingly enough.
You have not lived until you delve into what people do and you see pictures.
The pictures of it will just wow.
You'll think how did this?
Who thought of this?
I know.
Who were these crazy people who thought of this?
I know.
I mean, are we humans?
Do we share DNA?
I don't know.
Not really sure.
It's one of those things which is just, because if, and I love people who talk about, well, you know, I like CSI.
Really?
Really?
And I remember there was this one, who was it, who, this friend of ours had a daughter, kind of a little bit of a flake, and she said somehow she was into She wanted to be a CSI investigator.
And I looked at her and I said, do you know what this is?
Oh, I find that fascinating.
You know, serial killers.
I said, do you really know what you're talking about?
And she didn't, of course.
So I spent some time.
I don't think they've not talked to us since.
But I've said, well, let me see if I can explain this to you.
Let me see what some of these things.
Let me show you what happens.
And she looked at me with a look of...
This absolute and total contempt.
Ladies and gentlemen, Jenna Ferguson joins us.
Jenna, thank you.
Welcome.
Pilgrim says, homicide listed as cause of death on executions.
Yep, that's right.
Because, of course, it's not cause of death.
It's almost like the type of death.
The cause of death would be electrocution.
But the modality from the acronym NASH Natural accidental suicide homicide would be homicide.
That which is brought by a human being.
Pilgrim also says, I worked at intake when Bundy was put down.
Worked at intake.
What intake?
Where was the intake?
At Florida State Prison intake?
I'd like to know more.
Specifics are important.
One of the best, by the way, one of the best There was a fellow years ago on WFLA where I first got into talk radio in Tampa.
And he was this fellow who just he couldn't wait until Ted Bundy was dispatched.
And I think I don't know when his name was Dick Norman.
Dick Norman was a talk radio host who, one morning, was late.
And he was late, and he worked with a fellow named Bob Lassiter, was, I think, before him.
And the rule of radio used to be always.
You never leave until your relief is there.
You always make sure, I'm going to go, is so-and-so here?
You couldn't leave.
Obviously.
So Lasseter, being the persnickety type at the time, said, where is this Dick Norman?
He's late.
He better have a good excuse.
He better have a good excuse.
Where is Dick Norman?
He backed up.
He would go every morning to a Circle K, get his coffee and newspapers, and he backed up his car.
Something happened.
Something happened.
They had propane tanks in front of...
I don't know why, but they had propane tanks in front of these convenience stores.
Well, now they have these barricades, but apparently they didn't.
And his car backed up.
I don't know what happened.
His accelerator, and it incinerated, caught on fire, and he was killed.
Burned beyond recognition.
SAO intake, 13th.
Ah, 87 to 96. Interesting.
Interesting.
SAO, I used to work.
Let me see.
I was there from 83 to 86. So I was there right before you got there.
And I was in the intake as well, in the misdemeanor intake.
On the fourth floor of the courthouse annex, I don't even know how that even, it may not even be the same configuration.
In any event, I just dropped, by the way, this piece for you to see on our friend Mr. Epstein case.
And how Pam Bondi, by the way, one of our own, is really, really, really suffering.
Because they're coming after her left and right.
And they're suggesting that somehow Pam Bondi is a part of the con.
That she's a part of the...
I don't know what it is.
They think that she's a part of the...
Whatever.
I don't know.
But I go into that.
Just watch this.
It's very interesting.
I'm pretty brutal.
And you're never going to find out anything regarding that.
Ever.
Ever again.
You do know that.
I think you know that.
I hope you know that.
It's never going to happen.
You are never going to find anything regarding that.
But let's talk about this for just a moment.
This wonderful thing about the penalty, the final penalty, which is very, very interesting.
Oh, by the way, to make a long story short, so Dick Norman was sadly burned beyond recognition.
He died.
When Bundy was finally finished, there was a fellow who had a sign.
I'll never forget this.
And he had, he wrote, he says, shock, a con, C-O-N, shock, a con.
Well, last night was, of course, the, you know, I guess he had a new way.
He was not particularly thrilled with how the particular modalities of lethal injection work, so he preferred firing squad.
Remember, the only consideration most people have are for the people watching it.
Bradley Alpin said, Ted Bundy's legal skills delay justice convicted in 1979, executed in 1989 after years of appeals and self-representation.
The representation, by the way, didn't help anything.
I don't think it affected anything.
It's just a slow process.
He was absolutely so bad.
So bad at what he did.
It was a...
I mean, I used to watch every night at the time in Florida.
I guess I was in college at the time.
They had every single night they had Judge, Judge Cowart.
Remember Judge Cowart?
And he says, you would have been a real good man, a good lawyer, partner.
But you went the wrong way.
He called him partner.
He said, you'd be a good man, partner.
I'm talking about Ted Bundy.
Partner.
Partner.
So anyway, this still fascinated me because at the time, and let me just also tell you, you don't know what Ted Bundy did.
It was really bad.
It was really, really, really bad.
So what happens is, you've got to understand this, the January the 7th, yep, yesterday, was the execution by firing squad.
In South Carolina, this fellow, by the way, firing squad, the first such execution in the U.S. in 15 years.
And we'll look into the efficacy, the statistics, the global and U.S. perspectives of constitutionality, societal impact, wrongful executions, religious views.
Especially through the Christian lens.
I think, and I hope it'll be a thorough, provocative, and skeptical piece, asking you to question narratives on all sides.
It's really the great debate.
The capital punishment in the wake of a firing squad yesterday.
And apparently what happened was, and I don't want to go, I can't get too much of it, but he was, of course, strapped to a chair.
They pinned a target over his heart.
And five rifles were deployed.
I think what they do is they always have one of them that has a blank around, so that theoretically the riflemen won't know whether they were, in fact.
But there's no recoil, and they know exactly who it is.
Anyway, it's kind of farcical.
But apparently it's very effective.
It was the first such form since 2010.
It's a spectacle that many think drives us back to the Wild West or Civil War ditch.
It's interesting.
Spillage of sandbags soaking it up.
The question looms, is this justice?
Or are we just feeding a primal itch?
Does anybody care about that?
No.
But assuming for those who do care, it's interesting.
And you're going to be seeing more of this because capital punishment is back, it's in the spotlight, and it's time to tear it apart.
The pros, the cons, the stats, the morality, all of this.
Does it work?
Is it right?
Are we monsters for cheering it on or fools for thinking it fixes anything?
I don't know.
Let's dive in.
Here are the pros.
We've got to look at both sides.
Justice, deterrence, and closure.
Supporters say that the death penalty is the ultimate equalizer.
A life for a life.
By the way, that isn't Jesus' word, but that's the eye for the eye thing.
Don't forget, if everybody goes over an eye for an eye, the whole world becomes blind.
It's a simple, it's biblical in some respects, it's satisfying.
Yesterday's execution of a convicted murderer, a man who chose bullets over a needle, I guess underscores the argument.
Some crimes are so heinous that only this ultimate punishment fits.
Advocates will argue it deters crime.
If you know that...
A method of this is waiting.
Maybe you think twice before you pull the trigger, before you remove or harm a witness.
We never really can tell how much of a determinant it is because of the fact that most people don't call up the police after they've spared somebody's lives and say, by the way...
There is a 7-Eleven or a bodega teller at this place who's alive today because of your death penalty.
I promise you that doesn't work.
Nobody ever considers the penalty really for much of anything.
But that's okay.
Prosecutors love it.
To dangle death and suspects spill confessions faster than a...
A broken dam.
It's a bargaining chip.
It's a way to clear cases without trials.
Then, you know, there's closure.
Victims' families don't just want jail time.
They want the monster gone in many, many cases, if not all cases.
And I understand why.
Yesterday, as those shots rang out, someone out there might have felt a weight lift.
Finally, the nightmare is over, and society, they'll say it's cleansed.
The predator's off the board, no chance of parole, no chance of hurting a guard or whatever.
No risk he'll ever do this harm again.
And the statistics back this up, and directly, since 1976, there have been 1,616 executions in the United States per the Death Penalty Information Center.
And none of those executors have ever re-offended.
And that's a fact.
Recidivism, zero when you are no more.
The firing squad itself?
Brutal maybe, sure, but effective.
Unlike botched lethal injections, think John Grant convulsing in Oklahoma in 2021.
This method's quick.
Five.30 caliber rounds?
Boom, boom, boom.
It's lights out.
That's it.
It's done.
Fast.
South Carolina brought it back in 2021 because drug shortages stalled injections and yesterday proved it works.
No delays, no agonizing gaps.
It's done.
Proponents say it's a practical fix for a system that's gummed up by pharmaceutical cowardice.
And you also get into some other things which are very, very interesting as well.
First, you have a situation in which you have to ask the question.
You see, doctors cannot be a part of this.
First, do no harm.
They are not supposed to be a part of this.
I do believe they are able to check and see whether somebody has expired.
I think that's possible, but I don't think they're other than that.
Another time, believe it or not, which is very interesting, was When you have to find the vein, you found the vein.
It's very difficult because sometimes by virtue of the cold temperature, the room is cold, sometimes there are people who themselves are drug users and it's very difficult to find the vein.
Some people are very nervous.
There was one fellow who...
Who assisted, who helped the technician find the vein because he was so adept at finding his own.
It's very interesting.
Very interesting.
Now the cons, the negative part of it.
Does it even work?
What does it mean?
Does it work?
You might say, of course it works.
Of course it works.
Now of course, let me explain something.
Whenever you do this, In case you're watching this, let me just tell you what's happening.
We have wonderful people who comment in the live chats.
Bring back your nose!
I'll tell you what you do.
Do like they do in the old days.
This is one of the reasons why I've never particularly cared for this.
Baseball bat.
See that?
See?
This shows...
How about a rake?
How about a lap ladder?
Drawing and quartering it.
This is one of the reasons why it bores the shit out of me.
Because it's kind of a tough guy thing.
I tell you what you should do.
Do what they did to the...
Okay, fine.
So we're going to get through that.
And it's fun.
And I'm not going to anyway impede upon you.
Christian Janus in a...
In a currency denomination no one has ever seen or heard of, says Alan Lee Davis, a member of the Florida execution team, was convicted of murder.
That sparked a debate about the effectiveness of the death penalty.
That's a very, very good one.
It is not a deterrent.
Nothing is a deterrent because how do you measure a deterrent?
How do I know?
Is speeding or the police pulling people over a deterrent?
Could very well be.
How do you know?
I don't know how.
Pilgrim Media says, I just realized I may be a pacifist.
Love, not war.
I don't know.
I'll tell you my view at the end of this, but let's just go through it.
Does it deter?
Now, how do you tell?
Well, the statistics say no.
And this is a fact.
The National Research Council's 2020 report shredded any claims of deterrence.
You may not have known this, calling studies fundamentally flawed.
It seems that murder rates don't budge where executions spike.
You see that?
So, the question is, If you employ the death penalty, do murder rates drop?
And if you repeal the death penalty, do they go up?
Right?
Make sense?
No evidence of that.
But who cares about evidence, right?
Murder rates don't budge where executions fight.
Look at the South.
80% of U.S. executions since 1976 80% of the U.S. execution since 1976.
This is the South.
Yet a 2023 murder rate of 7.8 per 100,000 double the Northeast 3.8 where executions are a whisper.
Less than 1%.
How does that even work?
How were there more murders because of...
Texas, with 593 executions since 1977, still clocks 6.6 murders per 100,000.
So if death scared killers straight, shouldn't these numbers drop?
They don't.
And yesterday's firing squad doesn't prove efficacy, it proves we can kill, is what it means.
Efficacy is about outcomes, not optics.
And the outcome is rather murky.
Amnesty International, if you care about that, in 2023, the report notes that countries like Canada, in the post-1976 abolition, saw murder rates halve by 2008.
No death penalty, less crime.
Coincidence?
How does that even work?
Maybe, but it's a pattern.
Globally, 112 countries have ditched capital punishment.
Per 2024 data, and their crime rates aren't soaring.
The 53 that keep it up, like China, Iran, and us, execute thousands yearly.
China's rather opaque, but estimates hit about more than a thousand.
Yet violence festers.
Iran's 853 executions.
In 2023, it didn't stop drug crimes.
And by the way, some of the crimes also might be for things I don't know.
There's things that we consider to be crimes.
This I don't know.
You know, sexual behaviors.
I don't know.
But they just end up filling graves.
In the U.S., 27 states still allow it.
But only 20 can actually pull it off.
Seven, plus the feds and military, are on moratorium.
Now, yesterday's execution was a rarity.
One of maybe 25 in 2024.
Compare that to 320 new death sentences, actually, or annually, I should say, in the mid-90s.
So it's dying out, but not because it's ineffective, because it's messy, it's costly, it's questionable.
And the constitutionality, very, very, very different people.
Raul says, Raul says, I've seen people killed in front of cops.
Yeah, that's interesting.
If that was a deterrent, you certainly wouldn't see that.
But go through this.
What about the constitutionality?
Is it cruel or just?
Absolutely constitutional.
This I can 100% tell you.
Ricardo says, mousetraps are not deterrents, they get rid of mice.
But that's not what it is.
They're not a deterrent because they're not punishing the mice.
You see, it's like having a moat or having a trap door.
If you just want to catch people, you're not trying to deter them from going.
This is a punishment.
It's a different story.
I understand what you're saying.
And I'm not sure if you could have said this, being against the penalty itself.
Brad says, first degree plan, second degree meant manslaughter, cop, manslaughter, oops.
Well, manslaughter or man's laughter, of course, is one of those negligent homicide.
But we go through this, and listen carefully.
The Eighth Amendment bans cruel and unusual punishment.
But the Supreme Court never struck down The death penalty itself.
And they can't because the 5th and 14th Amendment provide that life, liberty, and property may only be removed by due process of law.
So it even speaks to it.
During the initial, being a Scalia originalist, virtually every crime, everything was a death penalty upon our nation's founding.
So they have no problem with that.
They have no problem with that, apparently.
In 1972, in Furman against Georgia, they paused it, citing arbitrary application.
Too much like lynching Justice Stewart, said Potter Stewart.
Remember, Jacobellas, I know it when I see it.
Racial bias was glaring, black defendants, 13% of the population made up 75% of Southern executions in the 1950s.
Now, when this happened, I was on a panel one time, and I said, could it be that 13% of the population...
Could be responsible for 75% of the sentences, of the death penalty sentences, because this 13% committed 75% of the murders.
And it went crazy.
I said, no, no, this is logical.
It's not that I think that, but people get very upset.
Post-1976, after Gregg against Georgia, Green did it again, 34% Of the 1,616 executed were black.
41% of death row is 2,500-ish today.
Now, so, the question is interesting.
What about yesterday's guy?
Unknown race here, but, well, he was a white fella, but the patterns are ugly, so many people think.
Farming squads dodged some cruelty claims.
Lethal injections sometimes are botched.
Midazolam failures in 2014.
Ohio leaving Dennis McGuire writhing sparked losses.
See, you know, torture's not good.
Yesterday's method, incident, yet critics scream it's barbaric.
Well, why is it barbaric?
Sandbags, hoods, a doctor pinning a target.
Sounds like a war crime, not justice.
Well, I mean, after all.
The courts dodged the ruling on firing squads specifically.
But 2022's Nance v.
Ward let inmates challenge methods, which are very good.
Pilgrim says, you want to make people angry?
Bring up IQ stats.
Well, yeah.
Don't forget Ricky Lee Rector.
Remember that one?
This is the fellow that Bill Clinton came back when he was running for president.
He was attorney general.
And Ricky Lee Rector.
Ricky Lee Rector, apparently after he was involved in something, he tried to self-inflict his own demise.
He missed and apparently took out half of whatever and now he has rendered a vegetable.
He was so out of it, so...
As we say in West Tampa, that he was, he actually asked for, oh, they said, for his last meal, they said, Ricky, you forgot your dessert.
He says, I'll eat it after the execution.
I mean, this guy didn't know anything.
Does that make any sense?
Must you be, because remember, there's competence at the time of the commission of the crime.
Competence to stand trial and assist your lawyer, and the competence for the sentence.
Good luck with that one, by the way.
Good luck with that one.
So, South Carolina's law, by the way, stands for now.
Is it constitutional?
Well, technically, yes.
Fair?
I don't know what fair is.
Bloodthirsty society or moral stand?
Are we savages for this?
The execution yesterday, Publicized, debated, could stoke a thirst for blood, some people say.
The ex-post might cheer, you know, good riddance!
But what does that say about us?
Do we care about what that says about us?
Do we care?
No.
I just experienced my mother's do-not-resuscitate death.
It was brutal and horrible.
She was clearly terrified and could not speak.
Wow.
Wow.
My condolences.
My condolences to you, sir.
I don't even know what to say about that.
Is this a step back?
Is this a gladiator show in the civilized age?
The 195 nations of the UN, whatever that means to you, 56% abolished it.
27% still kill.
And we're with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia.
Not exactly moral beacons, but there you go.
Europe's death penalty free since Belarus paused in 1996.
Are we outliers because we're tough or just stuck in the past?
Proponents counter it's not bloodlust, it's accountability.
A society that lets murderers live coddles evil, they say.
And yesterday wasn't a lynching, it was law.
By the way, lynch does not necessarily mean hanging.
Lynch means a kind of an extrajudicial.
It's the process.
Because his name was Lynch, you know, the person.
It doesn't mean necessarily strangulation.
But the optics, rifles, a hooded man.
Echo a darker time.
This is my favorite.
Well, what do you think this is?
Well, we don't like the way it looks.
Lynchings peaked in the 1890s often state sanctioned.
This is often black victims.
Remember, it's used today to mean ropes and hanging.
That's not technically it.
So capital punishment's roots tangled with that legacy.
Bryan Stevenson Called it the stepchild of lynching.
Are we justice-driven or vengeance-drunk?
Does it even matter?
Wrongful executions?
The unforgivable flaw?
Now, have we killed the innocent?
Hell yeah!
Oh, absolutely.
Since 1973, 195 death row inmates.
We're exonerated per DPIC.
That's 5.6% of sentences reversed for misconduct or new evidence.
That's 1 in 20. How many didn't get lucky?
How do you exonerate somebody who's already had these sentences employed?
Bev Taylor, by the way, says, when one has been sentenced to...
Why do they spend decades on death row?
Why is it not carried out expeditiously?
Because of the appeals.
You have been sentenced.
Well, I want to appeal it.
Okay.
They appeal it.
You have an automatic death, an automatic death, an appeal for death.
When you, nobody ever took a death case.
Ever.
That I knew of.
For court appointed.
Because the very first thing they did was, as part of their package, because it was just collateral appeals, the very first thing they did was they would always attack the lawyer, the trial lawyer.
And it was called a 3850 motion.
And that's a bar complaint, because it's not just ineffective assistance to counsel.
It means you were a bad lawyer or what have you.
Not interested in this.
All of the cases are bad.
All of them are terrible.
And it's the ultimate injustice.
But to answer your question, because of the finality.
What if you say, well, I did not have enough of a racial mix on my jury.
But you're white.
Why do I have to have all white people?
Maybe I should have some black people too.
What?
They've done that.
Number two, maybe you claim kind of an ineffective assistant to counsel.
Maybe in the case of a death penalty case, you've got some jurisdictions where somebody who's court-appointed needs some help and the judge will send his brother-in-law or something, somebody who normally does wills and things.
They'll give him some de minimis fee and then give him You know, little monies as far as hiring some type of an investigator.
You see, the problem is it's not so much, there's two parts of the death penalty case.
One is the guilt part.
Did you do it?
Then we get to the penalty case.
And then you want to have people who explain, what about this person?
What about this person?
Why did they do it?
Is there a why?
Let me hear about this.
Would it make any difference to you if you found out that this person who was involved in a liquor store heist that went wrong never knew their parents, was subject to all types of Terrible abuse through their life might be intellectually compromised.
You might say, you know what?
He's not getting out of life without parole.
Okay, fine.
Well, I need to put on experts.
I need people to explain to you about his background, who've investigated him, who know what to ask, who can put together a narrative.
I'm not going to do that with 500 bucks.
It's ridiculous.
Sometimes it's best to just...
Eliminate it.
Take it off completely.
Just give them life without parole.
It'd be so much faster.
It would be so much faster.
But people, you don't understand, they love it.
Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004.
This was the arson case.
This was the worst.
This arson evidence was debunked post-mortem.
Remember that?
I think it was on PBS special.
Carlos De Luna in 1989, wrong guy, per a 2012 Columbia study.
Yesterday's man?
No one has his claims surfaced, but the risk haunts, some would think.
Firing squads don't rewind.
One mistake, and we're murderers too.
Well, maybe manslaughter.
That's not justice, it's roulette.
Religion and the Christian nation.
What does God say about this?
Religion's a mixed bag on this.
And I'm not an expert, but from what I've been able to research, Old Testament's blunt, eye for an eye, Exodus 21-24.
But that's Old Testament.
Jesus was against it.
Whoever has not sinned casts first stone.
Jesus himself was the subject of capital punishment, and he was guilty because he was the son of God.
Death for murder, adultery, blasphemy.
Ancient Israel didn't mess around.
They even had...
If your neighbor doesn't celebrate the Sabbath, or if you wear clothes of different, I mean, who, I mean, whatever that means.
I'm not an expert in this.
New Testament does shift, however.
Jesus stops the stoning, remember that?
John 8, 7, preaches mercy, Christians are split.
Catholics, per Pope Francis' 2018 Catechism Update, called it inadmissible, a human dignity violation.
Okay.
Evangelicals often back it.
68% of white Protestants favor it per a 2021 Pew poll.
Yesterday's execution, some pastors might have nodded.
Citing Romans 13.4 that says, the state bears the sword for a reason.
A Christian nation.
That claim's a bit shaky.
U.S. laws are secular, not theocratic.
Sabertron Toys says, Lionel loved your stream last night.
You are so human indeed.
Thank you for that.
And I hope our friend Yesterday, who was mourning Bo, I hope you were with us.
I hope you were feeling better.
Culturally, however, Christianity shapes the debate, even though we're not.
The Lutheran ELCA opposes it, citing unfairness and failure to deter, yet acknowledges state power to kill.
Go figure that one out.
Yesterday's firing squad might have split pews, you know, mercy versus wrath.
Globally, 140 abolitionist nations lean on human rights, not faith.
Are we clinging to a biblical relic or honoring divine justice?
I don't know.
It depends who's preaching it, I guess.
And yesterday's firing squad, this is interesting, is it effective or theater?
Back to March 7th.
Did it prove anything?
Well, It worked logistically.
No drug shortages.
No prolonged agony.
South Carolina's four methods, injection, hypoxia, electrocution, or firing squad, make it a death penalty unicorn.
But efficacy is not about pulling it off.
It's about results.
One dead guy doesn't shift murder rates.
It's a data point, not a trend.
So the 25 executions in 2024 pale against...
1,600 since 1976.
Most by injection.
Few by firing squad.
Now four, I think.
And it's rare.
It's not revolutionary.
As far as stats go, 53 countries execute.
27 U.S. states allow it.
And yesterday didn't sway the 23 abolitionist states or the 112 nations who have done with it.
The effectiveness and the efficacy, it's hard to say.
It hinges on deterrence and the numbers.
It's weird.
If it's about closure, fine, but that's personal, not systemic.
If it's justice, who's justice?
The victims?
Society?
Wrestling with the soul?
As far as I'm concerned, it's a broken mirror, so where's the truth?
You see, Capital punishment's a cracked lens.
It reflects what we want to see.
And the pros are interesting.
It's final, it's visceral, sends a message.
The cons, it's flawed, unproven, risky.
Yesterday's firing squad wasn't a triumph or a travesty.
It was a choice.
It was effective at ending a life, sure, but not in fixing what's broken.
Constitutionality Okay, barely.
We're not bloodthirsty, maybe, but we're not enlightened either.
Innocent people die.
And faith wrestles itself mute.
You know, the world's moving on.
56% of it, anyway.
We're stuck.
27 states and a federal push under Trump's 2025 order to strengthen it.
Yesterday's shots echo, theoretically, but they don't really answer, are we safer, wiser, or just louder?
The debate's alive, but the truth?
Buried with the bodies?
This hits to the point, my friends.
This hits to the core of this.
So what do I think?
How do I figure this out?
In fact, Brad Oppen says, forgiveness isn't for the criminal.
It's so they don't live in your head rent-free.
That's what religion is for.
It's a very good point.
Here is my debate.
Here is my answer.
I'm going to give you specifically what it is that I think.
But only after this.
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Now, let me tell you what I think in my world, my attempt to be a good person and all that stuff.
I try not to look at the...
The reaction.
Emotion is good for certain things.
It's good to love and to feel sad or happy and that sort of thing.
But when it comes to doing something which is the meeting out of justice, you have to ask yourself, what is it that I do?
Do I apply the way I think or the way I feel?
I may be a perfect example that people absolutely I positively go nuts over when I have brought it up hysterically.
In fact, friends of mine in the talk radio biz who have ever had a bad day, and they say, you know, I don't have anything to say.
Is there a topic?
Is there an evergreen topic?
Something that always works?
Oh, yeah.
Spanking.
Spanking people go crazy.
I'm going to tell you right off the bat.
Never, ever, ever, ever, ever spank a child.
Ever.
It's wrong.
It's wrong.
It's ineffective.
It's stupid.
And wait till the fights start.
Now that's what I said.
Okay?
Let me give you the however.
It's the however part.
Which is really interesting.
However.
War and the killing of...
However.
We get...
You know where we do the however a lot?
Abortion.
Always.
Our life is a however.
Humans are great at the however.
Number one, there is no such thing as black and white.
Very rarely.
Malum in se.
Malum prohibitum.
Malum in se means it's wrong in and of itself.
It's wrong in itself.
Per se.
Mal and prohibit them, it's wrong because we say it's wrong.
Okay?
You got that?
Good.
There's always a however part.
And everything is gray.
There is no black.
There is, let me give you an example.
I thought, okay, protecting children is an absolute.
Okay.
What about our great-grandparents?
Who were married sometimes at 13 and 14 years old.
Were they depraved?
No.
But that was a different time then.
Well, why was it?
Okay, however, it was different then.
You see what I'm saying?
I can't find a rule that, unless it's so absurd, it would never happen again.
My stand today is simply this.
I am against the death penalty.
But it's not for the reasons why you think.
It's because somewhere along the line, somewhere in Dentum County, Arkansas, Sneath County, Texas, there's this little And there's this one guy, could be black, could be white, whatever.
And nobody's watching him and nobody cares.
And he's a guy who's got a really long criminal record.
Maybe prior murders, I don't know.
And nobody cares.
And we get the wrong guy.
We get the wrong guy.
And I know it.
And I know it.
What do we do about a hospital that has, for the past year, amputated the wrong leg in its surgery suite?
You stop surgery.
You stop surgery there.
We don't say surgery's wrong.
We're saying you don't know how to do it.
Have you ever seen this one where you go into a...
Even if you've had like a colonoscopy, what's your name?
Where do you live?
I live here.
Okay.
And what else?
Well, you know, I guess.
And what was your date of birth?
And they look at your arm.
And what are you here for?
Uh-oh.
And they always ask you, especially when you have something done with your leg, whether it's your knee, not amputations, but if you've ever had knee, You know, hip replacement or knee.
They always say, point to it.
Where is it?
Which leg is it?
And you always have that indelible, that...
You know, I got this, by the way.
I put together my new office chair here, and I got this.
And it's for an Allen wrench.
But you can really...
I mean, I carry this thing around me.
Look at it.
Looks like a trocar.
You know what a trocar is?
And it's even curved.
Isn't this a good weapon?
This is a good one.
Would I be carrying something?
I don't know, but it's, man.
Anyway.
So, when you go to these hospitals, they'll say, point to your leg, and you put it right here.
That's what they do.
So one of the reasons why they do this is because they realize we're operating on the wrong leg.
That's the way I feel about the death penalty.
We're getting the wrong people.
And until you figure that out, I don't want to hear about it.
Because I don't even know who's doing it.
See, there might be some little town somewhere that...
For example, let's say they have knee replacement surgeries.
They used to do this sometimes at prison hospitals to kind of practice.
And if I find out that...
What I'm going to do is I'm going to suspend the operation, literally.
Not because it doesn't work, but because you're doing it the wrong way.
Brad Oplin says, trials are not about facts.
They are about perception.
No.
No.
I mean, you might say that they are about criminal trials.
Not civil, but criminal trials.
How about whether the state or the federal government prove something beyond a reasonable doubt?
Not the perception.
You're right, though, maybe in actuality.
So I'm against the death penalty because it just, I mean, forget whether it works.
If you can tell me, because you cannot appeal an execution.
Oh, and you're going to say, okay, okay.
What if we do this?
What if we only, only Only apply it to cases where we really know they did it.
And I would say to you, in every one of the cases where people have had their case reversed, they really knew, they really...
And in the cases where this one guy went...
And later on they found the arson case was junk science.
They had appeal after appeal, district court, federal court.
A lot of times you don't really appeal it.
They say, is there anything in this record that smacks of unconstitution?
No, not really.
Well, that's not.
So now, now, what if you then said, all right, I've snapped my fingers and I have fixed it.
So that every person, every person did it.
Every person did it.
Okay.
Am I going to change my mind?
No.
And the reason why that is, it's not now the question of, did everybody do it?
But are there people getting it?
And where is this being, because of this particular thing?
Because it's a maybe thing.
See, there's no absolute.
The death penalty case is involved into the guilt part and the penalty part.
I've said this before.
The guilt part is, did he do it?
Okay.
Then we get to the penalty part.
The penalty part is where you ask the question, I am going to, in essence, I am going to weigh the aggravating versus the mitigating.
I am going to say whether did the state Prove, not beyond a reasonable doubt, I think it's preponderance of the evidence or something.
It's a different standard.
It depends upon your jurisdiction.
But for example, it was particularly heinous.
It was cold-blooded.
It was depraved.
It was committed during the commission of a felony.
You know, that ways.
But the other ones, mitigating is going to be very difficult.
So even then, you don't know.
What if, what if, I found out, theoretically, that no black people ever, ever didn't get it.
What I mean by that is, what if all of the cases where the jury said, we're going to vote for life, they were all white or non-black?
I think I'd say, wait a minute.
I'm not sure about this.
Now, your retort should be, okay, let's change it.
Let's assume that everybody who's ever gone to jail on a drug case was black.
Are you going to stop the drug prosecutions because no white people did it?
You're going to stop a penalty because it's unfairly...
So what?
We're not letting people go.
It's a particular type of penalty.
They're going to go to prison, but they're not going to get the death penalty.
M.R.O.
Vaughn says, YouTube, no freedom of speech.
By God, you keep that.
You're telling me?
Want me to tell you my stories?
Want me to tell you my stories?
But thank you.
So I don't like it.
But for different reasons.
Now, assuming I could do all of that, assuming that somebody said, okay, we got rid of the fact that they're all guilty and they're also fair, then I would say, Is it effective, meaning does it do anything?
Yeah.
Well, let me ask you a question.
What does effective mean?
Crime rates go up, and we have some of the most draconian laws on the books now.
And even with that non-death case, instances are going up.
What if, what if we found out that, believe it or not, They weren't effective, but you've got to ask yourself the question, is there something wrong about what if it did work?
I know, Billy Ferry.
That's right.
1987.
I remember it well.
I remember it more than you will ever know.
But here's the deal.
Again, let's go back.
What is our job?
What is our job?
What is this all about?
What is this?
If Jesus or God sat here and said, let me explain something to you.
We have never had, ever, ever, a Chinese murder, let's assume, I'm sure there has been, but...
We don't have women.
We don't have...
What is it about these people?
What are their crimes?
In the world of criminal stuff, in the world of prosecuting, in all of that, the question you have to ask is simply this.
And by the way, who was it?
Pilgrim?
Who was your state attorney?
Was it Harry Coe or was it...
Was it Harry Coe?
Or was it Bill James?
Because I worked for both Bill James and EJ.
I wonder when you were there.
And anyway.
Why do people do this?
I don't know.
I don't understand what these people...
Most of the time, when you're prosecuting, second degree maybe, heat of passion.
You know, most of it's negligence, you know, vehicular homicide, all that.
And serial killing?
Never!
The rarest of the rare.
But somebody will do something.
Somebody will felony murder.
That's another one.
You go and commit a felony.
We're going to rob a store.
And somebody gets shot in the middle of it.
So you're hit with murder three.
You know, I didn't want to.
I didn't.
I didn't, well, the person who shot him, but I'm a co-defendant and I get stuck with it.
I get stuck with it.
How about this?
This is my favorite too, one of my favorites.
Attempted felony murder.
What the hell is that?
I remember one time we had this big debate about it.
Could there be a jury structure for attempted felony murder?
For example, we go into a store with my Co-defendant, two of us are going to rob you.
The store owner points a weapon at my co-defendant, my partner.
He ducks and just barely misses getting hit by the bullet.
They're going to charge me with attempted felony murder because that would have been felony murder on my case, even if the victim shoots.
Okay.
But attempted felony?
I mean, it gets really weird.
But most of the time, it's a rarity.
You don't get these.
They sound like they're...
And that doesn't make any difference.
That doesn't make any difference.
I also understand this.
The thing I don't understand about the death penalty, why is it that somebody has to...
Let me see.
You're going to hear this one.
I just thought of this one key.
This was the worst one ever.
Okay.
Do you remember, here we go, Pilgrim, Larry Singleton.
Do you remember that name?
Larry Singleton was an American criminal known for perpetrating an infamous, the R word, and mutilation of an adolescent hitchhiker.
Mary Vincent in California.
And then perpetrating a second attack on a woman after being released from prison eight years later.
This guy was as bad as it gets.
He did the initial battery and then severed forearms and left her to I guess expire in a culvert.
She managed to hike to safety, later acted as a critical witness against him.
He was released from prison on good behavior after serving eight years of his 14-year sentence.
He later then committed another M1 charge.
And this guy eventually died.
He was called the Mad Chopper.
He was born in Tampa.
He was a merchant.
This guy was just...
Now, what are you supposed to do with this guy?
You want to deter people from doing that?
Nobody's doing this.
It's the most bizarre thing anybody's ever seen.
What do you want to do about this?
I don't know.
But it's just horrible.
It is beyond the most horrible thing anybody's ever seen before.
How do you even do...
How do you even get around?
I don't know.
How do you even...
We share DNA with this person, yes.
Dear God, how does this work?
I don't know.
It's the most bizarre thing ever.
Remember Champagne Green?
She papered the town.
I do not know that one, sir.
But you different...
I can't read if you...
Who you worked for.
Was it James or...
Anyway, it doesn't matter.
Now, all I want to do is this.
The good news is, there are people who, for reasons I do not know, commit behaviors that are just...
But my question is, why is it that we only save this penalty for people who commit the big M?
What about people who hurt children?
Why?
I don't understand that one at all.
Why?
Why is it that we do that to children?
Why?
Or not.
If you do something to a child, I don't understand why is it that by virtue of the fact that you have elected not to dispatch them, but you've destroyed their lives, what happens if through some miracle it was your intention to bring the final demise of someone?
But through medical intervention, through whatever, This person lives.
Are you supposed to be given some kind of a pass on this?
I don't know.
well As far as warehousing people for the rest of humanity, it costs nothing.
If you remove the military, excuse me, the prison industrial complex, it costs it.
Costs, nothing.
You save so much money waiving the penalty.
But the problem is simply this.
You do have the family.
And we talk about this word called closure.
There's no such thing as closure.
That's a word that we use.
It makes a lot of sense.
It sounds good, but it's not.
There's no...
Nothing is made whole.
There's nothing that's made whole.
Now, Another thing that's important.
I wonder sometimes if by virtue of the fact that, well, do you agree that we're becoming more depraved as a society?
I think so.
I think so.
We might be living in a world right now where old-fashioned incarceration in certain cases doesn't do the trick.
We need to get really theatrical, really over the top.
And we really have to maybe consider this.
We really may have to, if you have some people who do some things that are just, I don't know.
But the bottom line is, if Jesus were here, and you would have to explain this, I would sit there and say, with all due respect, sir, you don't know what people you have, Done here.
Richard Speck here serviced other inmates to survive.
Well, Richard Speck also had a sex change operation.
Remember that when he had breast implants?
Remember that when he was taking female hormones?
He was a different story.
Different story completely.
So anyway, the bottom line is simply this.
We can debate on that.
All I want you to do is think about this today.
Just think about this.
It's okay to ask yourself, do I really want this?
Is this really something that I think it's a good idea to do?
I don't know.
I can't answer that.
I wish we lived in a world when this never even came up.
When people never did anything to hurt people.
I wish we lived in a world where We just didn't.
Let me ask you a question.
Why do you believe that you are susceptible or you are capable of doing something this horrible?
Being a serial person?
No.
But committing first degree?
Yeah, maybe.
Maybe.
We don't really have any defenses either in terms of We only have the McNaughton rule in terms of insanity.
And insanity works only insofar as you have to show that you did not know the difference between right and wrong.
And that's often not the case.
You know exactly what it was.
But let's say you were a young lady and you were abused and you were trafficked and you were all this and you decided to take out your trafficker.
Is there a defense for that?
Nope.
Should there be?
Absolutely.
Abuse spouse.
Somebody who has been pushed, pushed, pushed to the brink.
Where one day they decide.
Remember Sling Blade?
Remember when Doyle?
One of my favorite movies of all time.
And Carl Childress decides he is going to remove a problem for the family by getting rid of the great Dwight Yoakam.
Is that defendable or defensible?
No.
He probably wanted to get back because that's the only thing he knew.
It's a very complicated issue.
So what I want you to do, my friends, is just think about it.
Think about it.
Spend some time enjoying this wonderful, beautiful thought of these depraved people.
Jenna Pilgrim.
Pilgrim, you were terrific.
Thank you.
Bradley Opland, thank you.
Ricardo, thank you.
Let me see who else is there.
Raul Rodriguez, thank you as well.
Christian Janis.
An excellent, excellent point you brought up as far as the member of the team.
And Big Dick Daniels says, you sign your...
Hang on a minute.
Boy, my things are all...
You sign your license for field sobriety.
Ask the American civilian to sign one for the firing squad.
You don't sign it...
You don't imply consent not for the field sobriety, you sign it for the, unless maybe you're wrong in your jurisdiction, but you agree to take a chemical test or a breath test, if there's probable cause to believe you were driving under the influence.
That I know.
But you would be, in essence, asking to agree to your sentence should you be found guilty.
It's a different story.
This is merely a means of detecting your ability to drive.
Just a thought.
Alright, my friends.
Have a great day.
A little light thought today?
Think about this.
Do yourself a favor.
I'm trying to change your mind.
I just want you to think about everything.
Talk about it.
Talk to your family.
It's a fascinating subject.
What do we do?
And those of you who are particularly devout, Who believe in Christianity, believe in Jesus, and who are born again, ask yourself, what would Jesus do?
What would Jesus recommend?
And would you then, despite your fidelity, would you say, eh, but that's different.
Or, well, that's Jesus for you.
You know how he gets.
In any event, my friends, have a great and glorious day.
Don't ever change.
I mean this sincerely.
And until we meet again, remember, the monkey's dead.
The show's over.
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