Were these recent state executions really "botched?" Could they have tortured condemned men to death to strike fear into would-be criminals?

Under the eighth amendment to the Constitution, cruel and unusual punishments are forbidden. We have a death penalty, but not a torture punishment.

Most criminologists believe that, for the the worst criminals, the best deterrent is the fear of being caught. Few think about any other consequence.

I am all for the torture. People of death row all tortured people to get there. What I cannot figure out is why the state goes to so much trouble to make them comfortable in their passing.

In answer to your question, no. I do not think would-be criminals/criminals care or even think about it in advance. They all figure they will get away with it or they think the consequences are a small risk because they think their chances of getting away with it are much greater. They are all a bunch of smart-*sses, arent they? They think they are smarter than everybody else? When in actual fact, they are dumber than everybody else. We are on the outside, free to pursue a life. They are not.

The law clearly prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. In this case, torturing someone to death constitutes just such punishment. Some might argue that a death penalty in and of itself is "cruel and unusual", though I think if it's done properly they should continue for certain cases. These executions are considered "botched" because the state prisons are using their own homebrewed execution cocktails and then improperly administrating them to the convict. They cite the impossibility of obtaining execution-centric drugs from European manufacturers as the root of the problem, but in all reality I'm pretty sure they could improvise with domestically manufactured drugs and still achieve much better results. They just need better trained medical professionals to perform these executions.