It's not about either justice or revenge. It's mostly about getting rid of troublesome people, because they're bad for business.

Here here, it is a barbaric and hamfisted revenge.

That's conservatism. Conservatives demand this and delight in it. The only thing that can bring a conservative a glimmer of joy is the suffering of the vulnerable.

she was giving them advice on how to find her veins better. she and her lawyers told the courts it wouldn't work due to her veins. witnesses reported at least 7 needles they tried before finally "finding" a vein. she requested firing squad and hanging to avoid exactly this but was denied both.

absolutely barbaric treatment, regardless of her crime. not to mention that she's been in solitary for 30 years now.

Yup, really sad state of affairs.

Standard practice in the US. You know you will die but you do not know when and in the meantime you rot in jail for decades.

Then sometimes an hour before you will be executed you hear you may get pardoned, and then a few hours later you will be executed anyway.

Execution itself also goes wrong many times.

USA! USA!

Not just imprisoned, she's been in solitary for 30 fucking years.

You don't beat a dog for its entire life and then act surprised when it kills someone.

It's not an excuse, beyond rumblings of materialist determination, but it is an explanation, and you should be asking yourself why this particular murderer has to die instead of all the others.

The video doesn't "try" to show her as anything it just captures a moment in court. You can attribute to it what you want. What I see is the extreme results of bipolar disorder after a lifetime of abuse and lack of treatment. It is a stark example of a society that failed their citizen. Here is someone who had enough humanity somewhere in their system to just cry and want a hug from someone they loved before facing the consequences. I'm not even bipolar but I don't know what kind of human being I would be if I literally faced abuse since infancy.

To me the video doesn't take away the heinousness of the crime, it just brings into the focus how these types of situations aren't always some cut and dry stereotypical "evil person does evil things".

Kept part of her skull as a souvenir

They also tortured her a bit before the murder:

According to court testimony, for the next 30 minutes, Slemmer was taunted, beaten, and slashed. Shipp used a box cutter to carve a pentagram into her chest while she was still alive. Finally, Pike smashed Slemmer's skull with a large chunk of asphalt, killing her.

if we're going to have a death penalty, it should require the utmost clarity in guilt and mandatory appeals to be resolved in a timely manner - then do it by guillotine. this bullshit of 'humane execution' is garbage whitewashing to help the people who want executions to be somehow clean and tidy - resulting in these shit show performances and drug companies refusing to work with states. afaik guillotine never requires a second try. you can fuck up hangings, hell even firing squads... it's what I'd pick if I were being executed, not really trusting the states that end with these results.