A Complete Sentence

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Friday that electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment, outlawing the electric chair in the only state that still used it as its sole means of execution. Since Nebraska still has a death penalty on its books, it would seem to leave a good deal up in the air. For example, just what sort of death penalty would not be considered cruel and unusual punishment? Lethal injection is the preferred method in most states, and nine states that still allow electrocution use it only as an option or backup.
I confess to being an opponent of the death penalty in general, and the idea of having "options" seems ugly beyond description. The whole thing begins to remind me of Monty Python bits, like the obsequious centurion checking off prisoners in "Life of Brian": "Crucifixion? Good. Line on the left, one cross each." Or maybe "Meaning of Life" where "In a few moments, now, he will be killed, for Arthur Jarrett is a convicted criminal who has been allowed to choose the manner of his own execution," and then it is revealed that he has chosen to be chased by a gaggle of nubile young women clad only in roller derby helmets and pads off a cliff. What a way to go.
Maybe Monty Python is the wrong place to look for inspiration. Instead, let us turn to the works of Lee Marvin. In "The Dirty Dozen", twelve American soldiers who were sentenced to death were given one last chance to serve their country. It was a suicide mission, an no one expected them to come back alive, not even little Trini Lopez survived. It stands to reason that since manpower for our armed forces is being stretched to its limits that we should consider sending some, if not all of the three thousand or so convicts on our death row prison cells into harm's way. If it costs us thirty or forty thousand dollars a year to keep a prisoner on death row each year, my guess is that we'll end up saving money along the way. I'm not sure if that's cruel, but at least it's unusual.