comment: >
  
  There's certainly complexity in this topic.  But torture is never justified.
  You have my upvote.
context: In this movie in particular I think it is less about feeling bad for the dude and more about hating Percy, the one not getting the sponge wet. >
  
  Yeah fuck percy. Little prick. You know how one character ruins an actor for you ? That's percy for me. >
  
  Tge dude says hes shocked marrying a 16 year old at 50 affected his career. He may actually be mentally handicapped >
  
  I think he had never been THAT much of a promising star. 
  I mean... He didn't have a great career. It was less than meh. >
  
  I do not disagree with your opinion on this, but I'd posit an idea to explain why others feel differently. 
  Part of the task of any story teller is to make sympathetic characters.  All the people on the Green Mile are criminals whom are slated for execution for their crimes. If they had all been snarling monsters, they would not have been sympathetic characters,  that is characters that you find some common humanity in, that you come to like and identify with and perhaps root for. Delacroix is a child rapist and multiple murderer, yes, and that serves as justification of his fate of execution,  but this isn't the part of his life that is portrayed in the film.  We see him as a kindly old convict with a pet mouse. This makes him sympathetic,  which makes his execution all the more tragic. And this makes Percy's act of deliberately bungling his execution a salient point on which to truly hate him as one of the villains in the narrative. 
  Contrast the humanizing of Delacoix with the demonizing of Wild Bill, for example. Wild Bill is also a rapist and murderer, but never displays any sympathetic characteristics.  He's still violent and unrepentant.  We don't care what happens to him and so he is a monster who's death we rightly consider just. As is the fate of Percy, the guard who, although not a convict, is nonetheless needlessly cruel and sadistic. 
  Obviously,  people in real life are mostly not fictional characters.  We have faults and flaws and are not so easily sorted into easy categories of hero and villain. But the craft of the movie is to make the execution of Delacoix sympathetic despite his crimes to emphasize the wicked cruelty of Percy. >
  
  I mean... from a legal standpoint it's a cruel and unusual punishment and was done purposefully. Morally it's not the greatest to not care but .. I mean, I am not crying either. >
  
  I think the reaction would’ve been different if they took the whole “I spit on your grave” approach. >
  
  I feel sympathy for him suffering like that, the whole point of the set up is to show that there's a difference between an ethical execution that serves justice and has to be carried out under the burden of duty and murder that satisfies a sadist's wish to see someone suffer. >
  
  The problem has nothing to do with the inmate but with the people watching. That’s not something you can unsee. It damages you. I don’t agree with Percy for having done that as far as the inmate goes but putting people in a position to watch something potentially traumatic does make him a bad guy. >
  
  Not just watch... smell! They probably got a snootful of crispy-fried cajun cooking that evening. >
  
  If someone deserves to die, they should die as swiftly as possible. There's no point to torturing them except to satisfy the torturer's desire to see someone suffer. >
  
  Dude raped 2 little girls. A slow painful death fits the crime. >
  
  I think that counts as 'satisfying a desire to see him suffer'. I agree that he deserves to die, but with the goal of removing someone too hostile and dangerous to be allowed to live. Not just for the sake of seeing him hurt. >
  
  I once heard a guy ask someone why they put "a burger" on his head in The Green Mile. >
  
  Generally that is something that sadists genuinely do; They look for a reason, Any reason, To justify their hatred enough to torment them. A satisfaction with seeing them suffer whilst also a reason not to hate themselves for loving it. >
  
  You hit the nail on the head; and it always hits me how people use motivational reasoning ("the person was bad") to excuse their own impulses / actions (sadism here)... >
  
  Honestly the sadists field day on terrible people isn't really a concern for me, The problem is the fact that people are genuinely going onto the internet and talking about how it was justified and all that fun crap. 
  Sadism happen? Cool, Stop making a scene at how deserved it is and move on with your day! But instead, there are people who just go onto U.O so they can get free internet points while doing exactly that. >
  
  Yep. AITA, UO, and /r/politics is pretty notorious for this >
  
  I feel like with Percy, anyone could have been sitting in that chair and he would have done the same thing. He just wanted to see what would happen if he didn't wet the sponge. It was a sick, sadistic experiment to him. He broke the code of justice through ethical execution. >
  
  Yeah, it wasn't for the sake of punishment, it could have been someone falsely convicted instead.
  Sadists don't really have a track record of only hurting people who have done something wrong, it's just easier for them to disproportionately harm those who have. >
  
  I think the point the film tries to make is that even the worst of people deserve basic human decency.
  You failed at getting that message. >
  
  No they don't. >
  
  We do it more for our sake than theirs. >
  
  For my sake I want them to suffer as much as possible >
  
  That's juvenile. We as a society mete out that kind of punishment for justice, not some self-righteous sadism. >
  
  But it's still sadistic. That monster is still human, and is still entitled to a trial and safety from cruel and unusual punishment under law. I'm sorry but the justice system can't cater to the anger of the bereaved, understandable though it may be >
  
  IMHO The Green Mile is one of the top 5 book adaptations Hollywood has ever created. Incredible book, incredible movie. >
  
  Percy was a vile character, and Hutchison, who played him, is a creepy-ass dude, marrying a 16 y/o when he was 51. >
  
  Bad joke >
  
  His sentence was to be killed, a burden no one wants to bear, when someone served their sentence they should have the option of serving it with dignity, Delacroix did reprehensible things and deserved death, but instilling pain and suffering for your own sadistic pleasure is wrong. Delacroix was simply serving his sentence and should have been given the opportunity to do it with dignity like everyone else >
  
  Did his victims get the opportunity to die with dignity and recieve mercy? >
  
  Your thinking with regard to this issue is quite juvenile and simplistic. If you’d humour me for a moment, I want to illustrate one of the fundamental reasons that “cruel and unusual punishments” are outlawed. Are we, as the audience, actually 100% certain that Delacroix was guilty. I’m not talking “he’s convicted, therefore he is guilty”, I mean are you 100%, without a single shadow of a possible doubt, certain that he was the one who actually committed those crimes? 
  I haven’t watched the film for a long time, and cannot remember if there is any moment where it’s made clear whether he was guilty or not. Irrespective, my underlying argument still stands.
  Cruel and unusual punishments are outlawed in no small part due to the fact that the justice system is imperfect by nature. It is exceedingly rare that we’re completely certain of a person’s crimes; usually only with camera footage or if there is a confession.
  The emotional harm and distress that could come to people if they later discovered that an ultimately innocent person was tortured to death is immeasurable. 
  Moreover, we have plenty of evidence which indicates that irrespective of how “righteous” you believe your case to be, dealing out violence and harm to others is likely to take an emotional toll on you. Just think of how many soldiers develop PTSD related to the things they’ve done or seen, even if they were fighting for a cause widely accepted as “just”. 
  The court and justice system is there to relieve wronged parties of the responsibility of having to take retributory action. Whether that’s because they wouldn’t have the means to do so, or to protect them from harming themselves or others, regardless of guilt or innocence. It is by no means perfect, but I can assure you that if you spent any time in a society with open vigilante justice, you would very rapidly realise the need for it to work as it does. Either that or you’d certainly realise it the moment just before the mob caves your skull in for a crime you didn’t commit.
  I understand it sucks, and we have to do everything we can to hold guilty people accountable with proportionate punishment, but torture, callousness and hatred are not the way to do this. I hope I’ve illustrated a little more of the nuance that isn’t necessarily driven solely by blind rage. >
  
  Exactly. Maybe he deserved it, but the whole point is, as a society, we are supposed to be better than that >
  
  He did ent deserve it because he was innocent >
  
  You’re confused. The character were talking about was not innocent >
  
  Zamn >
  
  I swear people who comment like this are actual NPC's/bots