Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen.
The Alabama attorney general’s office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58. The court filing indicated Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in three states but has never been used.
Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.
Pro Life™️
Yeah, that’s a lie, always has been.
And here I am on Life Lite like a pleb.
They wouldn’t know “pro-life” if it bit them on the ass. They’re simply pro-birth. Literally everything else about the GOP platform is anti-life.
Pro birth so they can supply meat to the industrial grinder and dead solders for the war machine.
Small government folks sure are horny about giving their government the power to murder them.
Sure, but as long as they have the death penalty, it’s probably best they do it as humanely as possible.
Some states are bringing back firing squads, which definitely feels like a huge step back. If they’re going to kill someone, using an actual painless option instead of lethal injection or shooting them seems like as much of a step forward as we can get up to actually not executing people.
For the person being executed, firing squads are among the most “humane” methods. It’s fast, reliable, and simple. It’s not common because the brutality of painting someone’s brains on the wall is too clear for onlookers.
I think they typically aimed for the heart. In an by case, it causes trauma to the executioner too.
Typically they aim for the heart. Not exactly an immediate or painless death.
I’d rather have the nitrogen.
Actually the (small L) libertarians are a little split on this issue, with most seeming to agree with me that the death penalty is a stupid fucking idea from multiple standpoints. Can’t trust the govt to get a damn thing right and that is no-take-backsies so no room for fuck ups (which they definitely have fucked up and killed innocent people, only to learn someone lied after it is too latw.)
OH you meant the republicans, who say “small government” but then through their actions prove they are just “the other side” of “big government” from the dems. Well, they’re “lying” in order to manipulate people into voting for them (tbf, I know that’s how they all get votes).
Yep. Which is how we end up building FUCKING concentration camps in the country and pave that road for a dictatorship to take over one of, if not the, leading super powers of the world.
This shit needs to stop and we need to address what is happening in the south before we start having some repeats that end in mass death. Enough is enough.
That’s a pretty good way to go, apparently.
But there have been an absolutely breathtaking number of death row cases that have been overturned due to new evidence that had exonerated the condemned.
It seems pretty clear that the state is doing a very crappy job of determining guilt, and therefore shouldn’t be handing down such a permanent sentence.
I would argue that we need the death penalty as a way to protect society from the absolutely most dangerous criminals but it’s very frequently misapplied. I would say, for instance, that people that are serial killers, or serial rapists (or serial child molesters), people for whom there is no significant doubt that they’re guilty, and people that will reoffend if they ever manage to get out of prison, should be executed. A simple murder for hire, or a robbery? No. Ed Kemper? Absolutely.
I think that even life sentences with no parole are overused; most people can be rehabilitated and returned to society safely, if we were willing to dramatically overhaul our criminal justice system to not be based on punishment and retribution. (But if we did that, then how would we get free prison labor…? /s)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country
All of western Europe has abolished the death oenalty completely. Many of these are countries with very low rates of serious crime.
Meanwhile countries with the death penalty, but usually also very long prison sentences and high rates of incarcerations like the US are pretty bad with crime.
It is impossible to justifiy the death penalty empirically. The statistics actually indicate that the death penalty is linked to more crime.
Also the problem is, that clear cut beyond a doubt is what every judge who sentences someone to death, will claim about the case. Yet there is hundreds of cases in the US alone, where people were later exonerated. Some only after they have been murdered by the state already. There is nothing to gain, but a lot to loose with an execution. It cannot be overruled anymore.
The statistics actually indicate that the death penalty is linked to more crime.
Correlation =/= causation. C’mon, you know better than this. It’s more probable that they have lower crime to begin with. Serial killers are not uniquely American by any stretch of the imagination, but they are quite uncommon relative to the population in other developed countries.
Read what I wrote again. I’m advocating for the death penalty in very, very limited cases, where there is no significant doubt at all, where there is no reasonable or even unreasonable belief that an offender can be rehabilitated, and the offender is extremely likely to harm more people if they ever have the opportunity.
Thats why i said indicate not “proof”. But again you say no significant doubt at all. But that is always the case of the people making the decision. For them there is no doubt, yet there is regularly wrong decisions.
Would you then claim that there was any significant doubt as to the guilt of John Gacy, Theodore Bundy, Edmund Kemper, Gary Ridgeway, John Geoghan, et al.? Would you agree that they would have all posed a significant risk of future harms had they managed to escape?
No proof is 100% absolute; there is always the possibility of some error. Video evidence? Could be tampered with. Eyewitnesses? Memory is fallible. DNA? Must be from someone with near identical DNA. Confession? Those are very frequently coerced (and, seriously, confessions are a pretty terrible way of determining guilt, esp. when there’s no forensic or corroborating evidence). 29 bodies or people you were last seen with found in the crawlspace of your home with your DNA and fingerprints on them? Pure coincidence, it’s too good to be true, must be planted.
Given that it’s impossible to know a thing with absolute certainty, how good does the evidence have to be before you would admit that there was not a significant chance of a false positive?
Prisons (at least in the US) have never been about prisoners and their reform. It’s about how much money they can bring in from the state and practically free labor. Like most things in the US it is driving by profit margins.
…yay capitalism
Eh, no. We had prisons before we used prisons as a stand-in for chattel slavery. OTOH, we used to kill a lot more people for much less severe offenses, so people didn’t usually end up in jails for very long. And there was a period of time where we believed in reform, but that was well over 100 years ago now.
It’s wild you disagree with life sentences and desire rehab, but also advocate for the death penalty.
I advocate for it in the case of people that can not reasonably be rehabilitated and pose an unreasonable risk to the existence of other people.
I don’t know why that’s difficult to wrap your head around.
You aren’t going to rehabilitate a serial killer, or a serial rapist.
Can’t know if you don’t try. Some artists have come out and said they had these urges and art is the thing anchoring them enough to keep them from doing heinous things.
keep them from doing
…And there’s your key. Moreover, they think that art keeps them from doing it; they have no way of experimentally knowing whether or not they’d do those things in the absence of art. It seems more likely that art is their excuse and that, in the absence of art, they would find anothe,r different reason to avoid committing atrocities.
There’s a distinction between wanting to do a thing, and actually doing the thing.
I used to fully pro death penalty, especially for some of the sick fucks…
But then I learned about all the false convictions, some COERCED by the fucking police, and since then I’m 100% against the death penalty.
The satisfaction I get from a heinous killer getting killed, does not outweigh the horror I feel for even one innocent life being taken by the state.
It’s also cheaper to keep people in jail forever than put them to death because of all the appeals. And despite being more careful, we still get it wrong.
Also, in my mind, death is a release. Keep those fuckers stuck in their filty meat suits while they rot in prison for the rest of their lives with no hope for escape. The especially heinous ones will get extra comeuppance from the other inmates
Right. Even a life sentence can very much be reversed if exculpatory evidence appears.
It can be overturned, but it can’t be reversed. You can’t give someone those years back.
This is what changed my mind on the death penalty. I have no problem putting a murderer or pedo to death, but we keep freeing people when new evidence is found that proves their innocents. Until we can get it right 100% of the time, we should just lock them up until death.
Yeah this is one reason why I generally don’t support the death penalty. There’s no way to undo it. At least if evidence exonerates someone 50 years later, they’re still alive.
Not to give anyone ideas but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bag
Yep, NO. I’ve tried it. You can’t get a breath and you feel like you’re suffocating.
Sure, Jan.
Can you please share more of your experience? What was the occasion and the set-up? What was it like?
Nitrogen hypoxia is a risk wherever liquid nitrogen is used. If too much boils too fast, it will displace the oxygen in the room. People in the room won’t even realize what happened until they pass out and die shortly thereafter.
There are reports of people rushing in to rescue those who passed out, and suddenly passing out themselves and needing to be rescued as well. That’s how insidious it is. And that’s why MRI scanners (which use liquid nitrogen) have oxygen sensors in the room. You can’t trust your own body to tell you that all the oxygen is gone.
MRI machines are cooled by liquid helium. Nitrogen is not cold enough. I’d imagine as a noble gas it has a similar effect though.
They are cooled by liquid helium, but also have a liquid nitrogen outer dewar as well with a vacuum insulator in between. The N2 takes the brunt of the ambient heat so you don’t have to top off the (much more expensive) helium as often.
That’s not the case with nitrogen asphyxiation.
Definitely doesn’t seem terribly traumatic - https://youtu.be/176eog7mZjc?si=B4TPpWw7CJb-IGXl
(CW - shows pig putting its head into a box filled with inert gas to eat food. The pig falls over, regains consciousness, then immediately places its head back into the box to continue eating)
I’m willing to bet what you inhaled was carbon dioxide – that gives an instant feeling of suffocation. Which ironically makes it one of the safer asphyxiant gasses, as it’s heavier than air and you can detect it’s presence instantly. Inert (“noble”) gasses like helium, argon, and nitrogen don’t have that effect.
CO2 is also cheap, readily available, non-toxic, and doesn’t cause physical damage. This makes CO2 asphyxiation somewhat popular for “stunning” or killing in places like slaughterhouses, labs working with smaller animals, or “feeder” animals for reptiles.
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
Good to know.
I had just assumed the party helium situation was caused by the shortage.
Helium (as a suicide method) has been around a while. My best friend used it to kill himself 13 years ago. Maybe it’s making a comeback.
I have, sort of. I’ve worked HazMat most of my life. One of the jobs I had years ago involved neutralizing a large pit of acid. It was just a huge pit in the ground with a roof over it. From the outside, it just looked like someone had pulled the roof off of a house and set on the ground. There were only two openings, one at either end, so it was completely enclosed. The method here was to send the two youngest (and therefore invincible) guys into the pit with acid suits and full faced respirators, with buckets of soda ash, we walk around in it and stirred it up while we sprinkled the ash around. Safety standards back then were not what they are today. Anyway, the people in charge realized that there would be a reaction with gases betting released, hence the respirators, but no one considered the possibility that the gases might be heavier than oxygen. Which they were. We didn’t know what kind of acid it was but this was an old fertilizer plant, so probably nitric. Which means the gas was most likely nitrogen. Whatever the case, we got into trouble when we realized that we were both getting rather lightheaded. We tried to leave, but the only way out was up a ladder and by the time we got to it the other guy, we’ll call him Rick, could only get about half way up before he just couldn’t move anymore, which left me leaning on the ladder at the bottom, completely unable to help, as I was in the same state. Luckily, our foreman was a lunatic and he jumped in and pulled us out. You are absolutely not supposed to do that because you are just as likely to end up in the same trouble as the guys you’re trying to save.
The experience with the gas was not unpleasant. I should have been terrified, but was mostly just mildly concerned. The only real effects I remember feeling are the lightheadedness and being really sleepy.
well, the science behind feeling out of breath is CO2 being pumped into lungs from blood, lol
I was beginning to wonder if breathing pure nitrogen was some kind of party trick or rite of passage for science geeks.
breathtaking
Heh
deleted by creator
Surgical tech here… why not just use Propofol? It’s the shit we use to put people to sleep for surgery.
It kicks in FAST - when the anesthesiologist pushes that stuff, it can literally take like 5-10 seconds for the patients to go unconscious.
So… for the death penalty, hit em with the normal dosage to put them to sleep, then once they’re confirmed unconscious, push the rest of the bottle… or a liter of gasoline… or chuck em out the window; it doesn’t matter, as they’ll be 100% unaware of the actual method of death.
Edit - turns out there’s a lot of good reasons we don’t just use Propofol - see comments below. Thanks for the insight, all!
Because using your drug to kill people isn’t the best way to convince the public is perfectly safe. There would be a hundred TikToks talking about how anesthesiologists want to murder you with propofol and then claim you died accidentally on the operating table. Who are you going to believe, actual “doctors” or highly qualified TikTok influencers?
Yeah, no drug company wants to deal with that. That’s why governments have had difficulty sourcing these drugs and instead have been resorting to black market dealers.
Just imagining the reverse, if they used propofol commonly for executions and then you go for a surgery and the doctor informs you that you’ll be getting the same stuff they use for executions, but don’t worry it’s a milder dose
I mean, they DO use midazolam and the same paralytics for lethal injection that are also commonly used for anesthesia, just in a lower dose.
anesthesiologist
There you have it, qualified medical professionals refuse (and are not allowed to anyway because of the oath) to participate in executions. So the people administring whatever concoction is made are not medically trained nor usually even particularily knowledgable on the subject. And yes, this has caused a series of botched executions, to the extent that the most bloodthirsty states are looking at smimpler ways to execute. Hence this aricle.
Because the idea of it being a punishment, rather than remediation or simply mitigation, looms over all North American discussions about sentencing.
If they aren’t miserable then it’s not a punishment.
deleted by creator
Manson and his cronies did not exactly die in obscurity. They had, and still have, groupies.
In the case of Propofol they did want to use it but were basically banned by the drug company.
But… the whole reason we are having this discussion is because people are trying to make the process less miserable in their final moments.
Because the people selling it don’t want to deal with the association with lethal injections
The real answer is that the makers of Propofol specifically don’t want you to use it to kill people.
Furthermore, if the US does use Propofol to execute anyone it will likely find itself suffering a shortage of Propofol to use as an anaesthetic in future.
They already render the prisoner unconcious when they administer the lethal injection. It’s not 100% effective though, thus the search for a method that doesn’t have the potential to horrify onlookers.
They used to use thiopental, which is similar to propofol, with similar onset, both as an anesthesic and for lethal injection. Manufacturers stopped producing it because its use was controversial. Now it’s not even available for anesthesia. It would suck if the same thing happened to propofol.
Is it a moral alternative to provide the inmate with a choice of execution method?
Removed by mod
I mean that’s fair, but I meant more like “hey you can test this new method of execution, or you can have the lethal injection.”
Let him rot in prison.
ABOLISH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
That’s how it should be. But as with most things, it comes down to money. It’s cheaper to execute.
It’s not cheaper to execute. It’s financially and morally very expensive.
It’s really not cheaper in practice, the legal hurdles for the death penalty are more expensive to overcome than just keeping someone locked up for life.
It might get cheaper if you’re executing in volume, like thousands of people, but then we’d be looking at a whole other sort of problems (like “how did we turn into China?”)
deleted by creator
The justice system isn’t perfect and you can’t roll back dying
Also I feel like a goverment that is allowed to kill their citizens is a government with too much power.
Sure sure, but the comment above wanted the person to rot in jail for the rest of their existence. Which is why I mentioned a very specified a situation where the crime is clear.
You’re arguing for cases where an innocent person may be found guilty - which is a very valid argument. I’m trying to figure out this crowd that wants people to suffer forever while they won’t even think of that person again in their life, besides maybe pay taxes to keep them alive.
to rot in jail for the rest of their existence
Because later on, if they were found to be actually innocent - the person rotting in jail can be released and compensated (to whatever extent false imprisonment can be compensated).
If they were executed, it’s over. The injustice can’t be remediated in any way.
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.
Capital punishment is government sanctioned killing. Outside of war, the government should not have the power to kill anyone.
For these people, death is also the easy way out. Prison time is harder.
Not to mention cost. The complexity, finality, and litigation drive cost through the roof and make it much more expensive than life in prison.
assuming the person is truly guilty
That’s the part where it falls to bits for me.
Although you could allow people to choose euthanasia. Although even there it should be carried out privately rather than some ghoulish ceremony.
Bring back the gladiator fights! I want sand, blood, and tigers!
All you have to do is look at the times the government has got it wrong on convictions of people who turned out innocent to realize maybe the government shouldn’t make the decision to kill people.
Look up the innocence project.
deleted by creator
I’m old school so I would just take a firing squad personally. Cigarette, blindfold, ratatatata drums, ready aim fire, the works.
So then PTSD treatments for the hired employees? Seems like a problem that doesn’t require lifelong mental scarring of innocent lives, but who am I to say?
You say that, then all the crazy gun nuts who crave this imaginary scenario are horny for the chance to murder. Though they may be bothered if it’s a white person. They’d shoot a colored person before you even have to ask!
By “innocent lives” you’re talking about the people who just killed someone for money - the EXACT SAME THING this person is being killed for.
You act like there aren’t plenty of bloodthirsty degenerates that would jump at the chance to kill someone for free.
Not everyone cares about human life.
But won’t someone think of the poor executioners who voluntarily took a job carrying out state sanctioned murder?!? /s
This whole thread is lunacy.
That’s why you get five guys to do the shooting so no one person is to blame. Give one of 'em a blank for good measure.
Oh well then they should feel completely innocent and no one will suffer from mental health issues. That’s why people in the military don’t have PTSD, because everyone knows if there’s at least 5 people there, you’re good.
/S
As opposed to the person who pushes the button to turn on the nitrogen? Or the person who pushes the lethal injection plunger into your veins? Or the person who throws the switch on the electric chair?
We’re talking about state sanctioned murder so idk what you could possibly propose that insulates everyone from trauma.
All this because I said I’d take a firing squad by the way if it came down to it. My choice. Just back off dude seriously, idk why you’re trying to start a ruckus over this.
Lol oh right. I forgot this is only a place for your opinions. My bad.
You’re the one advocating for state sanctioned murder, why would I have to defend it? Lol. There are plenty of options without additional lives being ruined.
At this point I’m convinced you are a bot designed to piss people off to drive engagement up, there’s no way anyone can be so intentionally thick and contrarian.
I know it’s hard to believe there are people that don’t believe in capital punishment, but not everyone is a robot out to get you lol
Yeah, that’s still not going to help.
Firing squad is also incredibly inhumane and does not guarantee an instant and painless death.
If ever I would need to be killed, this would be my preferred method of leaving the earth.
Happy to see them try it, even though I am against executing people.
With hypoxia, you get euphoria prior to death. No suffering, no pain, just a little high to send you off this earth.
Should do it to animals too.
Indeed. I have read that the reason we don’t is because it takes too long.
That’s why they use CO2 asphyxiation, but in my opinion, that’s torture.
CO2 asphyxiation is extremely unpleasant. That is absolutely torture, and it is not in any way shape or form an ethical way to euthanize anything.
Leave the earth? “This” earth? What do you mean?
When people leave this earth they are welcomed onto the yearly space rocket that asends into the heavens. After seven days and seven nights of travel they land on Pluto, where the big farm in the sky is. That’s where your pets and grandparents are. Pluto is called Earth3 by the people on it.
That makes sense, thank you
That sounds way too close to Hale-Bopp /Heaven’s Gate.
It’s nothing like that.
I charge a lot more money.Sign me up!
Off topic but I just checked and their website is still there. Feels macabre.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
sounds like someone never learned about Xenu and the other earths.
Tsk tsk tsk. What are they teaching in school these days…
Ah, a fellow OT III.
deleted by creator
He means die. People use lots of euphemisms when talking about death. This is one of them.
It’s a common English phrase that refers to dying. The use of “earth” uncapitalized refers to the ground or land, not the planet Earth. You might be more familiar with the variant “leave this earthly plane,” which, by the way, has nothing to do with airplanes.
I am by no means pro death penalty, but I prefer this over the lethal injection. It’s a very painful and horrifying way to go and not at all like the drugs they give someone for medical euthanasia, while suffocating on nitrogen is actually relatively painless.
How about fuck the death penalty instead
Oh yeah I agree, I just would rather that if it’s going to be a thing over lethal injections.
I get that it is ‘humane,’ but I get scared when I see humans developing and organizing highly efficient ways to exterminate humans, such as gas chambers.
deleted by creator
Suffocation cannot possibly be considered “humane.”
The US frankly terrifies me these days.
Nitrogen asphyxiation does not equal suffocation. It displaces the oxygen in your lungs. Discomfort from suffocation is from build up of carbon dioxide, not lack of oxygen. For the brief period of time that you are still conscious, you can still exhale that carbon dioxide.
That seems unlikely. As @protist@mander.xyz explains further down the thread, it would likely lead to generalized pain and terror before seizures and death.
@protist is talking about nitrogen narcosis, which is a completely different thing.
No, they’re not. Read the post.
Yes he is. Nitrogen narcosis is from breathing compressed air with a high nitrogen blend. That’s why you need trimix with helium beyond a couple hundred feet. Otherwise you end up like my buddy trying to give fish your regulator.
Read. the. damn. post!
Yes, I did. Read my post.
They said:
Nitrogen narcosis happens to deep sea divers breathing compressed air, this would be straight up hypoxia, aka oxygen deprivation. Here’s what it does to your brain:
Nitrogen narcosis happens because when you are under pressure, like when underwater, gases are more easily dissolved. The nitrogen that is in your body dissolves into your tissues and basically anesthetizes you to death.
Nitrogen asphyxiation, like what we’re talking about here, is when the nitrogen that you breathe displaces the oxygen in your lungs. This causes the oxygen levels in your blood to drop, which is what kills you.
You said:
@protist is talking about nitrogen narcosis
@protist@protist@mander.xyz said:
…this would be straight up hypoxia, aka oxygen deprivation
I have a scuba certification. I know what nitrogen narcosis is. @protist is clearly not talking about nitrogen narcosis. They’re describing what would actually happen in the case of being forced to breathe pure nitrogen, which is straight up suffocation.
suffocation
noun
death caused by not having enough oxygen, or the act of killing someone by not allowing them to have enough oxygen
–Cambridge Dictionary
That guy is misinformed. He is talking about hypoxia which is what people commonly think of when dying from lack of oxygen, think of drowning. Hypoxia triggers the alarms in your body that cause the fear and pain you associate with suffocating due to the build up of co2 in the body.
With inert gases like nitrogen however it is different. Check out this wiki article, in the process drop down tab is provides a pretty good explanation on the matter
Not misinformed, I forgot it takes.pressure.to.get narcd, but asphyxiation does cause some of the same feelings. Narcd is nitrogen asphyxiation, but it has other effects, and the feeling is more intense before reaching total asphyxiation, and therefore it is easier to recover from. It takes the pressure for the nitrogen to bind to the oxygen receptors.
Serious question. Why don’t we just shoot them? I’m pretty sure bullets are cheaper than any chemical we use and it’s instantly effective. You can’t really mess it up either especially if you built a contraption the make sure the bullet hits the base of the skull.
Or fuck even one of those things they use for cattle. I just don’t understand why we seem to choose expensive options when the cheapest solution is right there.
They want to look painless and bloodless.
I am against the death penalty. Its only purpose is vengeance.
I’m torn on it honestly.
On one hand I don’t want innocent people killed by it but on the other I believe certain people don’t deserve to keep living after their crimes.
But I’ll never understand how “humane” just means “doesn’t leave a mess”
If it’s faster and cheaper it should be implemented.
You’re correct to identify that your position is inconsistent - (A) not wanting the innocent to be wrongly executed and (B) wanting the option to enact retributive punishment against certain offenders.
Let’s analyze these two imperatives:
The benefits of (A) are quite self evident. It’s bad to execute people for no reason. It’s maybe the most brutal and terrifying thing the state can do to a person. And where there exists capital punishment, it happens with non-zero probability.
The benefits of (B) are that you get a nice bellyfeel that you’ve set the universe into karmic alignment. Since there’s no evidence that capital punishment has a deterrent effect on crime (this can be proven by comparison of statistics between states/countries with capital punishment and without), this is really the ONLY benefit of position (B).
So if you want to prioritize what’s best overall for reducing harm in society, then select (A). If you enjoy appointing yourself the moral arbiter of karma by enforcing who “deserves” to live and die (and killing some innocent people is a price worth paying), then select (B).
Simples!
It’s hard for the people doing the execution. That’s why the traditional firing squad gives some of the shooters blanks: so they can convince themselves they’re not the killer.
Pulling a lever in another room for a method that looks calm and painless is a lot easier for the killers.
People can survive gunshots (even momentarily), it’s messy, and it looks scary. Honestly nitrogen hypoxia is not the worst way to go, I’d choose it over getting my brain blasted. Ideally we wouldn’t do it at all.
Nitrogen is pretty cheap, and would be considered way more human. Bullets aren’t an instant death, the cattle thing would be but considered brutal. Both a firing squad and cattle thing would be considered cruel and unusual punishment, the SCOTUS has already said firing squads are cruel and unusual. The classic three drug cocktail was painless but no one will.make it.
Nitrogen makes you feel.like.your drunk, nitrogen narcosis, until you pass out. It is considered painless.
But the real question you should be asking is, why do we even still allow the death penalty. Innocent people have been put to death. Or at least enough doubt that they shouldn’t have been killed.
Removed by mod
But revenge is more important then justice. /s
Removed by mod
Is there some reason a prison is incapable of containing them until they die? The only two choices aren’t kill them or let them rejoin society.
Removed by mod
Never said let them back into society. Knowing you will die in a 6x6 cell, alone, and unwanted by anyone in the whole world is far worse punishment then anything else I can imagine. But killing anyone, regardless of crime, or evidence, makes you just as much of a murderer as anyone convicted of that crime. Also, there is the possibility of killing someone completely innocent, what then? Oops our bad, but we killed 30 other bad people, so this one isn’t a big deal?
Removed by mod
Many people would prefer to be executed vs. being tortured for 50 years in a cell. Others wouldn’t, though. Is it worse to imprison someone innocent for decades or mistakenly execute them? I’m not sure. People could take their choice, perhaps? That’s pretty cruel too though.
because a huge percentage of convicted are later exonerated, and a large percentage that aren’t are posthumously exonerated.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
You can’t have it both ways. I only execute the absolutely guilty and never put someone in jail who is innocent. The world is not black and white. It’s not as simple as you make it out. Innocent people who ere put to death by the criminal.justoce system, at the time we’re beyond a doubt guilty.
Removed by mod
Every prosecution team will tell you there is zero doubt until the exoneration, at which point they’ll say “hmm.”
Also, you say “zero doubt in school shootings” but unlike folk-wisdom, the law actually does care about the minutae of culpability and is exactly the place to get into the distinctions between aforethought, meditation and whether or not they were responsible for their actions.
Removed by mod
If it were your kid in that chair, you wouldn’t give a shit what they’d done, you’d fight with your last breath to save them anyway.
Who you are doesn’t matter.
Who they are doesn’t matter.
Fight to save them.
Removed by mod
Bullets aren’t an instant death, the cattle thing would be but considered brutal.
Bullets and the cattle thing are both instant when they are fired at the right part of the brain. Why is more brutal and less humane? If it kills them immediately, then it’s as humane as killing someone gets.
Firing squads didn’t shoot you in the head.
I didn’t say they should use a firing squad. I said they could shoot you in the part of the brain with a bullet that will kill you instantly.
And it is illegal per cruel and unusual punishment clause.of the Constitution
Why is it cruel and unusual to kill someone instantly with a bullet and not cruel and unusual to electrocute or hang someone?
It’s not actually written in the constitution that killing someone instantly with a bullet is a cruel and unusual punishment. It’s an interpretation of the constitution that is frankly bizarre considering the ways we do actually execute people.
deleted by creator
Have you ever been narc’d? My dive buddy was once, he took his regulator out of his mouth and tried giving it to fish. Never felt a thing from it other than “oh shit, trying to make a fish breath air”.
The 3 drug cocktail worked, but it was often a minimally-trained technician charged with placing the actual IV lines. I know most of us have had an IV sometime in our life with relatively little pain, but that seems not to be the case for some inmates. Anxiety, old age, obesity, dehydration, and myriad other reasons can make it more challenging to place a catheter.
Bullets are as instant death as it gets. For a couple bucks you can headshot someone with a 50 cal, you can vaporize the brain way before neurons can propagate… Literally impossible to feel pain physically
Humane isn’t about the victim though, it’s about the observers. Nitrogen is painless and it’s not until the last moments the victim even notices, but in those last months there might be panic
If you disagree with my point, ask yourself… Heroin or fentanyl OD is probably about the cheapest and most pleasant death, why has it never even been considered?
I think fentanyl is a great solution, if you’re going to allow the death penalty, which I’m against. And it’s more than just a bullet. Read the SCOTUS decision that banned firing squads. The cruel and inhuman part isn’t even the pain felt, it’s the terror inflicted waiting for it to happen. Psychologically it is far worse waiting for a gun shot than an injection that will put you to sleep and numb you. Mentally there is a huge difference. It is psychological terror, and therefore cruel and inhuman punishment.
Ok, but bear with me here, because for real, this is how I want to go, and how I plan to put down my fowl when they get too old to live comfortably, because there’s no stress involved to taint the meat, and I can feel comfortable with myself for giving them a good life with free roam, and a good end.
It’s incredibly humane. You feel nothing and don’t know you are suffocating. If you’ve ever breathed helium, you know what nitrogen feels like - literally nothing. This happened to multiple individuals in space because nitrogen is not flammable, and is why they now use 6% co2 in non-oxygenated spaces.
The body does not care if it has oxygen, that’s hard to test for biologically because oxygen is highly reactive, what it does test for is buildup of co2. As long as you can breathe out the co2, your body knows nothing.
So if they are going to kill other humans, this is the way to go. I don’t agree with doing that non-voluntarily, but if it’s going to happen this is at least humane.
Something I’ve been thinking about: for the victim, does it actually matter if it’s nitrogen or well-aimed bullet/axe/guillotine? For the onlookers, sure the nitrogen looks a lot cleaner, but instant death is painless too.
I’d argue, yes it matters.
Bullet might not be as well aimed as expected, considering some of the firing squad have blanks, and most of them probably don’t really want to be there.
Beheadings are reported to result in animated heads… and I would assume something like a waterfall of pain as the nerves from the body are severed but the brain, where consciousness lives, goes on for a bit yet. It might be quick, but it doesn’t seem pleasant.
Electric chairs, just look them up, same with lethal injection problems… any “justice death” is basically torture.
At least they can’t fuck up neutral gas asphyxiation. It’s either deadly or you sleep through it and wake up with a nasty headache.
deleted by creator
No, that’s not even remotely the same thing as inert gas asphyxiation.
When you get no oxygen at all, you pass out very quickly, you don’t suffer like you do with low levels of oxygen over extended periods.
Don’t fear monger please.
deleted by creator
This is how I would want to go. Look up BBC Horizon 2008 How to Kill a Human Being. Explains everything you need to know. Seems like states don’t want to do it because people wouldn’t suffer during execution. Maybe things have changed since then.
Seems like states don’t want to do it because people wouldn’t suffer during execution
To me it seems like they’re trying to make the process more acceptable to the public so they can delight in more of them.
deleted by creator
yes, they paralyze you then inject you with poison
deleted by creator
Here’s an article about it: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/21/793177589/gasping-for-air-autopsies-reveal-troubling-effects-of-lethal-injection
deleted by creator
Because the cruelty is the point. Nitrogen asphyxiation has been known for a long time. The Sarco suicide pod uses it because it’s a peaceful death. The whole reason it hasn’t been adopted is because they want the condemned to suffer.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Is it really an execution if there is no suffering? /s
