Althouse: The Supreme Court will decide on the 3-drug protocol for lethal-injection executions.

January 23, 2015

The Supreme Court will decide on the 3-drug protocol for lethal-injection executions.

SCOTUSblog reports.

45 comments:

Michael The Magnificent said...: Since death row inmates and their lawyers make such hay over the chemicals they are to be injected with (Whatayamean these drugs aren't FDA approved? Horrors!), how about we cease injecting any death-inducing chemicals, and just drain them of their blood?; 1/23/15, 4:41 PM
Paul said...: How about just strapping a ounce of C4 to their noggin and setting it off.

Instant death, no fancy chemicals, and no pain.

Not even messy if you use a hollow charge.; 1/23/15, 4:50 PM
mccullough said...: The return of the firing squad is near.; 1/23/15, 5:01 PM
jamescbennett said...: Step 1: Determine how long it takes the brain to register pain from a head injury.

Step 2: Modify an industrial press to completely crush the inmate's skull and destroy his brain faster than the brain can register pain.

Result: Painless execution.; 1/23/15, 5:27 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: "Must a death-row inmate, seeking to challenge a state’s lethal-injection protocol, prove that a better alternative protocol is available, even if the existing procedure violates the Eighth Amendment?"

Diabolical!; 1/23/15, 5:31 PM
James Pawlak said...: The time tested methods of low/no pain executions favor: Long drop hanging; And, a mid-caliber bullet through the base of the skull.; 1/23/15, 5:33 PM
SJ said...: I would presume that a lethal dose of morphine would minimize pain and suffering...; 1/23/15, 5:48 PM
Big Mike said...: How about a heroin overdose?; 1/23/15, 5:52 PM
Big Mike said...: @James Pawlak, the Russians refer to your latter option as a "9 millimeter headache."; 1/23/15, 5:53 PM
Fritz said...: Really, it's so easy to kill people painlessly (opiates, lack of oxygen, barbituates) that you have to suspect that governments aren't really trying to find them.; 1/23/15, 6:24 PM
Be said...: My brother is currently doing Life w/out Parole at one of the CO prisons.

I wonder if he is doing Life because I couldn't afford better Legal Counsel.

I am thankful that they are dealing well by him. I send money when I can to make things easier.; 1/23/15, 6:34 PM
D. said...: try carbon monoxide. it seems to work for amateurs.; 1/23/15, 6:40 PM
Jason said...: Ever think about sending money to your brother's victims or the surviving family members?; 1/23/15, 7:20 PM
Be said...: Thus Spake Jason, alone in his righteousness.; 1/23/15, 7:34 PM
Anonymous said...: What else are they going to decide? What's for dinner?; 1/23/15, 7:36 PM
Browndog said...: Only the government, 10,000 lawyers and hundreds of Judges, can go round and round on the proper way to kill someone.

job security

I'd bet the victims family can figure out a way before some lawyer can say "Good Morning".; 1/23/15, 7:42 PM
Danno said...: A 3-drug protocol as opposed to a breach of protocol?; 1/23/15, 7:57 PM
Achilles said...: This is a cottage industry at this point. Complete waste of resources. Not a bad day of government work.; 1/23/15, 8:24 PM
google is evil said...: Why not? They decide everything else.; 1/23/15, 8:30 PM
Be said...: Thank God for Lawyers. Who else could prolong Life by prolonging Hopelessness?; 1/23/15, 8:44 PM
Curious George said...: Let's make this moot. Strap 'em in Ole Sparky, and light 'em up.; 1/23/15, 8:45 PM
JAORE said...: I have long wondered why they do not use the same anesthesia as patients undergoing surgery. At that point they can, painlessly, remove organs. Surely they could up the dosage, cut an artery or otherwise dispatch the poor sod at that point.; 1/23/15, 9:15 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Enh. We're arguing about how painful execution should be?

So far as I can see, we made a wrong turn when we invited the medical profession in. Why should execution have anything at all to do with doctors?

As for painless (or as-good-as) methods, we have many. Already suggested: explosives, firing squad, industrial press, opiates, absence of oxygen. I'd modify the last to an all-nitrogen atmosphere. It's not absence of O2 that causes you to feel asphyxiated, but presence of CO2. In an N2 atmosphere, you basically pass out; end of story.; 1/23/15, 9:25 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Any chance they could take a look at a Dilation and Evacuation Protocol... while they are in the neighborhood?; 1/23/15, 9:56 PM
madAsHell said...: I'm pretty sure that all these "botched" executions were coordinated with the executee (not a word, but it is now).

"Make it look painful when you start feeling stoned".

Women commit suicide with drugs. It can't be THAT painful.; 1/23/15, 10:10 PM
F said...: Nitrogen is cheap, abundant, effective, and can be released into the atmosphere afterward without endangering others.; 1/23/15, 10:19 PM
Quaestor said...: This reminds me of the 1789 debate over the death penalty in France which led to the adoption of the guillotine, an invention mistakenly attributed to Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. Much of the debate centered on endorsing a method that was both completely reliable and completely painless, the other points of Dr. Guillotin's proposal having been adopted with little debate (except from a non-voting observer from the Jacobins, a prissy little lawyer from Arras called Maximilien de Robespierre, who demanded total abolition of capital punishment).

Of all execution methods that have actually been routinely used the guillotine seems to be the best. The machine itself is simple and economical, and if kept in good repair (blade sharp and rails well greased) completely reliable. One downside is the deluge of blood. Another is the persistent speculation that severed heads may remain conscious for up to 15 seconds.

However, given the horror stories about botched hangings, botched electrocutions, botched gassings, botched whatever the fact that no state of our republic ever adopted any form of decapitation is surprising. As recently as last July a judge of the Ninth Circuit, Alex Kozinski, endorsed the guillotine over lethal injection.

Unfortunately for the condemned that quick and merciful death will likely never be adopted for two reasons:

1) Right-wing conspiracy hustler Alex Jones has told his flock that the Feds have salted away 30,000 guillotines which will be rolled out at the command of the Illuminati for mass executions. Given that the "ROF" of a well-oiled decapitation machine can't much exceed two noggins-per-minute, and the highly efficient mass execution methods already perfected by the SS, the fact that the New World Order has purchased 30,000 guillotines (from Guillotines-R-Us?) can only be chalked up to typical government fuck-uppery.

2) ISIS.

CO will never be adopted, even though there's no less painful means of death known despite being very slow. CO was used by the SS before they heard of Zyclon B.; 1/23/15, 10:20 PM
Quaestor said...: Oops, that's Zyklon B (krauts hate the letter C, evidently); 1/23/15, 10:33 PM
Gahrie said...: have long wondered why they do not use the same anesthesia as patients undergoing surgery.

Because doctors won't do it because of their oath, and the state won't let non-doctors do it, because of lawsuits.; 1/23/15, 11:32 PM
Jason said...: Be: Being more concerned about the interests of victims of crime than the perps is a problem for you?

Very strange.

I don't know the nature of your brother's crime. It could be it was one of those three-strikes things over trivialities, or you could be convinced your brother was wrongly convicted. It happens.

But I imagine if that were the case you'd mention it.

Other than that, if it produced a life without possibility of parole sentence, it must have been pretty heinous.

If so, is it so strange to you that other people are more interested in the victims' welfare than the criminals? You think this is "righteousness?" It's a negative to you if we're more concerned about the victim than the perp?

Especially since it's other taxpayers who wind up paying into victims compensation benefits... which are never enough.

Yours is a really bizarre reaction.

Feh. No wonder your family produces felons.; 1/23/15, 11:45 PM
Jason said...: This doesn't seem like a difficult question.

Life has intrinsic value. I've never been comfortable with the death penalty.

But if you're gonna have it, it's not difficult to kill someone painlessly and reliably. We've been doing it for eons.

I say we adopt an execution methodology even liberals will embrace: Turn on a giant vacuum and suck the limbs off their bodies one at a time.

Or use a saline solution to burn off the skin.

Or just jam some scissors into the back of the skull and wiggle them around.

Liberals love that shit.; 1/23/15, 11:52 PM
JAORE said...: have long wondered why they do not use the same anesthesia as patients undergoing surgery.

"Because doctors won't do it because of their oath, and the state won't let non-doctors do it, because of lawsuits."

I believe the part about lawsuits. The sacred oath, not so sure. Seems to be a lot of.... flexibility there.; 1/24/15, 12:04 AM
cubanbob said...: Why this obsession with pain free death for convicted murderers? If they were left to die of natural causes its most likely their natural result death like that of nearly everyone else would involve a degree of pain. most forms of death have a degree of pain be it cancer, heart disease, infections and so on. No one guarantees a service member a painless death in combat. As long as the method of execution isn't designed to induce pain for pain's sake or such that it a period of prolonged pain to reach death why are the courts wasting their time with these suits?

A cardiac arrest will result in the complete lack of consciousness within one minute and irreversible death on less than ten minutes. A large enough dose of a tranquilizer via an IV followed by a narcotic followed by a cardiac arrest agent. Why such a protocol is so difficult for states to follow I don't know. Maybe states ought mandate that any doctor that performs abortions must also be capable of performing an execution as a condition to having their medical license object to being 'drafted' to performs executions since those doctors can't object on the grounds of the Hippocratic Oath since the oath also forbids abortions.; 1/24/15, 1:10 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: "The Supreme Court will decide on the 3-drug protocol for lethal-injection executions."

I don't see how they can render an informed decision without testing the protocols personally. But I guess that's too much to hope for.; 1/24/15, 1:13 AM
tds said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/24/15, 4:43 AM
tds said...: just paint guys on death-row black and let them loose in NY with a toy gun glued to the hands. NYPD will handle it from there.; 1/24/15, 4:45 AM
Herp McDerp said...: I had to have my nineteen-year-old cat euthanized last year (heart failure and acute kidney failure, poor guy). The vet used a two-drug protocol which she assured me was quick and painless; it was very quick and the animal did not appear to suffer at all. This is a well-tested, effective, and commonplace technology -- why can't the same drugs be used for executions?

And if it's ethical to euthanize an innocent animal this way, why isn't it ethical to use the same method to put down a vicious killer that our legal system has determined to be deserving of death?; 1/24/15, 5:21 AM
tim maguire said...: Executions were probably a lot more humane back when we didn't worry so much about whether or not our methods were humane.; 1/24/15, 5:38 AM
ilvuszq said...: use a rope; 1/24/15, 7:23 AM
jr565 said...: Just use the same chemicals or methods that are used for abortions.; 1/24/15, 8:26 AM
jr565 said...: Use a sticky bomb on them. Did you see Private Ryan? When the one guy was trying to apply the sticky bomb to the tank turret it blew up before he could place it and he was blown to bits.
Looks horrid, but I doubt you feel too much pain if your'e blown to bits in a second.; 1/24/15, 8:29 AM
Wince said...: The Supreme Court will decide on the 3-drug protocol for lethal-injection executions.

One bourbon, one scotch, one beer.; 1/24/15, 9:20 AM
Big Mike said...: @Jason, you are insidious.; 1/24/15, 9:37 AM
ken in tx said...: Utah allows the condemned to choose the firing squad because Mormon theology holds that some sins can only be forgiven by spilling the sinners own blood. Thus a killer who has repented and asked forgiveness can go to heaven if his execution spills his blood.; 1/24/15, 1:13 PM
n.n said...: Duplication of resources. Capital executions can be carried out with lethal injection, decapitation, or dismemberment in a Planned Parenthood affiliated clinic. They already carry out human rights- approved termination of around 2 million [wholly innocent] human lives annually. They should have no [moral] objections to terminate convicted murderers with equal effectiveness and efficiency.; 1/24/15, 1:36 PM