January 23, 2024
"Alabama, unless stopped by the courts, intends to strap inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith to a gurney and use a gas mask to replace breathable air with nitrogen..."
"... depriving him of oxygen needed to stay alive, on Thursday in the nation’s first execution attempt with the method. The Alabama attorney general's office told federal appeals court judges last week that nitrogen hypoxia is 'the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.'"
Dr. Jeffrey Keller, president of the American College of Correctional Physicians, is quoted: "What effect the condemned person will feel from the nitrogen gas itself, no one knows.... Since the condemned person will not be breathing any oxygen, he will die. It is little different than putting a plastic bag over one’s head."
We're told The American Veterinary Medical Association rejects nitrogen hypoxia for euthanasia of mammals. It is said to be "distressing." And "experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council" said it might be "torture."
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91 comments:
Bama!
Meh. He's lucky. They should pull his head off with forceps...I heard that was humane and a womans right.
Why should this murderer get more rights than dead babies who have never received their RIGHT to life??.
"most painless and humane method of execution known to man."
A bullet to or otherwise immediate and heavy damage to the human brain stem (aka the "fatal-T" or "T-box") is the most effective and most irreversible form of death. Why is it necessary to reinvent a wheel that has been proven so tens of millions of times since the invention of gunpowder. The elaborate mercy and obsessive vexation we have in the USA over this argument almost comes off as cruel and unusual in itself. How is it we devote so much time to an act as simple as shooting someone turned around on a chair in the back of the head. It never ceases to amaze.
Felony abortion... Capitol punishment... medicated eugenics... human rite to relieve a criminal "burden". Let us bray.
nitrogen hypoxia is 'the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.
THIS is why, the lefties Hate nitrogen.. If it's Not Cruel.. How can they reject it?
They reject it for being nonrejectable
So Switzerland is now legally using this method for voluntary euthanasia. What's the difference? Either it's horribly inhumane, or it's painless and easy.
Torture by using knock-out gas? Really? How many people have died after falling asleep with a broken heater, broken gas stove, or in a closed garage with a car engine running? Sylvia Plath, how painful was your head-in-a-gas-oven suicide?
Falling asleep before dying is literally the calmest, easiest way to die. Once again, obfuscation follows from simple objections to the death penalty.
Consider that 'humane' hunters today use high-powered rifles (often with several times more power than the AR-15 or AK-47) to kill deer, elk, moose, bears, wild sheep, wild pigs, etc. from hundreds of yards away. The animals either die instantly or run for a few seconds before they die. Historical human hunters dating back to the origin of our species used spears and bows/arrows to stab wild animals in the heart or critical organs and then let them bleed out.
Old-time firing squads used a group of several hunting-class rifles to simultaneously shoot at the heart for an execution. It was certainly considered 'humane' back then.
Lions, tigers, and bears kill only with their claws and fangs. Spiders and snakes kill by injecting often painful poisons into other animals. Boa constrictors kill by crushing their victims and not allowing them to breathe.
Torture? Or...
Utopia? Childlike wishful thinking? No consideration of biology and nature?
Aren’t divers intimately familiar with nitrogen hypoxia ?
Six weeks to a functional nervous system, when fetus meets felon in a state of biological viability. #NoJudgment #NoLabels In Stork We Trust.
Why does the US have such a hard time killing prisoners quickly and painlessly? Seems like the sort of thing anybody should be good at by now.
Canada has extensive recent experience killing people on purpose, perhaps look north for ideas?
Brompton cocktails! Give the inmate something to look forward to.
Nitrogen narcosis due to partial pressure at a depth of several atmospheres. AKA Rapture of the Deep.
“ RideSpaceMountain said...
"most painless and humane method of execution known to man."
A bullet to or otherwise immediate and heavy damage to the human brain stem (aka the "fatal-T" or "T-box") is the most effective and most irreversible form of death. Why is it necessary to reinvent a wheel that has been proven so tens of millions of times since the invention of gunpowder?”
Even the Nazis found that having soldiers murder civilians was bad for morale, so they switched to gas. Shooting the condemned as you describe is certainly effective and the Chinese did it to countless thousands of people, but it’s likely too much to expect of US prison guards.
@Larry J
Technologically it can be done without a human behind a trigger. It's actually even been done before. It can even be done without a gun involved. There are myriad ways to destroy a brain stem.
The obsession with "humaneness" blinds people to the most effective method for nonother reason than it gives them - mostly women - the 'ick'.
Why does the US have such a hard time killing prisoners quickly and painlessly?
It's the double-edged scalpel of empathetic detachment. That said, send the fetus... felon to the progressive neighborhood Planned Parenthood corporate office that performs a planned prisonerhood under transnationally approved humane auspices to relieve a social "burden".
"Even the Nazis found that having soldiers murder civilians was bad for morale, so they switched to gas. Shooting the condemned as you describe ..... but it’s likely too much to expect of US prison guards."
Already then, have a machine pull the trigger.
I do like the forceps around the neck process though. Put the condemned man, and it's always 99% men, in warm moist tube prior to tearing his head off. Make sure he's in the fetal position. He won't feel a thing.
If we called it assisted suicide, the US would be praised.
We could outsource our executions to Saudi Arabia. Send him over for the next tranche of beheadings.
IIRC from physiology classes, the gasping for air reflex is controlled not by lack of oxygen but by excess of carbon dioxide in the blood.
Smith was one of two men convicted of the 1988 murder-for-hire of a preacher’s wife. Prosecutors said the men were paid $1,000 to kill Elizabeth Sennett, 45, on behalf of her husband, who wanted to collect on insurance. The coroner testified Sennett was stabbed repeatedly.
How humane was that? Asking for a friend...
I can understand someone being concerned about outright torture of a condemned person during an execution but this goal of removing any/all discomfort is just strange and I think is actually more of an excuse used to try and prevent any/all executions. I believe it has little to do with avoiding suffering during executions.
I also understand the worry about executing an innocent person, many examples exist of people wrongly convicted and later exonerated by DNA, etc.
I can see/support leaning more on "life with zero possibility of parole" (if it actually means that) as well as saving execution for more heinous cases where there is little/no doubt. I think execution needs to remain on the table. Some crimes/behaviors are so brutal/heinous/cruel that justice demands this individual no longer exists.
Shooting the condemned as you describe is certainly effective and the Chinese did it to countless thousands of people, but it’s likely too much to expect of US prison guards.
^This. Being a prison guard is already hard. In the day of social media, how much worse would it be to be an executioner who shoots people in the head?
Like many, I feel little sympathy for the guilty prisoner who has committed a crime so heinous that society even considers death as the appropriate meting out of justice. And there is something to be said for not "lightening up" that sentence - for having all of society feel the weight of deliberately ending a life - that would argue in favor of, say, a firing squad or the electric chair, something more visceral. But it's always one or a few individuals who have to administer the death blow on our behalf.
And, too, I am squeamish, and religious; for me it's enough that death will prevent the guilty person from reoffending while also, we hope, providing the victim's or victims' loved ones some sense of closure. I myself don't "need" the guilty person to suffer.
Anyone talking about what this guy did to deserve death?
I don't see how nitrogen would be different from helium.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9412544/
Abstract
Suicide by helium inhalation has become increasingly common in the last few decades in Europe and the US because it produces a quick and painless death. Inhaled-gas suicides can easily be assessed through death scene investigation and autopsy. However, helium is a colorless and odorless inert gas that unfortunately cannot be detected using standard toxicological analysis. A successful gas analysis was performed following the suicide of a 17-year-old female. For the detection of helium, central/peripheral blood samples and gaseous samples from the esophagus, stomach, and upper and lower respiratory airways (from the trachea and the primary left and right bronchia) were collected with a gastight syringe, ensuring minimal dilution. Qualitative analyses were positive in all gaseous samples. Quantitative analyses were performed using a special gas-inlet system with a vacuum by which the sample can be transferred to a mass spectrometer, reducing the risk of contamination. Helium concentrations were 20.16% from the trachea, 12.33% from the right lung, and 1.5% from the stomach. Based on the high levels of helium, the cause and manner of death were assessed as asphyxia suicide by inhalation of helium. Therefore, toxicological analyses should always be applied in order to gain evidence of inhaled gas in gaseous samples.
... in warm moist tube prior to tearing his head off. Make sure he's in the fetal position. He won't feel a thing.
In a womb, with a scalpel, on a cold gray slab, with carbon sequestration. Today's theme is "burdens", brought to us by the letters M and F, and the number 2.
"Since the condemned person will not be breathing any oxygen, he will die. It is little different than putting a plastic bag over one’s head.""
The doctor needs to go back to medical school. The feeling of suffocation is caused by the pH drop from excess dissolved CO2 in the blood. A plastic bag over the head will do nothing to prevent this. Breathing pure nitrogen will allow excess CO2 to be driven-off. You will feel nothing, just pass-out and then die.
He stabbed someone to death for 1,000.00
Perhaps someone should stab him to death? nah -that would be cruel!
I find it bizarre that the ACLU and other groups are worried about inmates suffering during their execution, especially when those same inmates in many cases tortured their victims before murdering them. Besides, isn’t being put to death the ultimate suffering? If there is concern for the death row inmate suffering at his or her execution, then put them in front of a firing squad. That is the quickest form of execution of death row inmates that I can think of that has been used in the United States.
Second story in a week that does not tell what the victims suffered. He will be surrounded by dolt supporters. His victims died alone. Who cares about the methodology.
We should outlaw all witnesses and supporters from death row inmates. Let then contemplate what they did to their victims when they're all alone. Also no ministers, advocates, and perversely stimulated lawyers. Let them feel the utter loneliness and abandonment that their victims felt.
That would be justice. I know what it feels like: it's worse than the violation itself.
There's no justice. There's just us -- Judge Dread.
The University of Alabama has a veterinary school. Their graduates have no qualms about euthanizing their patients and know how to do it painlessly. I’ve had to watch several pets cross that “rainbow bridge” without any distress, except for me crying of course. Get some large animal vet in there to put this one down.
Second story in a week that does not tell what the victims suffered. He will be surrounded by dolt supporters. His victims died alone. Who cares about the methodology.
We should outlaw all witnesses and supporters from death row inmates. Let then contemplate what they did to their victims when they're all alone. Also no ministers, advocates, and perversely stimulated lawyers. Let them feel the utter loneliness and abandonment that their victims felt.
That would be justice. I know what it feels like: it's worse than the violation itself.
Gee, Ann, you couldn't cite the crime? That's not trolling. It's unethical. I've lost a lot of respect for you and your pseudo-neutrality lately. How about taking a stab at being actually neutral, or take off the neutrality clown nose?
The description of the crime and the suffering of the victim is all there at the link.
I am opposed to the death penalty. Sure, there exist people who deserve to die for what they have done, but I do not consider our judicial system to be competent enough to be making that decision. How many innocent people killed are too high a price to bring justice to those who deserve to die? I am constantly amazed that so-called small government conservatives support giving the State the power of life and death over it's citizens.
"A bullet to or otherwise immediate and heavy damage to the human brain stem (aka the "fatal-T" or "T-box") is the most effective and most irreversible form of death."
But the funeral is certainly a "closed casket" affair, no?
Besides, getting shot in the head was Stalin's favorite method.
The debate about this is all a fraud and always has been. The critics of the methods of execution aren't really criticizing the methods but, rather, the execution itself. There are multiple ways of killing someone without inducing any pain. Anyone who has ever had any kind of surgical procedure involving anaesthesia literally knows this. We have, in fact, almost completely moved towards such painless methods of carrying out the death penalty. So, the "cruel and unusual" nature of the punishment method is all due to the knowledge that one is going to die even a painless death at a set point of time in the future, but the opponents of the death penalty refuse to make that argument because it is a particularly ridiculous one, and they know it.
"I do not consider our judicial system to be competent enough to be making that decision."
I actually agree with this now, except I don't consider our judicial system to be competent enough to make ANY decision.
"most painless and humane method of execution known to man."
"A bullet to or otherwise immediate and heavy damage to the human brain stem (aka the 'fatal-T' or 'T-box') is the most effective and most irreversible form of death. Why is it necessary to reinvent a wheel that has been proven so tens of millions of times since the invention of gunpowder. The elaborate mercy and obsessive vexation we have in the USA over this argument almost comes off as cruel and unusual in itself. How is it we devote so much time to an act as simple as shooting someone turned around on a chair in the back of the head. It never ceases to amaze."
Because some want to pretend there is a way to execute a human being that is somehow not a brutal act of violence. A bullet to the head or a drop of the guillotine blade are both instant and painless to the person so executed, but they are extravagantly bloody and violent as a spectacle to those carrying out or witnessing it or removing the violated bodies. Execution by suffocation or poisoning may be bloodless and leave no physical evidence of violence to the body, but they are more time-consuming and can be painful to the condemned person. We are shocked by what we can see or imagine, and indifferent to that which appears as peaceful, a simple going to sleep. In the end, we're still killing a person.
I do think there are crimes and criminals so heinous that execution is appropriate. (I do not think this is true simply because or in every case where someone has murdered someone else.) My reservation is the possibility of executing persons who were unjustly convicted of murder and are actually innocent. Given the numbers of prisoners who have been exonerated of guilt and released after years or decades in prison, I'm sure we have executed innocent people.
How come the Canadians can off all their old and crippled citizens but we can’t figure out how to end garbage humans?
n.n said...send the fetus... felon to the progressive neighborhood Planned Parenthood corporate office
Or send them to Canada with a note that says "I'm depressed" or "I have an illness that will be expensive to treat" and The Ministry of Health will take it from there.
Is anything faster than a guillotine?
I'm with Ride Space Mountain, Robert Cook, and Tim (and many others I suspect). Some people deserve to be put to death, but our courts are neither competent nor trustworthy enough to be trusted with the job.
They do know that "breathable air" as they call it IS nitrogen, right?
Or mostly nitrogen. About 780,000ppm (78%)
Along with 210,000 of oxygen, 8,000ppm of argon and trace amounts of other gases like co2(400ppm) and methane (2ppm)
Numbers approx and from memory.
John Henry
Enigma said...
Falling asleep before dying is literally the calmest, easiest way to die.
Doesn't that depend on whether one is driving or riding?
My neighbor died peacefully in his sleep. His passengers died screaming in terror and, later, pain.
John Henry
“Depriving him of oxygen.” Not exactly. It’s replacing oxygen with nitrogen. Ergo, you don’t slowly suffocate. You just die. (Can’t help hearing Commodus telling Maximus, “You just won’t die.”)
Tim said...
I am opposed to the death penalty. Sure, there exist people who deserve to die for what they have done, but I do not consider our judicial system to be competent enough to be making that decision. How many innocent people killed are too high a price to bring justice to those who deserve to die? I am constantly amazed that so-called small government conservatives support giving the State the power of life and death over it's citizens.
1/23/24, 8:13 AM
I don't support the death penalty any more than I support abortion. Only one is bringing people out into the streets to riot...the murdering of babies that died for their parents carelessness. Talk about a death sentence. Since we are so good at murdering babies, and voting to keep it that way, why do some the same people who are for abortion oppose the death sentencing of a murderer??
RideSpaceMountain said...
"I do not consider our judicial system to be competent enough to be making that decision."
I actually agree with this now, except I don't consider our judicial system to be competent enough to make ANY decision.
From the article:
"Smith’s initial conviction was overturned. He was convicted again in 1996. The jury recommended a life sentence by 11-1, but a judge sentenced Smith to death. Alabama no longer allows a judge to override a jury's sentencing decision in death penalty cases.
Smith is one of few people to survive a prior execution attempt. The state attempted a lethal injection in 2022, but the prison system called it off before the drugs were administered because the staff had difficulty connecting the two required intravenous lines."
Couldn't find a vein. Can you imagine?
Tough nuts... dead is dead. One does not have a right to a swift painless death.. ESPECIALLY IF YOU MURDERER OTHER PEOPLE.
If they brought back 'Old Sparky', or just a rope, that would not bother me in the slightest... note Japan still uses the rope and China uses a bullet in the back of the head.
Howard said...
I don't see how nitrogen would be different from helium.
The last words would be funny.
Yes, here we go again. Having eliminated all of the best, least stressful methods of formal execution, the Death Penalty Opponents now complain loudly that it's an unpleasant experience akin to torture that must be avoided for the well-being of the prisoner. How any airtime or newsprint is wasted on this farce is beyond me. As others have noted, thousands upon thousands of human beings are put under general anesthesia on a daily basis without the least kerfuffle or aggravation, and are brought back to consciousness without any unpleasant after-effects.
So the prisoner doesn't want to die, and is feeling anxious? Maybe he ought to be, considering what is on his life's balance sheet, and considering where he's headed. Let's call it 'Equity', shall we? Let's call it 'Justice', and get on with it.
The husband, who started all this madness, killed himself.
Upon learning that he was a suspect in his wife’s slaying, instead of facing the consequences of his actions, Charles E. Sennett shot himself in the chest in one of his son’s backyards. It was a week after Elizabeth’s death
The other killer, John Forrest Parker, has already been executed.
After more than 22 years on death row, 42-year-old John was executed by lethal injection on June 10, 2010, at 6:41 in the evening.
https://thecinemaholic.com/elizabeth-dorlene-sennett-murder/
I wonder how long the "technician" was working that needle in and out of the guy's arm before the warden finally said, "You know what? Fuck this. Take him back to his cell." Crazy.
I still remember my grandpa's last words:
"Stop shaking the ladder, ya little bastard!"
Ireland allows aborting a felon... fetus with Down Syndrome, PRC because it is female sex, in America human rites are Planned for social, clinical, political, criminal, and fair weather progress. Democratic societies with progressive cultures are known to wield liberal license in the execution of social justice, which is a forward-looking risk for equity and inclusion under the law.
Hanging is the traditional method, for some meanings of tradition, for killing criminals and spies. If we go back to the Revolution- Nathan Hale was hanged, not shot, because of his crimes. I'm onboard with hanging. In a public square near the site of the crimes.
Were it not for the Constitutions prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments, there are a lot medieval and older ways of inflicting death, some of which lasted days.
It is often said "The punishment should fit the crime." Usually used by liberals as an excuse not to increase punishment, but to decrease it to nothing if at all possible. The idea had been examined in literature. Spider Robinson had a story about it. A diplomat of the XTs who controlled space travel had been kidnapped and died over a period of days. The kidnappers were caught and turned over to them for trial as the treaties with Earth required. Their executions were televised. 3 days of the kidnappers being slowly smothered with pillows by the alien executioners before finally being cut off completely from breathing and killed. IIRC the final line was akin to- "Don't you humans believe the punishment should fit the crime?"
Seriously, Planned Parenthood (PP) offers abortion services (e.g. planned prisonerhood) approved by the UN Human Rights Council. If in doubt, send the murderous felon to a sanctuary state, where plausible is a high standard.
"Couldn't find a vein. Can you imagine?"
What I can't imagine is how people can still think lethal injection beats a point blank .22lr to the Medula Oblongata in the 'cruel & unusual' department. It wouldn't even be messy.
The methodologies we keep coming up with to kill hominids is borderline Dr. Evil Sharks-With-Laser-Beams-On-Their-Heads sardonic comedy.
Killing people is extremely easy. Only academics could make it this weird.
SPECIALLY IF YOU MURDERER OTHER PEOPLE.
If they brought back 'Old Sparky'
A not so new Green deal to get the environmentalists' support.
He's still viable. Abort.
You're all missing the major point here. The principal purpose of all this diddling and fiddling with methods of execution is so that anti-death penalty defense lawyers can drag out and nitpick any death sentence until the prisoner succumbs to natural causes. Human societies have known how to execute people from the earliest times. And they all work.
Torture by using knock-out gas? Really? How many people have died after falling asleep with a broken heater, broken gas stove, or in a closed garage with a car engine running?
Almost happened to me when the heater in my barracks broke down back in 1970. A guy coming in very late and very drunk from the NCO club sobered up quickly enough when he smelled the heavy fumes. Drunk as he was, he still had the presence of mind to pull the fire alarm and get us all awake and out of there. The barracks were a “temporary” building erected for World War I (yes, the First World War) and still in use for enlisted troops assigned to the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. After this episode the buildings were finally condemned. You fall asleep, and you don’t wake up. Next to troops in the jungle bleeding out from a 7.62 round, a not unpleasant way to go. Would my name have been chiseled into the Wall? Probably not, since I would have died stateside.
But thanks to a drunken lifer I’m here 53 years later to bedevil Ann Althouse.
Nitrogen anoxia is painless. My father and many of his colleagues were subjected to it (not to death, obviously) as part of a program testing NASA aircraft pilot physical resilience.
Typically the subject was given a simple task, like writing one's signature repeatedly, or sorting a deck of cards. The oxygen concentration in the mask feed was dropped to zero over twenty seconds or so, so they are breathing 100% N2. Subject passes out, then oxygen is restored.
Uniformly they report no sensation of pain or suffocation. The paper of signatures shows rapidly increasing loss of coordination, but no signs of stress.
Nitrogen anoxia is painless. My father and many of his colleagues were subjected to it (not to death, obviously) as part of a program testing NASA aircraft pilot physical resilience.
Typically the subject was given a simple task, like writing one's signature repeatedly, or sorting a deck of cards. The oxygen concentration in the mask feed was dropped to zero over twenty seconds or so, so they are breathing 100% N2. Subject passes out, then oxygen is restored.
Uniformly they report no sensation of pain or suffocation. The paper of signatures shows rapidly increasing loss of coordination, but no signs of stress.
"most painless and humane method of execution known to man."
Annihilated in a nuclear blast. The brain would be destroyed before the sensory inputs would let it know something is happening.
To kill someone against their will is by definition an inhumane act. To deny that it is impossible for a human to commit an act so horrible that it doesn't deserve execution is contrary to human nature.....I was just reading about the Renaissance Florence that both DaVinci and Michelangelo inhabited. In those days, criminals were paraded toward the place of execution. While being paraded, they were tortured with hot pincers which were used to torment their flesh. The crowds loved it. I guess something like that was going on when they took Marie Antoinette and the others to the guillotine. There's not much to recommend the human race....I was just reading about the Duke of Wellington. He considered his enlisted men "scum" and had them flogged for disciplinary infractions. Napoleon never flogged his soldiers. Napoleon's soldiers were infamous for their rapes and pillage when they were on the march. Some exceptions, but Wellington's troops were orderly and paid for what they took. You make your choices.
I cannot support the state taking a human life at all. Arguing about method is straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.
The good society would have few abortions, few guns, and no executions.
I oppose the death penalty.
Those fools who murdered Emmett Till certainly deserve to have a heavy industrial fan tied to their own necks with barbed wire and certainly deserve to be thrown into a deep body of water.
This does not translate into support for giving the government the power to impose penalties on people for what they deserve.
Not an expert on hard drugs like heroin, fentanyl, etc., but I do read.
And I read that the 'high' is absolutely amazing, which is one reason why addicts do what they do.
I also know that overdoses are fatal.
Why not just drip a massive dose of one of these drugs?
Or the kind they give you when you get a colonoscopy.
That is totally painless and completely 'lights out.'
And the effects are known to millions.
When I was in law school, I clerked at the Alabama Attorney General's office one summer. The AG was responsible for witnessing the executions, and had to have a line to the Governor in case the Governor decided to stay the execution. He wasn't physically present at the execution; it was basically a teleconference. The law clerks were invited to observe. I thought maybe I would feel the solemnity of the moment- but I didn't really feel anything about it. He deserved to die, and being on the line while it happened didn't really change my thinking about the matter at all.
tim maguire:
Why does the US have such a hard time killing prisoners quickly and painlessly?
Because some people care more for the feelz of the criminal over what happened to the victim.
Let's keep in mind this asshole was a paid assassin who stabbed a woman to death for a thousand damn dollars.
Tim:
I am constantly amazed that so-called small government conservatives support giving the State the power of life and death over it's citizens.
The problem is people opposed to the death penalty are also opposed to life sentences being life sentences.
What is your solution to abolishing the death penalty?
Rope:
Cheap
Quick but not too quick
Painful but not to the point as to invite the audience to engage in sadism
Slow and Fast versions so as to allow a judge or the victim to grant a "merciful" hanging without allowing the criminal to dodge the weight of the crime's consequences.
The hangman's jig and the subsequent evacuation of the bowels deny the criminal an opportunistic or picturesque martyrdom.
Everything that's come after good ole rope is just an exercise by the left to shift piece by piece the rights being respected during punishment to weigh in favor of the criminal rather than society at large/the victims themselves
"I actually agree with this now, except I don't consider our judicial system to be competent enough to make ANY decision."
Considering that our judicial system has declared Donald Trump guilty and has spent the last eight years in search of the crime he committed, I have to agree with your agreement.
On February 18, 1478, George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, was supposedly drowned in a vat of his favorite wine. Now there’s an idea for the state of Alabama!
Japan still uses the rope and China uses a bullet in the back of the head.
The old Soviet Union used a bullet to the back of the head, probably Russia still does for all I know. Then they’d send a bill for the bullet to the next of kin. Cold. Ver cold.
Tim:
"I am constantly amazed that so-called small government conservatives support giving the State the power of life and death over it's citizens."
He was tried by a jury of his fellow citizens and found guilty. And let's face it. The wasn't exactly a model citizen and while he'll never(sniff) get a chance to be a model citizen he won't under any circumstance be able to murder again.
>>>>>I don't see how nitrogen would be different from helium.<<<<<<<
It wouldn't, but there's a major helium shortage right now. Helium was easily obtainable just a few years ago, but no longer is. Right-to-die groups have adjusted to that by recommending nitrogen as a replacement.
"probably Russia still does for all I know"
Russia and China still use this method. China more sparingly (look up lethal injection vans) but it still happens in the countryside, usually with rifles. Russia prefers a pistol at roughly point blank range behind the right ear in special cells within the walls of prisons or other secure government buildings.
The commonly understood SOP from multiple anecdotes - without any way to verify it of course - is that the prisoner is led under heavy escort to the appointed cell and taken inside where a 3rd man following in train who he hasn't seen quickly moves forward to make the shot, usually with something as simple as 9x18mm Makarov. The room is configured such that all of its wall form a backstop for safety purposes and is easy to clean.
That is what I have heard and has supposedly been gleaned from KGB and FSB sources.
'the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.'
Would imagine only the executee could testify to that if he could testify.
Just borrow a bolt gun from the local slaughterhouse. Quick, painless and cheap—you don’t even need ammo. As seen in “No Country for Old Men”.
They could publicly revoke all the condemned's legal protections and drop him off on a street corner.
There could be a reality show about what happens.
Shouldn’t the punishment fit the crime?
In that case he should be stabbed repeatedly by the victim Elizabeth Sennett’s family until dead.
Shouldn’t the punishment fit the crime?
In that case he should be stabbed repeatedly by the victim Elizabeth Sennett’s family until dead.
"I don't see how nitrogen would be different from helium."
"Any last, hilariously sounding words?"
Enh. Seriously. I agree with everyone above who says that suits about particular methods of execution are invariably about execution tout court. We have a hell of a lot of info about nitrogen hypoxia. It does not involve the sensation of being suffocated -- that's caused by buildup of CO2, not excess of N2. We have the evidence of people knocked out by the absence of O2 who have survived: They became unconscious, that's all.
We also have the testimony (again, as people above have said) of the thousands of people daily who undergo general anesthesia. And of the thousands of veterinarians who daily "put to sleep" beloved pets. I lost a cat that way a couple of months ago. He was diabetic, and we were giving him twice-daily "vetsulin" shots, managing his diet, &c. But one day we found him crying in terrible pain, took him to the vet, and discovered that in addition to the diabetes he had a large (as in, tennis-ball-sized) tumor in his abdomen.
What did we do? We consulted one another for twenty minutes or so, and then allowed the vet to euthanize him. Phase 1 was the literal "putting to sleep." We held him and stroked him and listened to him purr until he was under. Phase 2 was after that. I haven't sobbed like that since my sister died, twenty years back. We little thought that when we loaded him into the cat carrier it would come home empty.
But did he suffer? I am hoping not; it seemed not. For a human being there's always the foreknowledge of death, unknown to a cat. But that is the only thing that would separate a condemned cat from a condemned man.
All that said, there's the other thing people are mentioning, of course. My cat was guilty of nothing; a condemned man is presumed to be guilty of something, and the presumption may be wrong.
khematite said...
">>>>>I don't see how nitrogen would be different from helium.<<<<<<<
It wouldn't, but there's a major helium shortage right now. Helium was easily obtainable just a few years ago, but no longer is. Right-to-die groups have adjusted to that by recommending nitrogen as a replacement."
Plus.... You wouldn't want him to float away while in extremis.
All executions should be performed in public by either hanging, beheading, or firing squad. Thats all.
Have you ever been stabbed repeadedly?
On the other hand, I have put many elderly dogs down when I worked in a vet. Including my own. It isn't pleasant, but it quickly becomes peaceful. Not like being stabbed to death.
Let's have reporters describe in equal detail how this woman died. How they broke in. How they restrained and terrorized her. How many stab wounds. No vet every killed a dog this way. What utter bullshit.
Althouse needs to stop this taunting of the innocent dead or get a mental competency test. Slipping a bit, or just morally cold to the point of sadism towards a murder victim?
Not a good look.
I don't understand the inhumane execution argument, because it's not possible to murder someone humanely. They end up dead. That's not humane.
If you think execution is wrong, fine, make that case, but complaining about the method of ending someone's life is a tactic. There's no moral principle of any importance at stake compared to the act of killing of a human.
Also, the section of the public that supports execution is completely unmoved by the suffering inflicted on an inmate who is only there because they murdered someone, usually in vile circumstances. Usually the victim was a woman or child.
There are several sites online that are pro death penalty. The best of these, with the most documentation, has of course been deplatformed, but there's still prodeathpenalty.com, Californians for Death Penalty Savings and Reform.
So called exonerations are extremely questionable, based on paperwork and deadline errors, not DNA. Produce one case of actual wrongful execution. Hint: there's only one.
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