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Alabama completes first execution by nitrogen asphyxiation
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
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When it comes to mixed bag news this is as mixed as it gets. If we're gonna execute people, we can at least do it as humanely as possible.
Yup. Morality and efficacy of the death penalty left totally aside for the moment, I'm shocked it took this long to use nitrogen instead of the clusterfuck cocktail that's tortured so many people to death.
Which this isn't, in my opinion. It's just nicer for the killer and the onlookers. But it's not a dignified death. If you're gonna kill people in the name of justice, let them stand up and shoot them.
If you can't stomach seeing or doing that, then maybe that should tell you something about the death penalty in general.
I would WAY rather drift off to sleep forever than be shot to death.
And how do you know that is the experience, here? When most medical experts say clearly they have no idea whether this is peaceful or torture, how are you so confident it is the former?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation
It would be a bit less terrible a method if it actually worked that way. Still depraved, but slightly less.
But it doesn't. Took 30 minutes for the guy to die, supposedly.
Vets swore off using this technique a while ago because of how clearly-distressed animals were when it was performed on them.
There's a big difference between the kind of freak industrial accident you're describing and intentional administration via a mask. And either way, we literally do not know if it is peace or torture.
It took 30 minutes for them to declare him dead. Only a few minutes for his breathing to stop entirely. I don't think they had them hooked up to an EEG, so they just left him on the nitrogen for long enough to make sure it would be effective and then declared him dead.
I'll agree that dying against your will is torture. And for animals that have time to know something is wrong and can't escape it, they're going to be distressed. I'm curious about the discrepancy between why this reportedly took so long when work safety experts warn that a couple of breaths of an oxygen deficient atmosphere can induce unconsciousness.
But I'm only answering the question of why we would think this is painless and then assertion that we can't know. It sure sounds like we do know. But I'll stay open minded and keep reading.
The article said that the guy held his breath for as long as possible. It really would be torture to be strapped down and know that the next breath you take will kill you. Even if the actual experience is completely painless, trying to hold your breath as long as you can in order to stay alive for just a few more seconds sounds like a nightmare.
That's horrifying. Holding your breath until you think holding it any longer will kill you because not doing so definitely will. At least with the injection there was absolutely nothing you could do to delay or stop the process once it started.
Well, apparently there was.
Why the fuck wouldn't they sedate the guy first - give him a fucking fentanyl OD and immediately put the mask on him.
I'm not sure. Maybe there's a law or something that says a person needs to be conscious and aware when they get executed?
I mean, the citation is, to start with, not a medical organization. They're reporting on workplace incidents, essentially, and making big assumptions. Also no mentioned of the violent seizures.
Also, not to be captain obvious, but reports of the experience, definitionally, come from people who survived, which is another layer of it being a vastly different experience than dying that may not even be terribly analogous. Surviving it might mean a biologically different process happened to you than not surviving it.
There's a huge difference between an industrial accident and an execution. One of them is being done on purpose. An industrial accident may be someone running into a room flooded by the N2 fire suppression system, expecting nothing was wrong, taking a few deep breaths, and suddenly blacking out. Sudden, unexpected, unprepared, confused. The prisoner knows its coming, it's being administered on a schedule, and might not be too keen on the whole thing. The guy in this case, for example, was strapped down to a gurney and had the mask tied to his head, allegedly. Not being surprised means it is a lot less likely to work in that sudden, shocking way even all-else being equal, which it isn't.
Again, the medical experts I've seen interviewed all shrug at the question. They do not know. And even if knowing its coming isn't an issue, the best evidence of using it for deliberate execution we have was the great distress it apparently caused animals.
Did you read the article?
By all reports death by nitrogen is death by induced seizure, which sounds like what happened.
I did read the article. He was holding his breath and shaking around.
Death by nitrogen hypoxia isn't something we invented for executions. I don't know why news articles are pretending that it's this brand new untested method of killing people.
I wonder if the shaking around was an attempt to break the mask's seal. Maybe this method could be improved by using one of those assisted suicide nitrogen pods.
Which kind of shows it isn't all that humane, doesn't it? He was desperately trying to cling to life.
I mean, there's nothing humane about killing someone who knows what's happening and doesn't want to die.
If my life were ever going to be ended in an intentional manner, this is the method I would choose.
Yea but it's still better than the 'lets paralyze you so we feel humane and have your veins be lava for 12 hours as you disintegrate' evolved option we use.
I'm right there with you though, how the fuck is it that we don't just put people under like before surgery, and then cut off their access to oxygen? Or a quick gunshot, or a shot with that cattle killing gun? The whole thing is so fucking stupid to me
I'm against the death penalty personally, but the whole thing is so unbelievably absurd to me.
Also, obligatory ayyyy Alabama represent, we made BBC News again
You need meds for that, and a qualified anesthesiologist.
And for anyone who doesn't put the dots together: a doctor cannot intentionally kill someone. It is the most profound ethics violation everywhere I am aware.
Even in places where there is medical euthanasia, the person must do it to themselves by e.g., pushing a button and someone who is incompetent to do so is ineligible for that euthanasia.
I'm sure there are shady places where this isn't the rule. But those same places, I suspect, are a lot more practical about execution than all this pseudo-humane "medical execution" crapola.
I think the best way to go, besides snu-snu (nothing will top that method), is to IV enough carfentanil to kill an entire city into the person. Even those with massive opioid tolerances can't withstand a dose like that. It's why the fentanyl epidemic was so deadly here.
Makes sense to me (in a world where we're doing the death penalty. I'm against it, it's just a 'if you're gonna do it, what the hell are y'all doing it that way for').
Someone rocked my world by pointing out they can't get doctors involved because of their oaths, which I guess makes sense. But its also still another unbelievably absurd element of this
I'd go for the nitrogen thing, plus a massive dose of mushrooms just to set the mood.
One of my state senators introduced a bill that'd let inmates choose execution by a firing squad made up of members of the legislature. Like 'If you want to kill them so bad, you pull the damn trigger.'
Isn't going anywhere but I like the sentiment. Real Ned Stark energy.
While that "sounds" good in theory. Many gun nut conservatives (of which many of the legislators come from) would actually welcome the chance to kill another human without representations...
Why? If we're killing people, then who cares how they go? They won't remember. Only we will remember.
Is this better because we feel less guilt when they don't scream?
What matters in anyone's life? Why do you care if I tie your hands together, hang you by a hook in my basement, and punch you in the dick repeatedly every day for 20 years? One day you will die and won't remember so why does it matter?
But until I die, it matters. Because that is all any of us have, the time until death.
But if death is imminent, and you stick a finger in my butt, who will know or care but you?
Just because someone’s death is imminent doesn’t mean we should torture them, or else why bother keeping this society going? Any society that treats its terminal members that way is certainly not a society worth keeping around.
If you care that much, maybe we should just not kill them. Seems weird to care how they die, but not that they die.
Correct, we should not kill them.
There's an argument that if you make it less violent, then people will be more willing to accept execution as a valid punishment.
That ignores, of course, that execution favorability has been dropping for 100+ years despite the methods becoming (or at least attempting to become) more humane.