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submitted 3 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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.

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[-] flossdaily@lemmy.world 227 points 3 years ago

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.

[-] HonoraryMancunian@lemmy.world 53 points 3 years ago

breathtaking

Heh

[-] madcaesar@lemmy.world 43 points 3 years ago

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.

[-] insomniac@sh.itjust.works 22 points 3 years ago

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.

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[-] LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world 141 points 3 years ago
[-] Vaggumon@lemm.ee 38 points 3 years ago

Yeah, that's a lie, always has been.

[-] CaptObvious@literature.cafe 25 points 3 years ago

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.

[-] Vaggumon@lemm.ee 15 points 3 years ago

Pro birth so they can supply meat to the industrial grinder and dead solders for the war machine.

[-] Leviathan@lemmy.world 93 points 3 years ago

Small government folks sure are horny about giving their government the power to murder them.

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[-] alvvayson@lemmy.world 86 points 3 years ago

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.

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[-] c0mput0r@kbin.social 66 points 3 years ago

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.

[-] Brickhead92@lemmy.world 17 points 3 years ago

Is it really an execution if there is no suffering? /s

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[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 55 points 3 years ago

Folks who are confused by this, your body doesn't detect when you're low on oxygen, only when you have too much carbon dioxide. That's why exhaling while holding your breath helps you hold your breath longer (to an extent). Nitrogen doesn't caused the sensation of suffocating while still depriving you of oxygen.

I disagree with capital punishment but have always wondered about this for stuff like assisted suicide.

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[-] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 43 points 3 years ago

I'm definitely against the death penalty but if they're gonna do it anyway this seems like one of the better options

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[-] GiddyGap@lemm.ee 43 points 3 years ago

Let him rot in prison.

ABOLISH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

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[-] Mowcherie@lemmy.world 41 points 3 years ago

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.

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[-] Pat12@lemmy.world 35 points 3 years ago

"Smith was one of two men paid $1,000 each to murder Elizabeth Sennett on behalf of her preacher husband, Charles Sennett Sr., who was in debt and wanted to collect life insurance money."

Hold on, so why is he being executed? He wasn't the one who ordered the murder. It seems like lots of other people request murders but those people aren't sentenced to death.

[-] roboticide@lemmy.world 15 points 3 years ago

Because he accepted money in exchange to brutally beat and stabbed a person to death. "Just following orders," has never been an acceptable excuse for an individual to commit a crime, but especially when it's not an order in a military hierarchy, it's payment and a voluntary agreement. Fuck him.

Sennet Sr. committed suicide the moment the police started to investigate him. That's why he's not about to be executed.

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[-] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 34 points 3 years ago

Watching the murder states scramble for new ways to murder as they run out of unethical people willing to sell them murder supplies has been interesting.

[-] ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 3 years ago

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.

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[-] Silverseren@kbin.social 29 points 3 years ago

Always the conservatives trying to innovate on how to kill people.

[-] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 16 points 3 years ago

because the medical companies they got their lethal injections from decided they'd rather not be associated with governmental killing.

then the foreign countries they bought from decided the same. so now they have to get creative.

Personally, I'd like to see a 500t press option: literally just drop a 500t weight on me from a 30' height. By the time my brains register any sensation they'll be strawberry jelly squishing out the sides of the press plate.

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Alabama:

we’re innovating! :D

Everyone else:

bro what the fuck

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[-] Rinna@lemm.ee 19 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

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.

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[-] ThatWeirdGuy1001@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 years ago

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.

[-] bemenaker@lemmy.world 58 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

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.

[-] Vaggumon@lemm.ee 20 points 3 years ago

But revenge is more important then justice. /s

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this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
473 points (100.0% liked)

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