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this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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Two big issues with the death penalty aren't solved, and may never be solvable.
1 - We cannot know perfectly that a person is guilty in every case.
There is often evidence that exonerates suspects and criminals. Sometimes, we really do know without a doubt, but we don't necessarily have a process of "we know this person did it because there is no reasonable doubt" vs "we know this person did it with perfect certainty because this person admitted it proudly, ad nauseum, there were cameras, there was plenty of DNA and lots of witnesses. Their own mother testified against them."
This issue may not ever be perfectly solvable. This means we execute innocent people, too. You can look up famous cases where we executed innocent people. We can't know exactly how often we do this, but we are aware of doing it regularly.
2 - Our methods of execution are often inhumane and torturous. Some of them char the person being executed. Others paralyze them and put them in a state where their whole body is in excruciating pain but they cannot move or make a sound. There's a good John Oliver episode on this fact.
We might be able to improve in this area with better methods and technologies, but we'd need federal enforcement to ensure all states are using these.
Also, people who perform executions have no medical expertise, so they wouldn't necessarily be able to clearly tell we are torturing someone. If an execution fails, we have to revive the victim, who is probably traumatized and tortured, and we try again later.
This process seems inhumane and we definitely would rather get it right the first time, quickly and painlessly, than legally torture people on American soil.
I think we're a long way from it, in terms of not having any real efforts made towards rehabilitation, but those problems are solveable.
If it's going to happen, people shouldn't be executed because they're guilty of any particular individual crime, but because they've shown a pattern of irredeemable behaviour and an inability to be rehabilitated or even made into something of a productive member of society. At this point the criminal would be more expensive to support than almost any other citizen, requiring multiple people just to contain them and protect everyone else - assuming we had an effective rehabilitation system that successfully processed most criminals, their prison would just be for them. It becomes a matter of cutting our losses, we shouldn't have to collectively support someone who actively tries to harm us.
Nitrogen suffocation seems to be the way to go. The body determines it's suffocating by a build up of CO2, but ignores nitrogen as it already makes up 70% of the air. Thus you don't notice the lack of oxygen when suffocating with nitrogen, you go into blissful hypoxia before you die. Based on all available evidence this is probably the most painless way to die overall - it's what's used for assisted suicide. If someone were to be put to death, nitrogen would be the most humane way.
Ultimately though we shouldn't be killing people, we should be rehabilitating people. Far too many people want revenge, even people who weren't actually the victim, which suggests that some part of their motivation is actually finding some excuse to enjoy harming other people - "they're a criminal, they deserve it". That is abhorrent, and in that aspect they are little better than a guilty criminal.
I think I agree on all your points here. I'd add that society and a criminal who we repeatedly fail to rehabilitate would still likely benefit from avoiding the death penalty. The inmate can serve as a learning opportunity in rehab and criminality. I'm sure there are people who simply cannot be rehabilitated by any known means. As long as they remain imprisoned and not a threat to anyone, I think death is an unethical option, but for assisted suicide.
I think Nitrogen asphyxiation has a lot of problems. You can't absolve the terror a person goes through knowing they will die unwillingly. The process can take up to 15 minutes. I'd probably have a panic attack just watching or especially partaking.
People who ordinarily go through nitrogen asphyxiation have the advantage of not knowing they're dying, because it's usually by accident or negligence. An inmate can't possibly share this benefit, unless they're quite drugged during the process or mentally unfit for execution due to general unawareness. Inmates who get executed in this way live through the entire process fully aware they're being suffocated, even if Nitrogen suffocation is better than CO2 suffocation.
Also, I owe you a source for this last section that I'm about to provide, so you don't have to take my word for it. IIRC, if you do not get the nitrogen and oxygen ratios right, the person will experience some symptoms of sickness due to low blood oxygen and will survive barely. The process is a akin to waterboarding IIRC, and has a history, in at least one country, of being used to intentionally inflict that effect as a means of torture. Again, citation needed on my part, and perhaps someone can help me out here find the source.
The effects of hypoxia are widely understood, it's happened to pilots more than enough times. You get blissfully happy as oxygen levels go down, your brain starts slowing down and your speech might slow also. Then you just pass out and die peacefully. So, while you might have anxiety initially, it would likely go away as the effects started.
Sounds a bit like Deadpool lol. I think "getting the ratios just right" must involve messing with the air pressure somehow. If you have pure nitrogen circulating through an otherwise sealed chamber at atmospheric pressure then this won't be an issue.
The bigger issue would actually be protecting everyone else. Nitrogen is very hazardous, because it's stored in a cold liquid state and when it boils it violently expells the air in any space. I used to have to fill this big tank, put it in an elevator, press the button then step out and take the stairs because it was too risky riding the elevator with it. That's also the reason we don't use it for pigs, meanwhile CO2 is heavier than air so you can just have elevated walkways above open CO2 pits.
Said pilots are not being locked in a chamber where they will undergo execution. I'd wager most who are in bliss aren't even aware that they're very close to death. It seems probable their bliss is exclusively dependent on their ignorance of the present circumstances, but I'm happy to be proven wrong.
My point isn't that nitro is worse than what we're doing now. It's that I don't think we know it's humane in every case. If the inmate is already suicidal or indifferent, it's probably how they'd want to go out. I just can't say that about the rest.
And I have no trouble believing that we can screw up getting 100% nitrogen saturation in a prisoner's containment. That would be a terrible thing to put someone through.
All these concerns are mitigated if we at least give the prisoner some choice in their exit, or especially if they are permitted life without parole as an alternative.
I'm not convinced Nitro is a silver bullet to this problem.
If anything, pilots are more likely to be aware of the effects of hypoxia, there are training courses for it. If the cabin depressurises above 10,000 feet, there isn't enough oxygen to breathe. It still catches them off guard.
Nitrogen suffocation is also the method used for assisted suicide in the handful of places that allow it. So it's not like it's completely untested for these purposes. While I haven't read the results of research done for this, I'm sure it has been extensive.
I don't think it's some sort of silver bullet - there isn't one. The solution is rehabilitation, which is hard, but we shouldn't be killing people just because the right way is harder. However, if we're going to kill people, then nitrogen suffocation is more humane than any other method.