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Cruel? Nitrogen asphyxiation is probably one of the most painless, gentle ways to go.
Your trigger that you can’t breathe is a buildup of carbon dioxide. But as you can still exhale, you feel no panic. You just slowly drift unconscious and die. I’d take it over most causes of death.
There's a BBC documentary about it, I think this one:
It's been a long time since I watched it, but I think the inert gas route is very pleasant. He even gets slightly high/happy from it.
Key takeaways:
edit: found it:
https://www.documentarytube.com/videos/how-to-kill-a-human-being-2/
Rendered unconcious within 15 seconds, dead within a minute.
In testing pigs would happily stick their heads in a space with pure nitrogen and munch on apples till they lost consciousness, fell over, then stick their heads back in the space with nitrogen to eat some more apples.
Yeah, compared to injecting horrifically painful substances, I don't see why this is controversial.
It's even better than that. Hypoxia causes feelings of euphoria! You get high, pass out, and die. It's the best way to go, IMO.
I'd take a firing squad or an enormous hydraulic press tbh. If I were to be an innocent stuck with a death penalty I'd be happy to know somebody will have to clean up a messy pile of guts after my quick death.
The whole point of using gas or chemicals for the death isnt to make the punishment humane - the death penalty is not humane in any way - its to make it easier on the people doing the killing. No mess, no fuss.
First off, I am against the death penalty. I suppose there are hypothetical scenarios were there may be some remorseless person who committed horrific crimes and for whom there is absolutely no doubt of guilt, and maybe then we can justify removing them from the world permanently. But in the real world, the death penalty is not limited to such scenarios. Innocents have been and continue to be executed. This is unacceptable.
But, if we aren't going to eliminate it, at the very least we can avoid unneeded suffering during it. As I understand it, nitrogen asphyxiation is a comparatively peaceful way to go. So this headline smells of bullshit to me.
It’s experimental. No institutional review board in the country could ethically ask this guy to volunteer for such an experiment, simply because of the coercive power dynamics inherent in asking such a thing of a prisoner. But the government can, by fiat, decide to experiment on him, and you’re ok with that? Even if “nitrogen asphyxiation is a comparatively peaceful way to go,” human medical experimentation qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment; otherwise, what’s the point of banning cruel and unusual punishment?
The only experiment is doing it to humans. It's used to kill chickens by the thousands. Because it causes them less stress, leading to better tasting meat.
It says the method is rejected even by vets. But it only says the nitrogen atmosphere can induce a stressful environment "in some species". Do these other species have stress triggers when low on oxygen? Is there any further explanation?
It also mentioned this method has been adopted by 3 states. Have there been any successful attempts?
I'm against the death penalty but that's no excuse to skimp on reporting. Those seem like obvious questions that would have easily found answers. That they aren't in the article, begs the question if they were asked, answered, and excluded? Or just not asked?
Yes, there are other species that react negatively to hypoxic environments:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation
But the idea with using it on humans is that we don't react negatively. We don't even feel like we're suffocating, like with excessive CO2. Nitrogen is plentiful and is already being used for legal suicide elsewhere, which is why they're wanting to use it.
Didn't he ask for that method himself? I'm sure he doesn't want to try injection again.
I hate the death penalty - its barbaric, it kills innocent people etc.
But if people are going to do it I can think of no better metaphor for a state sanctioned death penalty than an enourmous hydraulic press.
All these injections and ethical guidelines are misguided. The cruelty is the point so they might as well just make it quick and lean into it.
If you botched an execution, then the convict should be commuted to life sentence or even pardoned if they suffered greatly. In addition, the people who botched it should be put on trial for malpractice and fined/jailed.
The executions aren't done by doctors, as that goes against their hypocratic oath. It's not even done by nurses in a lot of cases. They're done by people who have barely any training. Botched executions are a dime a dozen because of this.
To be clear, I am against all forms of capital punishment. It's barbaric and has no place in 2023.
It's barbaric and has no place in 2023.
You need to account for the time zone difference between Alabama and the rest of the world. It's about UTC -50 years
It's not much of a guinea pig if you're just asphyxiating him, its pretty understood how that kills people. By the logic of calling him a guinea pig does that mean anytime anything is done to someone for the first time they're a guinea pig?
The process of putting someone to death is already traumatic to the guards that have to make it happen. It makes them question whether they can find salvation - even though their job made them do it.
Now you’re asking them to experiment on people? At the very least let’s use surefire methods & people who are already murderers for this profession
Nitrogen asphyxiation IS a surefire method. People die from it all the time and it's a big hazard among people who work with nitrogen because your body is literally incapable of telling you there is anything wrong.
The only experimentation is social. We know for a fact that nitrogen asphyxiation is quick and painless.
I don't support the death penalty, but if you're going to do it, nitrogen is the way to go.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Kenneth Smith is one of two living Americans who can describe what it is like to survive an execution, having endured an aborted lethal injection last November during which he was subjected to excruciating pain tantamount, his lawyers claim, to torture.
If the state of Alabama has its way, he will become the test dummy for an execution method that has never before been used in judicial killings and which veterinarians consider unacceptable as a form of euthanasia for animals – death by nitrogen gas.
The choice of Smith as the first candidate for the technique, less than a year after he experienced a failed execution, has also been criticized as a double violation of the eighth amendment protection against “cruel and unusual punishments”.
Earlier that year, the state took more than three hours to kill Joe Nathan James and later abandoned the execution of Alan Miller after also failing to find a vein.
“The mask will be placed and adjusted on the condemned inmate’s face”, it says, and then after the prisoner has been allowed to make a final statement “the Warden will activate the nitrogen hypoxia system”.
Like many death penalty states, Oklahoma was looking for an alternative to lethal injection, having struggled to procure the necessary drugs as a result of an international boycott by pharmaceutical companies.
The original article contains 1,116 words, the summary contains 220 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
wtf the attempted murderers tried to execute him last time even after a judge put a stay on the order???
That's nightmarish. Although all execution is nightmarish. One day the judges involved with these crimes against humanity will hopefully face justice.