Oklahoma Says It Will Now Use Nitrogen Gas As Its Backup Method of Execution 591
schwit1 writes Yesterday, Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin signed into law a bill that approves the use of nitrogen gas for executions in the state. The method, which would effectively asphyxiate death row inmates by forcing them to breathe pure nitrogen through a gas mask, is meant to be the primary alternative to lethal injection, the Washington Post reports.
Fallin and other supporters of the procedure say it's pain-free and effective, noting that the nitrogen would render inmates unconscious within ten seconds and kill them in minutes. It's also cheap: state representatives say the method only requires a nitrogen tank and a gas mask, but financial analysts say its impossible to give precise figures, the Post reports.
Oklahoma's primary execution method is still lethal injection, but the state's procedure is currently under review by the Supreme Court. Earlier this week, Tennessee suspended executions statewide following challenges to its own lethal injection protocol.
Fallin and other supporters of the procedure say it's pain-free and effective, noting that the nitrogen would render inmates unconscious within ten seconds and kill them in minutes. It's also cheap: state representatives say the method only requires a nitrogen tank and a gas mask, but financial analysts say its impossible to give precise figures, the Post reports.
Oklahoma's primary execution method is still lethal injection, but the state's procedure is currently under review by the Supreme Court. Earlier this week, Tennessee suspended executions statewide following challenges to its own lethal injection protocol.
Idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
We kill people because they kill people. So who kills the people who kill people because they killed people when we find out they didn't actually kill anyone?
Re:Idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
It is also illegal to kidnap people and hold them against their will.
So what do you do to someone that kidnapped people and held them against their will?
Throw them in prison where you'll forcibly imprison them in a place they don't want to be.
Your citation of hypocrisy makes no logical sense. Wouldn't taxation be stealing under your logic? After all, you are compelled by force to give money you don't want to give them in many cases.
So on and so forth.
Executions are not murder. Why? There was a trial. Same reason imprisonment isn't kidnapping. There was a trial.
If you conflate an execution with a murder then you are suggesting that the trial had no meaning and if it trials have no meaning then every official government action through the courts is no different from when anyone just grabs someone and does the same thing to them.
Either you admit your error or you're effectively advocating anarchy. At which point there is no law. We'd live in some mad max post apocalyptic hell hole in a week if we followed this to its logical conclusion.
Re: (Score:3)
Your argument is OK as far as it goes. But I believe the OP did make a point, while kind of vague, about asking who executes who if you execute an innocent man? It has happened more than once in the past. And we constantly see people exonerated who were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death after a trial. So who do we execute if the trial finds that an innocent person should be executed and it happens? Do we execute the jury? The judge? The police? The prosecutor? The defense? Any of them? None
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
Either you admit your error or you're effectively advocating anarchy. At which point there is no law. We'd live in some mad max post apocalyptic hell hole in a week if we followed this to its logical conclusion.
That is a great example of the slippery slope logical fallacy [wikipedia.org]. So in your view, if we (i.e., our society) were to reject the death penalty because we decide it is immoral and hypocritical, then the only logically consistent position is to reject all law entirely, which will lead to the inevitable consequence of a lawless, anarchic society.
In case the absurdity of that is not obvious, consider this: The European Union summarily rejects capital punishment [europa.eu] as "cruel and inhuman". In other words, as an instrument of justice, it is immoral and cannot ever be justified, no matter how heinous an offender's crimes. Guided by this premise, many EU states have banned capital punishment for decades [wikipedia.org]. Yet, in no case has this led to a subsequent total rejection of the rule of law, and it doesn't appear that any of these countries are on the brink of anarchy.
Your entire argument rests squarely on the unstated assumption that the purpose of the criminal justice system is tit for tat revenge. You might see it that way, but many of us do not. Take away that assumption, and there is no logical conflict at all with rejecting the death penalty because it is inhumane and hypocritical while also supporting a functional justice system with the power to enforce laws and impose penalties.
Sure, a simple statement like "killing people is illegal, ergo the state is hypocritical if it kills people" is not very insightful. But if one accepts the notion that state-sanctioned execution is "cruel and inhuman", then it is perfectly reasonable to wish for a government that does not try to protect its citizens by threatening them with cruel and inhuman punishment.
Finally, since you like slippery slopes, why not take your own reasoning to its "logical conclusion"? Your arguments lead to the conclusion that any sort of punishment is acceptable as long as it is preceded by a trial. Do you really believe that? Or do you believe that certain kinds of punishment are never appropriate, even if their use would not be "hypocritical" (by your criteria) for certain kinds of crime?
Re: (Score:3)
Well that's a valid criticism however you haven't limited your statements.
Why is this only relevant in executions but not anywhere else? Why can't I apply your argument to everything else?
The problem is that you may be trying to eat your cake and have it too. That is the core of my actual argument. Not a slippery slope argument. I am instead accusing you of hypocrisy. Because you're applying this logic on one specific context and no where else.
That makes no sense unless you justify your exclusive use of tha
Re:Idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no logical difference between execution and murder versus imprisonment and kidnapping.
Except that one of them is irreversible.
A -> B vs A -> B, X? B-> A
By your comprehension of logic, there is no logical difference between my beating you and my beating you to death either.
Re:Idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
Imprisonment is irreversible too. Go ahead and see if you can give someone the years of their life back, the skills they lost, their previous psychological state, their job, their wife and friends they may have lost.
Re: (Score:3)
There is no logical difference between execution and murder versus imprisonment and kidnapping.
Except that one of them is irreversible.
You think imprisonment is reversible?
Anyway, regardless of one's stance, everyone should really read this [lelanthran.com] before forming their opinion on death sentences...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Less irreversible than execution. Also, it's easier for a person to sue for tons of money for wrongful incarceration than for the estate of a person to sue for tons of money due to wrongful execution.
And suing for lots of money is necessary to motivate the voters/taxpayers to keep the rate of wrongful convictions down. If wrongful convictions aren't freakishly expensive, there's no motivation.
Re:Idiotic (Score:5, Informative)
How many prison sentences have been reversed after the last appeal was over ?
Quite a few [wikipedia.org]. Like when new exculpatory evidence comes to light, like someone else confessing, or recanting the testimony that led to the conviction, or new or improved technologies can determine innocence.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, from 1973 until today, 152 people have been exonerated after being sentenced to death. Unfortunately, many of them were executed before being exonerated.
Without the death sentence, many more innocents would be alive.
Re:Idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, but if one is of the opinion (as I am) that murder is always wrong, then saying "well we held this trail so now this is legal" does not change the moral argument one bit.
I do not believe any state anywhere should be i the business of killing its citizenry except in cases where it's absolutely required to protect others from harm. It's as simple as that.
So? How does this justify the use of death penalty again? Sure, the state can imprison people more easily than it can execute them, but this doesn't make executions reasonable or acceptable.
This is absolute bullshit. There are several rational reasons to be opposed to the capital punishment:
a) It doesn't work in reducing crime
b) In the cases where wrongful convictions occur (as they will) the sentences are irrevocable, leading to the cruel fact that the State will sooner or later kill an innocent person (and it already has)
c) Ir costs more than a life in prison, while achieving no added benefits to the society at large, in fact it only has downsides
Really the only purpose death penalty achieves is to quench the thirst for revenge that people have, and the basis of any justice system should not be revenge, but rather sensible laws and punishments which help reduce crime and keep the society safe. But even if you disagree with most of this for some reason, b alone should be enough to make any rational human being realize why capital punishment has been abandoned in most countries in the world: even if the margin of error is extremely small, as long as it is greater than 0 (and it is, according to some studies quoted here it's as high as 4 %), it means that sooner or later the state will execute an innocent person. Now, that is something that should never happen. Yes, wrongful prison convictions happen too, but even if one spends 20 years in jail for a crime one did not commit, it is superior to being dead..
So yes, you do have opinions too, but your opinions are based on faulty reasoning and a very twisted notion of what the justice system should do (hint: the answer should never be "kill innocent people by accident)..
Re: (Score:3)
This is a different situation and I addressed it already. Yes, there are cases when lethal force is required to neutralize someone wo is a threat to others, nobody is denying that. My argument was and is that executions are needless killings, as nothing beneficial is achieved via them as compared to life imprisonment for reasons I have already listed.
Phrasing: (Score:5, Funny)
"Does anyone doubt that the Tsarneavs were responsible for killing and maiming dozens? Timothy Mcveigh?"
It's a little hard to ask him what he thinks about the Tsarneavs these days.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Does anyone doubt that the Tsarneavs were responsible for killing and maiming dozens? Timothy Mcveigh?"
It's a little hard to ask him what he thinks about the Tsarneavs these days.
Even harder to get an answer.
Re:Idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can get an appeal. If the evidence against you wasn't fabricated or "overstated" [slashdot.org].
I can confidently say that there are crimes so horrible that the death penalty is appropriate for. The problem is you can't undo the punishment if the criminal justice system is found to have made a mistake. How do you objectively measure the level of perceived doubt of guilt between McVeigh and the innocent individuals who have likely been executed? Until we can prosecute with 100% certainty, I can't support executing a convicted criminal.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Precisely what problem does execution solve that "life without possibility" doesn't?
It's certainly not cost; executing someone costs far more than life does.
If it's prison overcrowding that's the issue, we have better ways to manage that, like not incarcerating so many non-violent offenders.
Re:Idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
However, execution lets the convicted person off the hook the easy way compared to a lifetime of incarceration.
That's irrelevant, as the justice system is not to be a method for taking revenge, but to make society a better place to live in, with less crime.
The death sentence is flawed for other reasons. Almost all murders happen either in affect, or in a situation where the perpetrator thinks he can get away with it. In either case, having the death penalty will have no effect on whether a murder will happen or not. And it might lead to more murders, because if there's a death penalty in place, the perpetrator has nothing to lose by killing witnesses, cops, or anyone else who might get them arrested, now or in the future. The rational decision for them is to do anything not to get caught, including more murders.
Also, the costs of a death row inmate by far exceeds the costs of a long term imprisonment. (This is particularly true in the states that allow prison slave labor - which has a high correlation to the states that allow capital punishment). The many rounds of appeals that a death sentence automatically trigger cost a heck of a lot more than the room and board.
Then there are the cases of people who have been wrongly executed. One case is one too many. And a peer-reviewed study shows that as many as 4% of people convicted to die are likely innocent. [theguardian.com]
Unless there's a way to bring people back to life again, that in itself should be enough to put a stop to it.
But the unwashed masses want panem et circenses, and revenge, not justice. So the show goes on. And innocent people die.
Re:Idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
death penalty:
for the innocent it's too cruel and for the guilty it's too easy.
it's just a revenge fest really. it used to be a public show and it still is to some extent.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just a bald assertion of the purpose of the justice system, with no source or explanation. Some people do see the justice system as a method for taking revenge, which is better than having the victims of crime and their families take revenge. I kn
Re: (Score:3)
... And if no one ever determines that the innocent person is innocent, then their life is completely wasted in prison, in my opinion.
Quite a few great works of literature were penned in prison.
Prison - by definition - limits what you can do, but whether you waste your life or not is up to you.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, there's always the broken windows theory [wikipedia.org]. If we live in a society where it's normal to believe that some people don't deserve to live, this could (in theory) result in more homicide.
Re:Idiotic (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never understood this argument. If a murderer is legally released, that should mean that on our best evidence, we believe the offender is unlikely to reoffend, or that we didn't have sufficient evidence to incarcerate them in the first place. In either case, having executed them first is an abomination.
As for the escape argument, saying that we should kill people because the prison system sucks at its primary job isn't exactly the most persuasive line of thinking I've ever heard. (Or is the argument that we should pre-punish inmates for escaping before they do?) That's quite apart from the fact that almost exactly nobody escapes from correctional institutions these days; they're pretty much all from work release or work camps.
Re: (Score:3)
I say let the sit in prison.
And on their dime too.
Re: Idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you propose a person with a life sentence pay for his incarceration without employment? Put him in jail until he pays??
Re:Idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
At least it's honest, and actually provides some deterrent^Wentertainment value. Good old-fashioned barbarism has its advantages.
The reason that we don't still do public executions is that they don't provide deterrent value.
Stupid (Score:2)
FFS! What is the accepted definition of execution? Does it involve pain or discomfort?
What's wrong with anesthesia?
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Anesthesia is essentially what is being done, only on a larger scale. The problem is the companies who make the drugs do not allow them to be used for executions.
As to pain and discomfort, the Constitution forbids it so no, you can't use a chainsaw.
Re: (Score:3)
As to pain and discomfort, the Constitution forbids it
It actually forbids cruel and unusual punishment. Being shot by a firing squad or hung are likely painful albeit very temporarily so. The French Guillotine was invented to be a humane execution device. People these days are looking for the perfect mix of humane and sanitary.
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
People these days are looking for the perfect mix of humane and sanitary.
I don't think anyone cares about "humane and sanitary". The people that want it abolished, want it abolished completely. The people in favor, tend to think shooting or hanging are fine. So we have "humane and sanitary" as a compromise that nobody really wants.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is that something like nitrogen is too humane and sanitary. The people who want executions banned will be unable to show some guy twitching and flailing about to rally people to their cause, and the people who want firing squads and guillotines won't have some guy twitching and flailing about to appease their bloodlust.
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
The two problems with the method, which is incidentally why it was not brought up, it is a very accessible means of suicide and that state is now promoting it and of course an effective murder method, again which the state is now advertising. Quite the blunder, just so it can keep killing people.
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Informative)
No, there is documentary evidence that the incumbent members of the justice administration consider it too humane.
How to kill a human being [youtube.com] is a documentary where a prominent British politician investigates the commonly used methods of execution.
He concludes that the nitrogen method, used in abattoirs to kill pigs humanely, is ideal for human execution too. All the other methods have drawbacks. In particular, lethal injection is noted to be quite painful. In a country who's constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment, this seems odd.
Several members of the incumbent correctional organizations express the opinion that nitrogen asphyxiation isn't cruel enough because asphyxia induces a brief, mild, state of euphoria before the victim loses consciousness. They also seem of the opinion that the execution should make the target suffer before death to provide a sense of justice to the family of their victim.
If the killers ... go out with a euphoric high, that is not justice [1] [youtu.be]
(and it's rumoured that Oklahoma is actually taking up nitrogen as an execution method after seeing this documentary [telegraph.co.uk]).
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
The people in favor, tend to think shooting or hanging are fine.
This isn't entirely correct.
1) Hangings and firing squads aren't error-proof and that bothers some who favor the death penalty.
2) There is something to be said for sanitary: The condemned prisoner's family didn't do anything wrong. Denying them a decent-looking body to bury is something that the state should avoid if possible. However, if the only legal (as determined by the SCOTUS) methods of execution result in a body that needs a lot of cleanup by the undertaker, that's tough cookies for the family.
Having said all of this, I'm generally against the death penalty as it is applied in the United States:
* Too many US states allow people to be condemned under the "law of parties," "murder during the commission of another felony," and for murders by people with no previous convictions for crimes that could have gotten them long prison terms. In almost all if not all of these cases, life-without-parole is a much more civilized punishment than death.
* Too many US states also don't disallow the death penalty if there were mitigating circumstances like an IQ only slightly higher than that of a mentally retarded person, a person who is young or immature but legally an adult, a person who is under the undue influence of someone else, mild- to-moderate mental impairments that would clearly benefit from the help of a mental health professional but which do not rise to the level of legal insanity, and the like.
When a jury condemns someone to die, they are basically saying "we give up on you as a human being." I'm almost never willing to do this. In the few cases where I am, it says that I am less civilized than I would like to be.
Assuming the guilty person has no extenuating circumstances, I am willing to recognize my lack of civility and recommend a death sentence for the principal actors (i.e. ringleader, top-lieutenants, and if they were truly free agents, the trigger-men) for things like large-scale "crimes against humanity" (dare I invoke Godwin's Law?) and for premeditated murder for the purpose of corrupting justice, such as to kill or intimidate a witness in a criminal case or intimidate other police (the ones who weren't killed) into resigning or looking the other way. I can also see it for people who commit (or arrange for) a murder while serving a life-without-parole sentence or while "on the run" after escaping prison while they are serving a life-without-parole sentence, on the grounds that without the threat of the death penalty they would be "free" to murder under the theory that "if you are willing to do the time, you are free to do the crime."
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Informative)
"What's wrong with anesthesia?"
That was supposed to be the whole point of lethal injection using propofol, the most common surgical anesthetic. Everybody knows what propofol feels like (I had three procedures under it in 2014 alone), so execution with an overdose of it satisfies the Eighth Amendment test.
But apparently our whole supply of it is made by one company in Germany, which hasdthreatened to withhold the entire US supply if it keeps being used for executions. This is what prompted the use of a variety of different anesthetic mixtures, some of them little tested for sensory effect (Eighth Amendment fitness) and today's host of lawsuits.
Should we invoke the TRIPS agreement to bust patent and make our own propofol? Nitrogen satisfies the same "everybody knows wha it does" test without being in any way proprietary or endangering lucrative trade with the EU.
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Informative)
But apparently our whole supply of it is made by one company in Germany, which hasdthreatened to withhold the entire US supply if it keeps being used for executions.
It's not just that they threatened to: it's flat out illegal for them under EU (and therefore German---since they ratified the treaty) law. They risk criminal sanctions for doing so.
Re: Stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem States are having is that companies refuse to sell the drugs to the States because of sanctions imposed on them by the EU. You can get nitrogen anywhere.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh come on now. That isn't even bullshit. It is horse shit.
The drug companies that produce the drugs used for execution realized that their drugs, which were originally designed to save lives, was being used to take lives. Every statement made by those companies state that. In other words, they made a moral judgement that they didn't want to be seen as providing death on one
Re: Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh please; they just realized how the drugs were being used? Decades of repeated, public use and some executive finally picked up a newspaper? Give me a break. What actually happened is that they periodically reevaluated the amount of money they made off sales versus the PR hit they took for making those sales and eventually the numbers tipped in a new direction.
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with using anesthesia is that organizations (the largest of which is the EU) forbids selling anything used in executions. So states that use anesthetics to execute the condemned will find they may be then unable to purchase the same anesthetics for use in hospitals. Nitrogen, being ~80% of the atmosphere, can't possibly be restricted.
FWIW I am completely against capital punishment, and for why one need look no further than the recent admission by the FBI that they were biased to decide a match in forensic hair analysis, which may have led to up to 14 wrongful executions. However some barbaric states are just going to continue to do it anyways, so they may as well do is as humanely as possible.
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with using anesthesia is that organizations (the largest of which is the EU) forbids selling anything used in executions. So states that use anesthetics to execute the condemned will find they may be then unable to purchase the same anesthetics for use in hospitals.
Which leads to an obvious question: Isn't the U.S. capable of producing its own anesthetics? At least the ones used for executions which should no longer be covered by patents?
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Which leads to an obvious question: Isn't the U.S. capable of producing its own anesthetics? At least the ones used for executions which should no longer be covered by patents?
Sure they could, but there's basically no market for it.
The established European companies have the legitimate-medical-uses market sown up, so that just leaves the killing-people market, which is really damn small, so they'd never even make back their investment, much less make a profit on it.
It would be possible to whomp up a government-owned corporation or government division to do it and not care about the cost, but the free market mania that the Republicans running the states that still do executions subscribe to probably wouldn't allow that or even have it occur to them.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I think it's because only the Christian god is allowed to kill people.
And the state, apparently. Plenty of Christians are a-okay with the death penalty.
Re: (Score:2)
Speaking of cruel and unusual most people like to focus on the cruel part but at what point will enough of the world forbid capital punishment will it become an "unusual" way of dealing with crime?
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Informative)
at what point will enough of the world forbid capital punishment will it become an "unusual" way of dealing with crime?
It is already unusual. There are only three main groups that still execute people:
1. Muslims
2. East Asians.
3. Americans.
This page has a map [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3)
If you mean this map [wikipedia.org] you might notice that the percentages are based on number of countries and not population. By population the statistics are very different.
Although many nations have abolished capital punishment, over 60% of the world's population live in countries where executions take place, such as China, India, the United States and Indonesia, the four most-populous countries in the world, which continue to apply the death penalty
Re: (Score:3)
That in mind. How the fuck does an America come up with all these execution methods, that don't involve just shooting them in the back of the head? If it doesn't kill them straight away, you just use a bigger round. It can't be that expensive. One gun, which you may already have, and a round of ammo.
I think that the death penalty should be personally executed by the governor of the state that allows it, under a law that makes it murder subject to capital punishment if he or she ever executes an innocent. Since the governor has the authority to pardon a death penalty, he or she cannot claim coercion.
Would Charlie Baker pull the trigger on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? Possibly.
But would Greg Abbott pull the trigger on hundreds of people in Texas, knowing that 4 out of 100 people sentenced to death are statistica
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Nitrogen really is a good method. I learned about its use in this area when I read about 2 NASA(?) engineers who died right after a fuel tank was flushed with nitrogen. One walked into the middle of it for whatever reason and then collapsed, then the second went in to see what was wrong and he collapsed. They say it brings a bit of euphoria and then eternal sleep.
CO2 works fine too, but the hand flapping and increased respiration attempts aren't real pretty to watch (though worrying about the aesthetics of how you kill someone is, um, just fucking weird). CO also works just fine - no hand flapping or straining to breath, but it also has aesthetic "issues".
Note: I don't support state sanctioned murder - if for no other reason than the abysmal record the US has for justice - even when the condemned was actually guilty of the crime, the crime was arguably that of the state, not the condemned (homeowner shoots unarmed petty thief, petty thief that is not shot dead is convicted). I doubt there are many people outside the US that don't believe there is something extremely wrong with the self-appointed moral guardian of the world (life imprisonment for a joint, fines for giving out food, secret trade agreements that breach US sponsored International Human rights, etc, etc).
If you can't bear to kill your 'criminal' by ripping off their heads with a rope tied to the back of a F100 you're just putting lipstick on a pig and calling it pretty. And yes, there really are a large number of US 'citizens' that'd like (Facebook style) the F100 method (sadly it's not unique to the US), just look at the comments on /. from people cheering the idea of prison rape, or the human hemorrhoid [slashdot.org] that gets all excited at the idea [slashdot.org] of using liquid nitrogen and a hammer for state executions. On second thought - maybe state execution is the answer, just not for the people you put inside the cells of your prisons with the world's highest percentage of incarceration[*1].
Disclaimer: I spent part of my youth in Missouri (pronounced "misery") within sight of Monsanto - it's not Denmark that reeks of something seriously rotten.
[*1] I know.. (sigh), those that deny their ugly blood lust will point to statistically insignificant data from countries with populations of less than 100K, and simultaneously justify their own countries imprisonment rate, and their "right" to armed self-defense - whilst remaining blind to all the inherent contradictions. i.e. if your prison and justice system worked your 'citizens' wouldn't need guns, and you'd have the safest nation on earth. Roll on the triumph of optimism over experience like the Sherman tank of freedom, and whenever you lose a hand - double up.
Re:Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
CO2 works fine too, but the hand flapping and increased respiration attempts aren't real pretty to watch
I'm pretty sure that the increased respiration attempts aren't enjoyable to endure either - the body senses heightened levels of CO2 as a sign of suffocation. Whereas CO simply attaches to red blood cells instead of O2, meaning there's no sense of suffocation.
Re:Stupid (Score:5, Informative)
If you can't bear to kill your 'criminal' by ripping off their heads with a rope tied to the back of a F100 you're just putting lipstick on a pig and calling it pretty.
I strongly disagree with this sentiment. Even if you're against capital punishment you can still recognize the reality of the current situation and desire a better form of execution.
It's quite simple, if you yourself were to be executed which method would you think is more humane? CO2 buildup is an extremely painful way to die, not just merely "aesthetics." CO poisoning is as well.
In studies (google for them), nitrogen (or another inert gas) has been shown to be one of the most humane ways to kill any mammal.
I, in fact, hope this sets a precedent and that states move to nitrogen gas as the primary method of execution. At least then the innocent people we kill wouldn't have to suffer while it's done.
Exit bag (Score:5, Informative)
That's a pretty good method to die (not that I'm a huge fan of capital punishment). Wikipedia says Right-to-die groups recommend this form of suicide as certain, fast, and painless, according to a 2007 study [wikipedia.org].
manure pit (Score:4, Interesting)
Death by nitrogen is the ideal way to die. It's so effective it's one of the dangers in nitrogen inerted buildings. You don't know you are dieing you just pass out. SOmeone comes along sees you down in the room and tries to rescue you and bang they keel over too. It's the classic farmer manure pit death.
the key here is that your urgent need to breath oddly enough is not triggered by lack of oxygen but by build up of CO2. when you remove the O2 from your air then you don't notice it because your alarm system isn't triggered. You are still getting rid of the CO2 in your blood.
Why nature rigged it like that I have no idea but it is easy to see that under almost any normal condition the two are linked making having separate sensors of O2 and CO2 not needed so why evolve one.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Rabbits have a direct O2 sensor and *know* when exposed to deoxygenated air. This also occurs in other burrowing animals.
Re: (Score:3)
We do have the O2 reflex, it's just not the primary one and not active in most humans.
In individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the O2 reflex takes over - which makes it dangerous to give them high flow oxygen, because they will build up an excess of CO2 (because they don't breathe enough to expel it all). This reveals why CO2 is the usual trigger - normal air has enough oxygen in it, and our lungs are normally very efficient at absorbing it.
Maybe use helium (Score:4, Funny)
Helium, for the giggles. Plus, if there's a leak, you'll know it because people will sound like Donald Duck, whereas the first sign of a nitrogen leak is people passing out.
Re:Maybe use helium (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, that would be very noble.
Re: (Score:2)
A helium leak is almost as dangerous as a nitrogen leak in an enclosed space. The only benefit is that it is lighter than air and thus will be at the ceiling instead of on floor where you breath it.
As the parent noted, it's not as dangerous (in the sense of being undetectable) if people in the room are talking. Argon would be just as dangerous.
the Bends song (Score:2)
Execute the fastest way possible (Score:4, Insightful)
Guillotine. Make sure the guides are sufficiently greased and the blade exquisitely sharp, it will be over in a second or so.
If there's a question about the instance of pain as the blade slices through the neck, rub a numbing solution on the skin.
Re:Execute the fastest way possible (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Execute the fastest way possible (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember reading about reports from the middle ages about severed heads moving mouths, eyes, etc. well over a minute after decapitation. Surely some of it was involuntary twitches but on the other hand heart attacks usually don't kill instantly and most people can hold their breath somewhere around a minute. In any case its tough to ask how it feels.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Execute the fastest way possible (Score:4, Informative)
Shooting in the head with a shotgun would be much more humane, but as others have noted there has always been an intentional conflation of "humane" and "comfort level of the spectators."
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Why not nitrous oxide, instead? (Score:2, Interesting)
Nitrous oxide, aka. NO2 or Laughing gas, would let the bastards go out laughing their asses off. Then there would be no debate about the cruelty of the death penalty method.
Actually, it doesn't make you laugh, but you space out a bit. If you want to try it, just buy a can of whipped cream at your local supermarket. DO NOT shake the can. Hold it the can upright, stick it in your mouth, press on the dispenser thing, and inhale. DO NOT exhale immediately. The effects will last about 30 seconds, during w
Re:Why not nitrous oxide, instead? (Score:5, Funny)
Instructions unclear - accidentally ate the whole thing. Having dreamy thoughts about how big I am getting.
Re:Why not nitrous oxide, instead? (Score:4, Interesting)
Martians (Score:2)
If they survive the nitrogen chamber, they must be Martians.
Bullet to the head (Score:2, Interesting)
Some people think that every problem can be fixed by adding more guns. Why not this one?
Did they get the idea from this? (Score:2)
BBC Documentary - How to Kill a Human Being:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
An alternative to the death penalty (Score:5, Informative)
Put them in jail instead.
It's cheaper [deathpenaltyinfo.org] and a wrongful conviction [innocenceproject.org] can be reversed.
The majority of countries no longer have the death penalty. [wikipedia.org]
Re:An alternative to the death penalty (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, this is pretty macabre. How about we just avoid killing people?
And no, it isn't because they don't deserve it (although we inevitably execute and imprison innocent people). Most deserve worse than they get. How about let's just go with the simple idea that killing is wrong and strive to avoid it whenever possible? Killing people diminishes us - even if they were evil scumbags who deserved worse. I don't need to look to other cultures for examples and counter-examples of executing people. I don't need a popularity contest about how many other people don't like the death penalty (or the converse). Let's just go with "no killing" because it is right and be done with it.
Re:An alternative to the death penalty (Score:4, Insightful)
How about let's just go with the simple idea that killing is wrong and strive to avoid it whenever possible?
Because most people disagree with this. You kill bacteria, and insects, maybe even small mammals, and are responsible for the deaths of many large ones through your choice of appetite, clothes or furniture. Killing is not wrong, killing is right when applied correctly. The only argument is to define the boundary between correct or not.
Re:An alternative to the death penalty (Score:5, Insightful)
Atheism and absence of morality are not synonymous. One need not invoke a deity to have a moral compass. Most publicly vocal atheists in the west are also opposed to the death penalty. At the same time, at least a couple of history's greatest mass murderers were also avowed atheists. It doesn't seem that atheism and opposition to killing are at all correlated, just as belief in any of the major religions is not a good predictor of one's stance on the death penalty.
Troll rejected: erroneous premise.
Re: (Score:3)
What was that again about an absence of religion leading to evil behavior?
Re: (Score:3)
As an atheist, there is nothing wrong with killing.
Quite the opposite. As an atheist one ought to appreciate the permanence of death; that human life is brief enough already; and that each and every human consciousness provides a valuable, unique, never to be repeated perspective on the universe. It's different if one believes that this life is but nothing to the one that follows, but atheists especially have the opportunity of grasping the gravity of extinguishing a human consciousness prematurely. Thi
Re:An alternative to the death penalty (Score:5, Informative)
Diminishing the power of the state over life and death is not the leftist position. Quite the opposite.
Second troll rejected: Erroneous premise.
Re: (Score:3)
Sealing people in dungeons is somehow nicer?
Well let's not seal them in dungeons then! Absolutely let's house them in secure facilities. But let's also give them whatever assistance we can reasonably afford, to allow them to live their lives in the most meaningful way possible, while still conforming to the imperative of keeping them locked safely away from the rest of us.
Some might even create some socially useful output to repay our kindness. Who knows, even Hans Reiser may still have some useful con
Re:An alternative to the death penalty (Score:5, Insightful)
Every execution is a 100% successful deterrent - the executed criminal will never again commit a crime. Beat that.
That argument is defeated easily. If a criminal convicts a crime for which the sentence is death, then obviously the sentence was not a deterrent.
Any deterrence beyond that is a "nice to have", but not required.
On the contrary. The purpose of a deterrent is to discourage someone from committing a crime in the first place. That is fundamental, not "nice to have."
Re:An alternative to the death penalty (Score:5, Interesting)
It's only cheaper because our capital punishment process is so badly broken. It should not take decades to complete the process; that's just dumb. On the other hand, there are flaw in how it's applied currently (moving to the second part of your issue with it), so those also need to be fixed. I support the death penalty, but with some pretty major reforms. And as a strong advocate of it, I would be open to suspending it until said reform has changed the process to one which is much faster, cheaper, more humane, more fair, more evidence-based, and more regulated. For starters, take all the stuff the Innocence Project is doing and integrate it directly into the process and provide wide open access to all information going into the process to any third-party groups wishing to provide sunshine/oversight.
Some individuals are so dangerous and destructive that all members of society (including prison guards, staff, and other prisoners) deserve permanent protection from them. I have no issue with extinguishing the existence of those who are so fundamentally broken that we can't contain their violence. However, we need to bend over backwards to ensure the process to do that is applied fairly, reasonably, and is designed to make it as close to impossible to execute an innocent person as we can reasonably make it.
Wow what a problem (Score:2)
figuring out to to execute people instead of solving real issues.
Re: (Score:3)
The Bible says "Do not kill".
Anyone arguing for death penalty is against God and will go to hell.
actually it says murder not kill in the original language.
Ten seconds? (Score:3)
noting that the nitrogen would render inmates unconscious within ten seconds and kill them in minutes.
Um, what? How the hell does that work? When I was a kid I tried to sing an entire song while doing multiple helium inhales in a row, not stopping for air. It was over a minute before the room suddenly went a little dark and spin-y.
It wasn't at all painful. I didn't notice anything different at all until seconds before I was (presumably) going to pass out. If it were deemed uncomfortable, the condemned could be given an oral or gaseous anesthetic first.
The death penalty is wrong and stupid in many ways, but I hope we can at least put aside the quibbling over method now. It has been a ridiculous distraction from the real issues.
Re:Ten seconds? (Score:5, Informative)
You weren't breathing pure helium. You were breathing "balloon gas," which is a mixture of helium and normal, breathable room air. The oxygen in the mixture was keeping you conscious.
Helium is an expensive substance and you don't need pure helium in a balloon to give it lift. By cutting the helium with air, the balloon outfit is able to make their expensive resource last much longer.
Re:Ten seconds? (Score:5, Interesting)
Finally. I've been advocating this for years (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me just first clear out all the people that just don't like executions... lets just take for the sake of argument that executions are going to happen. I know you don't like them... but they're here to stay. Assuming that point, this method of execution is quite a good one. It doesn't inflict pain on people, it doesn't outwardly damage the body, it is very reliable, etc. It has everything going for it so long as you accept that executions are going to happen.
Now I know you don't want to accept that and I am not forcing you to... I don't have that power. I am simply asking to separate the discussion about executions in general from this specific type of execution. I don't really want to have a long conversation about capital punishment.
If you reply to me, talk to me about THIS method of execution. That is what interests me.
On topic, I am really happy they finally did this... the previous methods had too many problems with them. This method is ideal.
If it were me... (Score:3)
...I'd want a high-velocity bullet in the head, from a single person, at close range.
All of these other methods, like lethal injections and nitrogen, are absolutely grotesque, overly dramatic and not "humane" at all.
With a bullet, there is nothing to debate over. The rounds are cheap and easily available. There is no horrifically botched execution in the case of a misfire. And the hydrostatic shock destroys your brain instantly, so there is no pain.
Re:People with makeup and dyed hair aren't logical (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't work the same as holding your breath.
When you breath a gas containing no oxygen, oxygen streams out of your blood, as it is lower oxygen than the blood, and that is how the blood 'knows' to dump oxygen.
This means that what's coming out of the lungs is largely deoxygenated blood, not oxygenated.
This rapidly causes unconsciousness - much faster than just holding your breath.
It's a not uncommon industrial accident.
You don't really notice it - there is no shortness of breath, you simply feel a bit woozy one breath, and then are unconscious the next, and the next breath may not happen.
Re:People with makeup and dyed hair aren't logical (Score:5, Informative)
Re:People with makeup and dyed hair aren't logical (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
They used hydrogen cyanide (in the form of Zyklon B) and carbon monoxide (from engine exhaust) in their extermination camps. The labor camps didn't try to kill people efficiently.
Re:The gold standard for fast, painless executions (Score:5, Insightful)
The Nitrogen (or any asphyxiation that doesn't involve the buildup of Carbon Dioxide) method involves turning off the brain's ability to feel pain as prelude to death.
Given the terrible fuckups that we see in executions recently, it's reasonable to assume that almost anything that can be screwed up, will be screwed up, and this one seems a lot simpler than some three needle solution using drugs you can't get made by anonymous compounding pharmacists you can't find with quality you can't test for administered by doctors that aren't trained. No, none of those things HAVE to happen, but they seem to keep happening.
This sort of execution method sidesteps those problems. But, why do we suspect it is painless? Mostly because people who recover from accidental exposure to Nitrogen generally report being utterly surprised.
In practice, it may be more humane to administer a sedative or even anesthesia beforehand. But acquiring those seems to be the problem in the first place: still, more options would likely be available than in the classic "three drug combination" of lethal injection, where an anesthetic (hopefully) dulls the pain, while a paralytic agent stops breathing (which causes pain) and a heart stopping agent stops the heart (which causes pain).
If they don't go this route, you'll likely see a condemned man struggling to hold his breath as long as he can, trying to avoid death, and eventually losing consciousness, inhaling, regaining consciousness for a moment to flail, and then dying. One thing that's missing from all the real life accounts is that almost everyone who gets into trouble with nitrogen or another oxygen displacing agent doesn't realize that they are in danger until it is too late or almost so, and as such the reports of painlessness are definitely flavored by that fact.
Re:The gold standard for fast, painless executions (Score:4, Interesting)
Entirely right about nitrogen asphyxia. There is nothing magic about nitrogen; you could as well use any other colorless, odorless inert gas, but nitrogen is the cheapest.
One correction, though. "Stopping the heart" per se is most definitely not painful. Ask anyone who has undergone true sudden complete cardiac arrest. You immediately feel a surreal calm as all that commotion in your chest you never really noticed until that moment, and the rush of blood through your head, stops. Within single digit seconds you feel crazy high. In 10-20 seconds you are out like a light. It may take 10 minutes for clinical irreversible death to eventuate, but after 10-20 seconds you are a sack of meat. We know from those whose heart spontaneously restarts, or are resuscitated before complete death or brain damage, that the experience after 10-20 seconds is nothing more than unconsciousness.
It's not so much that CO2, or cardiac arrest, "turns off" pain. It entirely sidesteps the strangling sensation caused by buildup of CO2. As others have noted, there is no physiologic sensation from lack of oxygen, but there is an almighty agony from CO2 buildup.
Re: (Score:3)