Seattle
Valued Senior Member
There is another execution scheduled for today in Alabama. This time the method of execution is via nitrogen hypoxia.
This is an interesting subject overall. The only developed countries with the death penalty are Japan, Singapore and the U.S. I think we should not have the death penalty for several reasons including the morality of it, the state shouldn't be in the position of taking someone's life and there are enough mistakes in the criminal justice system to make this a bad idea since it can't be undone.
It's also interesting to look at a map of the US showing which states have no death penalty, which states have the death penalty on pause and which permit the death penalty. The more liberal states, including mine (Washington) have no death penalty, most of the rest outside of the South have it on pause and those still executing people are North Carolina down and over through Texas and up to South Dakota, with a few exceptions.
The language used to describe this subject is informative as well. Some speak of a humane way to carry out the death penalty but in medical and legal circles this is generally an oxymoron. You can't be both humane and take a human life so it's impossible to have a humane way to do this. You can try to make it painless but more than 3% of the executions are botched in one way or another which means it has been botched in more than 200 cases.
The new way being used in the most recent case in Alabama, nitrogen hypoxia, has never been used in an execution which is how it is usually reported in the media. However it has been used in euthanasia or doctor assisted suicide with the jurisdictions where that is permitted. It's thought to be painless, result in unconsciousness in less than 30 seconds and to result in death in just a few minutes. It's not death by suffocation. The body can't detect oxygen, carbon dioxide is still given off as long as the body is alive so it should be painless in that regard.
In this case, I believe it is to be administered using a positive pressure full face mask, similar to what is sometimes used in scuba diving. I have used one in an Aquarium environment.
There are other complications, legal and medical in this subject matter. Medical doctors generally don't want to participate in the process since they are all about saving life and not ending it. Drug manufacturers don't want their drugs to be used for this.
Where sedating and putting to sleep people before the actual execution is concerned there are moral and legal issues as well involving sedating someone against their will and even if they ask for sedation is it really free will when they are involuntarily being executed by the state, and so on...
I think the greater effort should be placed on trying to get all states to ban executions but in the meantime I'm sure more could be done to reduce the stress and potential pain. Just marching a chained up prisoner into a sterile, stainless steel room and being strapped to a gurney is pretty barbaric. You could just have them in a comfortable hotel like room, wearing comfortable clothes, watching TV, talking to loved ones and then sedating them, putting them to sleep and then administering whatever the ultimate means of death is.
They did a survey of the most effective and least effect means of execution (least and most botched cases) and the electric chair was the "best" and lethal injection was the worst. In a sense, a firing squad is the most effective and least painful but it probably is the most stressful in theory to the person involved that thinking about it.
It's effective and pain free because it results in sudden death, you are dead before the pain impulse reaches the brain and is processed, the bullet travels faster than sound so you are dead before you could ever hear the gun report. It's terrifying however in that you are marched out to kneel and just wait for your death.
Since at least half of the states are effectively not executing prisoners you would think that there would be no death penalty in the near future but given the Southern culture I don't think that is going to happen.
What is truly barbaric, IMO, was the botched attempt of this same prisoner over a year ago. He was ultimately strapped to a gurney for 4 hours. They couldn't find a suitable vein that didn't collapse and had to call it off.
A few years ago there was an executive that lasted 45 minutes. It involved a 3 drug "cocktail" and the sedating drug didn't actually go into the bloodstream, it only went into the tissues and therefore he wasn't sedated. They then gave him the drug to paralyze him and the third to stop his heart. None of it worked well and he was essentially unable to move or speak while feeling it all and it took 45 minutes before he actually died.
I'm hopping nitrogen hypoxia is a much better alternative if we are going to continue executing people.
This is an interesting subject overall. The only developed countries with the death penalty are Japan, Singapore and the U.S. I think we should not have the death penalty for several reasons including the morality of it, the state shouldn't be in the position of taking someone's life and there are enough mistakes in the criminal justice system to make this a bad idea since it can't be undone.
It's also interesting to look at a map of the US showing which states have no death penalty, which states have the death penalty on pause and which permit the death penalty. The more liberal states, including mine (Washington) have no death penalty, most of the rest outside of the South have it on pause and those still executing people are North Carolina down and over through Texas and up to South Dakota, with a few exceptions.
The language used to describe this subject is informative as well. Some speak of a humane way to carry out the death penalty but in medical and legal circles this is generally an oxymoron. You can't be both humane and take a human life so it's impossible to have a humane way to do this. You can try to make it painless but more than 3% of the executions are botched in one way or another which means it has been botched in more than 200 cases.
The new way being used in the most recent case in Alabama, nitrogen hypoxia, has never been used in an execution which is how it is usually reported in the media. However it has been used in euthanasia or doctor assisted suicide with the jurisdictions where that is permitted. It's thought to be painless, result in unconsciousness in less than 30 seconds and to result in death in just a few minutes. It's not death by suffocation. The body can't detect oxygen, carbon dioxide is still given off as long as the body is alive so it should be painless in that regard.
In this case, I believe it is to be administered using a positive pressure full face mask, similar to what is sometimes used in scuba diving. I have used one in an Aquarium environment.
There are other complications, legal and medical in this subject matter. Medical doctors generally don't want to participate in the process since they are all about saving life and not ending it. Drug manufacturers don't want their drugs to be used for this.
Where sedating and putting to sleep people before the actual execution is concerned there are moral and legal issues as well involving sedating someone against their will and even if they ask for sedation is it really free will when they are involuntarily being executed by the state, and so on...
I think the greater effort should be placed on trying to get all states to ban executions but in the meantime I'm sure more could be done to reduce the stress and potential pain. Just marching a chained up prisoner into a sterile, stainless steel room and being strapped to a gurney is pretty barbaric. You could just have them in a comfortable hotel like room, wearing comfortable clothes, watching TV, talking to loved ones and then sedating them, putting them to sleep and then administering whatever the ultimate means of death is.
They did a survey of the most effective and least effect means of execution (least and most botched cases) and the electric chair was the "best" and lethal injection was the worst. In a sense, a firing squad is the most effective and least painful but it probably is the most stressful in theory to the person involved that thinking about it.
It's effective and pain free because it results in sudden death, you are dead before the pain impulse reaches the brain and is processed, the bullet travels faster than sound so you are dead before you could ever hear the gun report. It's terrifying however in that you are marched out to kneel and just wait for your death.
Since at least half of the states are effectively not executing prisoners you would think that there would be no death penalty in the near future but given the Southern culture I don't think that is going to happen.
What is truly barbaric, IMO, was the botched attempt of this same prisoner over a year ago. He was ultimately strapped to a gurney for 4 hours. They couldn't find a suitable vein that didn't collapse and had to call it off.
A few years ago there was an executive that lasted 45 minutes. It involved a 3 drug "cocktail" and the sedating drug didn't actually go into the bloodstream, it only went into the tissues and therefore he wasn't sedated. They then gave him the drug to paralyze him and the third to stop his heart. None of it worked well and he was essentially unable to move or speak while feeling it all and it took 45 minutes before he actually died.
I'm hopping nitrogen hypoxia is a much better alternative if we are going to continue executing people.
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