Alabama readies never-before-used execution method that some veterinarians won't even use for pets ( www.cbsnews.com )

If Kenneth Eugene Smith is brought to the Alabama death chamber to face execution next week for his role in the 1988 murder-for-hire of a pastor's wife, the state plans to use an untested and untried method to end his life, suffocating him with a stream of nitrogen gas to be delivered through a face mask.

In a federal appeals court Friday, Smith's lawyers sought to block it, arguing that not only have Smith's constitutional rights been violated, but that he could be subjected to an agonizing death and that most of the details surrounding the state's new execution protocol "deserve more scrutiny."

The use of nitrogen gas will be a capital punishment first, even though it has not only been denounced by some medical professionals but also by veterinarians who oppose its use on animals. In 2020, the American Veterinary Medical Association advised against the use of nitrogen gas as a way to euthanize most mammals, calling it "distressing." One of the few uses of nitrogen gas in animal euthanasia is with chickens.

The United Nations' Office of The High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed alarm, saying in a statement that the untested method "could amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under international human rights law."

LunarVoyager ,

I would expect nothing less of such a medieval shithole

Mango ,

Welp. Here's hard undeniable proof that CBSnews is absolutely worthless. They're lying and putting together as many bad adjectives together as they can to make the most humane possible execution method sound absolutely terrible. This is literally the way I want to die. It's simply hypoxia without the CO2 spike that makes you feel like you're suffocating. You get a good buzz this way. FFS, I literally hyperventilate and then hold my breath while jerking it for this effect!

Fuck CBS and all the people trying to make this look bad. The only bad about it is that we're still killing people with a legal system that convicts innocents like me.

riodoro1 ,

I literally hyperventilate and then hold my breath while jerking it for this effect!

Shit, thanks for letting us know I guess.

Mango ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/fae62e4b-dc8d-40bd-a0ea-75138fa9575a.webm

Treczoks ,

The top cringe is that government mandated murder still exist in this century.

Vytle ,

Daily reminder that execution costs taxpayers more than life in prison.

filcuk ,

This was surprising to me, but a quick search tells me it's because the cases need more people and often don't end up by capital punishment anyway, thus 'wasting' a lot of resources.

deft ,

Lol I don't understand this.

We care about our pets I want criminals deserving of death to have a poor final experience.

tja ,
@tja@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yes, maybe. But since nobody deserves death, this point is moot either way.

deft ,

I disagree. Some people had to die for things to change for the better others have to die because of wrongs they've done.

TopRamenBinLaden ,

While I will agree that the occasional death sentence is warranted, wanting them to have a poor final experience is not a good look. The judicial system is not supposed to be sadistic and cruel. The reason we sentence people to death in the first place is often for sadism and cruelty.

Mango ,

I deserve death. Why can't I have what I want?

HelixDab2 ,

We can have a solid, productive argument about the way that they death penalty is applied, and how it's more likely to be used in racist and classist ways. (My stance is that some people need to be completely removed from the possibility of being returned to society; the overwhelming majority of the people that fall into that extreme risk category are white, and almost always have famous pseudonyms, like Co-Ed Killer, Night Stalker, Zodiac, Green River Killer, Father John Geoghan, and so on.)

You can't argue in good faith that nitrogen is anything other than a very soft way to die.

ziggurat ,

I agree with your comment, I just want to point out that I am explicitly against capital punishment, without disagreeing with you. And also that the reason for the demographic spread is that this is the demographic spread of the community you are talking about.

Also, while I am against capital punishment, if it had to be used, it should always be nitrogen gas, it is not untested, it is very well tested to cause no pain what so ever to subjects almost suffocating from it.

HelixDab2 ,

And also that the reason for the demographic spread is that this is the demographic spread of the community you are talking about.

I think that you misunderstand. There are very, very few (known) black serial killers. The only one in the US that I'm aware of is questionable; Wayne Williams was convicted of the murders of two adults, but there was very little connecting him directly to the other murders that the Atlanta Police Dept. claimed he committed. My argument would be that, outside of serial killers and serial child rapists, use of the death penalty should be very, very rare, given that the risks to society are very low compared to the possibility that they could ever be released or escape. E.g., someone like Ed Kemper is always going to be a danger to society, until he's dead.

TopRamenBinLaden ,

100 percent with you on Nitrogen being a very soft form of execution. If I was forced to choose how I would be killed and could choose any method possible, I would pick the Nitrogen unquestionably.

Chickenstalker ,

Simply chop his head with a guillotine. Almost zero percent chance of fucking up, quick and painless. No, that one story about the slapped head is bunkum. Standing up suddenly can cause you to faint due to low blood pressure. Having your neck cut off results in a much more sudden drop in blood pressure to the brain. People just don't want to see the messy blood spilled. If you want to execute someone, deal with it.

ryathal ,

Execution methods have weird requirements to be efficient, but also not look violent for those watching. They also get bonus points for looking high tech.

MilitantAtheist ,

Put a smiley mask on him and have ai do the executing.

ryathal ,

If they lined the gas tube with led lights so it looks like glowing green gas is being used it would probably help.

Mycatiskai ,

So strapped to a table then a bolt gun attached to the back of the table separates the spinal cord from the brain fits the bill. It doesn't look violent, no one would even see the bolt go in and out. It is fast, it is reusable and it could even use renewable energy if it is powered by solar panels.

intensely_human ,

This is exactly why we should be hitting people with a beam that makes them glow and then disappear.

Felix_Bardner ,
@Felix_Bardner@pawb.social avatar

https://tenor.com/view/decommi-decommission-gif-24408233

intensely_human ,

I’d be in favor of some kind of head ripping off machine myself.

Stalinwolf ,
@Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca avatar

https://youtu.be/lfsMMVgIToA?si=IGsLMOIF8ZG_tlG_

Stalinwolf ,
@Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca avatar

Yeah? Bet he can't burp his ABCs!

shalafi ,

This is so dumb I can't get my head around it. Put a man in a chamber, flood it with N2, painless, easy death. Hell, he even gets to go out high as a kite!

Are we all so ignorant that this isn't obvious?! FFS, I remember a tragedy where two teens died fucking in a giant helium balloon. They didn't know they were dying.

CO2 overload is what triggers the choking/suffering response. Our bodies have no way to detect a lack of O2. We'll happily breathe any non-noxious gas, as long as it's not CO2. Hypoxia don't sound like a bad way to go. .45ACP to the skull comes a close second, but I'd like to fade out stoned, given the chance.

Signed: Old guy with mild emphysema from smoking 20-years. I don't get short of oxygen, I get short trying to pump the CO2 out.

FaceDeer ,

Unfortunately, for many proponents of the death penalty suffering is the goal.

derf82 ,

It’s not the proponents arguing against it.

ryannathans ,

Nitrogen doesn't make you high.. you're probably thinking of N2O, nitrous oxide.

Poach ,

Lack of oxygen will get you high. Look up hypoxia.

ryannathans ,

I wouldn't really call that high

QuinceDaPence ,

Euphoria and warmth are two really common symptoms of hypoxia.

But even then people who have dies in confined, oxygen-deficient environments, as long as they aren't high CO2, don't even realize anything is up until they pass out.

Pat_Riot ,
@Pat_Riot@lemmy.today avatar

In diving it's called nitrogen narcosis. The effects are very like alcohol except you never get sick.

derf82 ,

It is death penalty opponents that are against it.

The closest death penalty opponents have gotten to eliminating it is getting drug companies to stop supplying the traditional lethal injection drugs. With that, executions have ground to a near halt, as alternatives do not work as well and has been challenged.

But nitrogen is easy to obtain and painless. So if it gets used, there goes the need for drug companies. So opponents have taken to outlandish and disingenuous arguments claiming it is dangerous and painful despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. Once it is used for the first time, the experimental argument is dead. So they are desperate to avoid breaking the seal, as it were, on nitrogen asphyxiation.

Of course vets are against it. They have no difficulty getting the necessary drugs, and they have no desire to add new equipment for it.

ryathal ,

Vets also wouldn't want to have to put animals into a chamber or somehow mask them to kill them. Walking in with a syringe and 30 seconds later being done is super convenient.

GilgameshCatBeard ,

There’s a pretty fail-safe way to avoid this happening.

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

Don’t have the death penalty? Agreed.

Blaster_M ,

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

    •
    PunnyName ,

    How about not having government sanctioned murder on the table at all.

    M500 ,

    You killed someone. So you must be punished by being killed.

    So dumb!

    shalafi ,

    LOL no. We Americans want retribution and death without messy stuff like blood. Ya know, like Hollywood?

    For my tastes? Shoot me in the head. But I'd take N2 gas over that.

    QuinceDaPence ,

    I forget which state it is but there's one where you can choose firing squad as your execution.

    mctoasterson ,

    Utah, but they seldom use it. Last person executed by this method was in 2010, I believe.

    lennybird ,
    @lennybird@lemmy.world avatar

    The funny thing is short of overdosing on ketamine and morphine, I always thought nitrogen gas would be my preferred choice to go as it sidesteps the hypercapnia that leads to the urge to need to breathe.

    That being said, they could always build a pressure chamber to simulate even a fraction of the pressure differential the titan submersible went through and that is proven to be painless and faster than the point the brain can process.

    Or, you know, just not use the death penalty.

    assembly ,

    I think the most humane method would probably be the combo you highlighted. So like morphine and ketamine and then nitrous to ensure that once the individual enters shallow breathing the nitrous would complete the objective. I can’t imagine there is a more relaxing and stress free way to die than that.

    Ton ,

    Of course, the revenge driven justice system is not looking for the most humane way to kill someone. The cruelty is the point.

    derf82 ,

    Except that is exactly why they are wanting to do nitrogen asphyxiation.

    Cogency ,
    @Cogency@lemmy.world avatar

    They aren't doing it willingly. The drug manufacturers are no longer supplying the cocktails for lethal injections and the medical field is refusing to take part in the act.

    derf82 ,

    Yes, so they chose an alternative that is meant to be as painless as the old method.

    Cogency , (edited )
    @Cogency@lemmy.world avatar

    They chose a mechanical non- biological method that could proceed without the medical community, again this isn't out of benevolence, they were forced to act less cruelly because their hands were forced by the medical community.

    And the old method was often misadministered so it was often as painful as they could make it. Link I have no doubt someone will find a way to make suffocation painful. Even if the method on the books is painless. The cruelty is/ was/ and always has been the point.

    derf82 ,

    You do love straw men.

    No, if they wanted to be cruel, they could bring back hanging, the firing squad, or the electric chair. This is better than those.

    You are making accusations with zero proof.

    Cogency ,
    @Cogency@lemmy.world avatar

    https://www.npr.org/2020/09/21/793177589/gasping-for-air-autopsies-reveal-troubling-effects-of-lethal-injection

    Edited in

    derf82 ,

    That doesn’t support your allegation that it was deliberately made painful. Hell, your own link says Ohio postponed executions to reevaluate. You are adding malice solely on the bases your your opinion.

    Cogency , (edited )
    @Cogency@lemmy.world avatar

    It was deliberately made painful by the reports of the survivors. They took what was a deliberately painless set of injections and would administer massive overdoses of the killing portion of the cocktail without administering the sedative portion. I don't want to remember how I know this. There were various reports of individual staff members overseeing the cases, included in how I've come to this conclusion.

    derf82 ,

    What survivors? The article is about finding from autopsies.

    And even then, they have no knowledge of anyone’s motives.

    Cogency ,
    @Cogency@lemmy.world avatar

    A few people have survived their first administration of a lethal injection.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/28/lethal-injection-surviving-execution-attempt-alabama

    derf82 ,

    They couldn’t find a vein. There is no evidence for your allegations.

    And then shouldn’t you be happier with this new method? No need to find a vein.

    Cogency , (edited )
    @Cogency@lemmy.world avatar

    And I wonder why that is?
    Could it be that no study is allowed on executions. I am talking about individual reports in the medical community
    .
    https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/dpic-reports/in-depth/behind-the-curtain-secrecy-and-the-death-penalty-in-the-united-states

    I am not happier with any method to execute someone because the cruelty was always the point, not rehabilitation and not deterrence.

    PsychedSy ,

    Imagine simulating the pressure in a large cylinder then opening some tiny irises that grow quickly. Diced and smushed.

    I want to do this to a steak now.

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