‘I’m not ready, brother’: US man to be put to death months after botched execution attempt ( www.theguardian.com )

Kenneth Smith, 58, is facing execution by an untested method that has never before been used in capital punishment in the US. It’s a technique that has been rejected on ethical grounds by veterinarians for the euthanasia of most animals other than pigs: death by nitrogen gas.

RadioRat ,
@RadioRat@beehaw.org avatar

I used to be a researcher in hypoxia and wanted to clarify this for folks.

The way your brain and body detect low oxygen is indirectly via the drop in pH, or increase in acidity, that high carbon dioxide causes. They call this hypercapnia. Without hypercapnia, there’s none of the pain or distress of asphyxiation because your body can’t actually detect oxygen or its displacement directly.

At 78%, nitrogen is the overwhelming majority of air you breathe.

After 1-2 breaths of 100% nitrogen, humans lose consciousness.

This is why working with inert gases is so dangerous - you’ll asphyxiate without even knowing you entered a room without enough oxygen to sustain life. Had to do a whole training to get our liquid nitrogen tank into a smaller animal isolation room for our study for this exact reason.

If I had to choose a way to die, I’d choose nitrogen displacement without question.

HopeOfTheGunblade ,
@HopeOfTheGunblade@kbin.social avatar

Okay so this article, and the one it links back to, make much of the "rejected by veterinarians" line, but it's incredibly unclear as to why. Carbon dioxide would be an awful way to go, but I don't understand why, of someone is going to be killed (and not just killed but having their pattern erased when it could be preserved, known time of death in a controlled facility is a best case for cryo), nitrogen hypoxia is considered bad instead of a best option. Can someone explain this? As I understand it your get giddy and happy, then pass out, then die. Why is that unethical, if you've already decided the killing is ethical?

bermuda ,
@bermuda@beehaw.org avatar

Hot take, maybe we shouldn't do state sponsored execution if they're so easy to botch huh

Midnitte ,

Not to mention the possibility of false conviction.

sanguine_artichoke ,
@sanguine_artichoke@midwest.social avatar

That’s a shame. I doubt the lady this loser was hired to murder was ready either.

jtk ,
@jtk@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

for the euthanasia of most animals other than pigs

What the hell?

jarfil ,
@jarfil@beehaw.org avatar

Pigs are tasty. Don't look into how smart they are, or how much they suffer, just focus on the bacon... 🤷

iiGxC ,

Speciesists discriminating arbitrarily is nothing new

brie ,

https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/Guidelines-on-Euthanasia-2020.pdf

Page 28 explains that it's based on which animals appear to suffer:

Hypoxia produced by N2 and Ar appears to reduce, but not eliminate, aversive responses in pigs. [...]

Advantages—(1) Nitrogen and Ar do not appear
to be directly aversive to chickens or turkeys, and the
resulting hypoxia appears to be nonaversive or only
mildly aversive to these species. Similarly, N2 and Ar
gas mixtures do not appear to be directly aversive
to pigs and appear to reduce, but not eliminate, the
behavioral responses to hypoxia. [...]

General recommendations—Hypoxia resulting
from exposure to Ar or N2 gas mixtures is acceptable
with conditions for euthanasia of chickens and turkeys. Likewise, hypoxia resulting from Ar or N2-CO2
gas mixtures is acceptable with conditions for euthanasia of pigs, provided animals can be directly placed
into a < 2% O2 atmosphere and exposure times > 7
minutes are used. Use of Ar or N2 is unacceptable for
other mammals. [...]

As an aside, I wonder if a PCB (Penenetrative Captive Device) has ever been designed for humans, considering it is recommended over firearms for animals.

MrCookieRespect ,

https://nypost.com/2021/12/07/controversial-suicide-pod-that-kills-peacefully-gets-go-ahead-in-switzerland/

Apparently this method is actually very good.

However as a European i can strongly advocate for not executing people...

FfaerieOxide ,
@FfaerieOxide@kbin.social avatar

Apparently this method

Working for suicide is very different from working to execute a non-willing participant.

MrCookieRespect ,

I think i said i don't support the entire execution in itself, i just said the method is used and approved as medical care.

FfaerieOxide ,
@FfaerieOxide@kbin.social avatar

And I said they are different procedures. Someone intending to die in a pod is not the same as attempting to force someone to die strapping a mask to their face.

A person in a suicide pod is cooperating with the process not biting and scratching for precious life, potentially causing oxygen to leak into the mask and cause excruciating suffering.

I am not saying it is immoral to kill prisoners so you shouldn't use this method (although I say now it is immoral to kill prisoners and you shouldn't ever do it by this or any other method).

I am saying this method does not work for executions and you can't use it for its intended end.

MrCookieRespect ,

The fastest and least painful method for executions would be caliber 50 into the head, it would be the cheapest one as well.

But as said, im against executions in general unless its for corrupt politicians.

sanguine_artichoke ,
@sanguine_artichoke@midwest.social avatar

A massive overdose on sedatives and opiates would generally work great. American authorities prefer to use painful injections though since they’re sadistic.

bermuda ,
@bermuda@beehaw.org avatar

Well that and a large majority of medical corporations refuse to provide their drugs for this purpose. That was one of the main reasons the "lethal injection cocktail" kept changing, because companies found out their drugs were in it and took legal action.

jarfil ,
@jarfil@beehaw.org avatar

What about drug cartels? They're happy to provide fentanyl overdose amounts to unsuspecting end users, could they provide the same to jails? It's apparently also pretty cheap, and no injections needed.

MrCookieRespect ,

Pretty shure they wouldn't supply the US government for executions either...

survivalmachine ,

I mean, the CIA is literally part of the US government and they are a big participant in South American drug cartels. Surely they could organize something.

MrCookieRespect ,

But they aren't buying it for executions or officially...

If some prison just takes out a liter of diamorphine from "unknown" source there will be questions... And not just from inside the USA...

sanguine_artichoke ,
@sanguine_artichoke@midwest.social avatar

LE destroys large quantities of seized drugs regularly.

sanguine_artichoke ,
@sanguine_artichoke@midwest.social avatar

The government seizes a fuckton of narcotics constantly. They could test some of them for purity and use that supply.

MrCookieRespect ,

But they are usually stretched with some really bad shit.

jarfil ,
@jarfil@beehaw.org avatar

As of late, that seems to be fentanyl, which is only bad if your goal is to survive.

sanguine_artichoke ,
@sanguine_artichoke@midwest.social avatar

That's where the 'test for purity' comes in. I was thinking just pure fentanyl. I'm sure they seize some diverted pharmaceutical products. Or, they could just make their own... if a cartel can do it, a state government could.

bermuda ,
@bermuda@beehaw.org avatar

How bout the state just not kill people

jarfil ,
@jarfil@beehaw.org avatar

I'd settle for only killing those who wanted to die... but that would make too much sense, or something.

MrCookieRespect ,

All medical companys refuse to supply the US government for such things, and if they would use the stuff meant for other purposes for this shit they wouldn't get any medication from anyone anymore. Especially not from European companies as they are legally prohibited from supplying stuff for executions.

sanguine_artichoke ,
@sanguine_artichoke@midwest.social avatar

I guess I'd heard of that. What is the objection of American pharma companies? It must be liability vs. ethics as they're totally glad to maim and kill people daily as long as it's profitable.

MrCookieRespect ,

They don't have the patents for the stuff, European companies hold those parents for the most part... So either don't supply the prisons with the stuff or get the license taken away completely...

Kwakigra ,
@Kwakigra@beehaw.org avatar

This is similar to the forced feeding situation when there were hunger strikes at Guantanamo Bay. A clip was circulating around of a young boy happily demonstrating inserting his own feeding tube and a lot of people were using the clip to demonstrate that inserting a feeding tube wasn't that bad. The use of force on an unwilling participant is the difference. It is very different being held down while a tube is shoved into your head unwillingly than it is to calmly set yourself up for something you need to do.

The context of choosing to die in this method is very different than being forced into it. The man himself said he will be struggling. He will die panicked and afraid. I'm sure this method is perfectly fine when someone chooses euthanasia. I can't assume someone who is being forced into it is going to have a peaceful or painless death.

OmnipotentEntity ,
@OmnipotentEntity@beehaw.org avatar

There is no execution method in the world that will be given to a willing participant, almost by definition. The specific point and debate in this thread isn't about whether or not execution is right. Most people on this forum certainly are at least skeptical of capital punishment. I certainly am against it.

The debate instead is, "given that capital punishment will occur because Southern states are the way they are, which we can agree is horrible in and of itself, what is the least bad way to do it?" The discussion around which execution is least bad is valuable from the standpoint of harm reduction. Currently, choices are what exactly? A multistage cocktail of euthanasia drugs that paralyze the executee before stopping their heart? The electric chair? Firing squad? Hanging? Beheading? Everything you pointed out and more are applicable to these methods as well.

You might argue that this makes any execution method unethical, and you're right! Congratulations. You agree with pretty much everyone in this thread.

FfaerieOxide ,
@FfaerieOxide@kbin.social avatar

given that capital punishment will occur

I don't give that. I don't give it a bit. Especially if holes can be poked in every new method as these ghouls come up with it

There is no reason to acquiesce to an inevitability that it will occur just because shitstains keep trying to execute people. I remember it was decades wasn't a single execution in The United States.

"what is the least bad way to do it?”

There isn't one, and every single method should be objected to as it comes up.

OmnipotentEntity ,
@OmnipotentEntity@beehaw.org avatar

I don't give that. I don't give it a bit.

I wasn't aware you were living in a reality where executions aren't currently happening several times a year.

Here in this timeline, even though there are still executions, thankfully they are on the downswing and hopefully on the way out for good. But at least over the short term, even though every execution deserves to be robustly challenged, activists cannot be expected to win every battle. We also need to plan for what happens if we lose.

States like South Carolina and Idaho have already begun pivoting back to the electric chair and firing squads, and while no anti-capital punishment activist is to blame for it, speaking personally it certainly would not sit right by me to know that I played a part in denying the use of an execution method like nitrogen hypoxia, and the inmate, on whose behalf I was fighting for, wound up dying via electrocution in severe, debilitating pain over the course of 2-15+ minutes instead.

Maybe ultimately convincing judges to ban nitrogen hypoxia is a good thing over the long run, even if it results in short term harm. But that is not a calculus I feel comfortable solving on behalf of others who will suffer while I remain insulated from the consequences of this decision.

Kwakigra ,
@Kwakigra@beehaw.org avatar

My argument was not to demonstrate that any given execution method might be bad, but the context in which something occurs fundamentally changes the nature of it. Because this method of execution is used in other ways in completely different contexts it does not necessarily mean it would be less painful or traumatic than other methods.

The nitrogen chamber appears to be less violent than a firing squad, but it is not certain whether this is the case. The purpose of banning certain execution methods and allowing others is not that one is cruel and unusual and the other is less so, it is to obfuscate the brutality of what executing a person is. If firing squad was the only allowable form of execution more people would oppose it due to the very clear presentation of what it is regardless of that method potentially being far less distressing and painful than the use of a small gas chamber.

OmnipotentEntity ,
@OmnipotentEntity@beehaw.org avatar

Ah! Thanks for clearing that up. I understand your point. I'm not certain I agree though. As I wrote to another user downthread:

Maybe ultimately convincing judges to ban nitrogen hypoxia is a good thing over the long run, even if it results in short term harm. But that is not a calculus I feel comfortable solving on behalf of others who will suffer while I remain insulated from the consequences of this decision.

Using the stark, open, and obvious violence of a firing squad might make execution less palatable to the masses, but honestly, when are "the masses" actually exposed to footage of a criminal execution in the United States? We don't normally film executions, and even when we do, we certainly do not broadcast them. Despite being one of the most carceral nations, typically unless a person has actually personally experienced prison, he or she largely has no idea what even goes on at that level, let alone death row.

Kwakigra ,
@Kwakigra@beehaw.org avatar

It is true that executions by the state are not typically viewed by average people but the average person has probably been exposed to the way we execute people in one form or another. It could be through a re-enactment, a dramatization, a recounting, archived footage from a documentary, or some other such method. The idea that lethal injection is a humane method of punishment is much easier to sell than depicting a row of rifleman shooting someone full of holes. For example, until France abolished their death penalty their method of execution was guillotine within the walls of the prison. The idea of the state beheading people was too much for the sensibilities of France in the 70s even if they didn't have to watch it happen. Beheading in this manner may also ultimately cause less panic and pain to an unwilling participant than a nitrogen chamber might but the idea of it is much more horrible.

My underlying point of course being that there isn't really a humane way to kill someone or even a relatively humane way aside from deliberate torture. The idea that there might be I think allows the practice to continue by making it easier to tolerate even though it probably shouldn't be. This is aside from the larger problems of it being completely permanent and therefore with zero tolerance for error or bias at best and legitimizing the idea that a state may legally kill its own citizens under some circumstances at worst. The case in this article is far from clear with the judge overruling their jury to impose a death sentence when the jury didn't believe it was merited in this case. A judge being this cavalier about peoples' lives being the final say in the matter to me indicates that the death penalty is not being taken as seriously as it should.

autotldr Bot ,

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

Click here to see the summary

On Tuesday morning, Kenneth Smith will be moved within the Holman correctional facility in Alabama to the “death cell”, the bluntly named holding unit where condemned prisoners are placed two days before their appointed execution.

A week later her husband, Charles Sennett, a minister in the Church of Christ, killed himself after detectives began to focus on the fact that he had been having an affair, was deep in debt, and had taken out a life insurance policy on his wife.

The scheme was concocted, the Marshall Project discovered, by a criminal justice professor with no medical or scientific training whose main claim to expertise was as a former prosecutor in the western Pacific Ocean islands of Palau – one of the smallest countries in the world, population 18,000.

The idea that he would co-operate with the department of corrections in his own demise reminds Smith, he told the Guardian, of what guards said to him as they were trying to stick a giant needle under his collar bone during the failed 2022 execution.

Should the execution go ahead, his wife Deeanna will be with him in the witness section of the death chamber, but he will have to have a final word in advance with his 78-year-old mother Linda – “my little mama” – and his 12-year-old grandson Crimson, named after the University of Alabama football team.

His lawyers are making eleventh-hour appeals to federal judges, arguing that both the proposed use of nitrogen and the fact that Smith has already been traumatized by the failed attempt to kill him are forms of cruel and unusual punishment barred under the US constitution.

Saved 84% of original text.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • usnews@beehaw.org
  • test
  • worldmews
  • mews
  • All magazines
    •