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Alabama completes first execution by nitrogen asphyxiation (www.reuters.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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(page 2) 48 comments

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Rev. Jeff Hood, Smith's spiritual adviser, was at Smith's side for the execution, and said prison officials in the room "were visibly surprised at how bad this thing went." "What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for their life," Hood, attending his fifth execution in the last 15 months, told reporters. "We saw minutes of someone heaving back and forth. We saw spit. We saw all sorts of stuff from his mouth develop on the mask. We saw this mask tied to the gurney, and him ripping his head forward over and over and over again."

All our technological advances as a society and this is the best we can do?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

why can't they just give them an insane amount of opiates rather than all this odd shit

(if we have to kill people, which we shouldn't)

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So, a gas chamber? Back to 1938, are we?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (10 children)

The method itself is not problematic.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I'd argue any method of killing a living being against their will is problematic...

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What about imprisoning them against their will?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If they are danger to others, sure.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So it's okay to torture people if they're a danger to others, but not kill them?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If someone is eminent danger to others and there is no other option, it's ok to kill them to in my book. But no it's not ok to torture people at al. But I make a difference between torture and imprisonment: since I think prisoners deserve humane conditions and rehabilitation should be the goal, prison should not be like torture. If your prison is torture you doing it wrong.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

What happens when people commit more crimes because the consequence of imprisonment is not enough of a deterrent?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

Then you know you are in the us penal system

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

They wont, we have pretty good data that rehabilitation is a rather good way to prevent recidivism. It helps if the society is in general build in a more social way. But sure there are some people who can't be reintegrated into society and have to be kept in hopefully humane way separated from society, we do the same with extrem forms of mental illness.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Sure, but that's not what we are talking about.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

Jesus fucking Christ

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

A fallible state institution that has made many documented mistakes in the past is still given the power to murder prisoners who are in its custody and under its protection. It’s barbarous.

America is hellbent on the concept of punishing criminals over rehabilitation while also having an objectively unfair justice system. The cruelty is the point sometimes, and it’s very unfortunate that people still think this way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

The Lethal Injection idea was from interviewing a veterinarian who of course refused to implement it, as did every Medical Doctor in the USA because of fucking course nobody would touch breaking the oath in such a way with a ten foot pole. The result is a bunch of untrained amateurs carrying out the procedures and an extremely low success rate leading to unjust and unnecessary pain and trauma.

I imagine all the other methods they come up with to follow a similar series of events.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Thank you for stating the truth. I live in USA, and it hurts.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

so cheap

"We're giving out longer prison sentences and cutting taxes and budgets, make it work." - Red state legislatures every two years

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

In November 2022, Alabama officials aborted his execution by lethal injection after struggling for hours to insert an intravenous line's needle in his body.

In Smith's second and final trip to the execution chamber on Thursday, executioners restrained him in a gurney and strapped a commercial industrial-safety respirator mask to his face. A canister of pure nitrogen was attached to the mask

This doesn't sound very professional!?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Someone else mentioned in another comment here that medical professionals can’t purposely kill someone because of their oath, so I’m guessing the people administering these execution methods are literally unqualified to do them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I'd argue that a doctor would also be unqualified, since their entire qualification revolves around not killing people.
But yeah, one major problem with the death penalty is that it is carried out by people who have no education or training in that matter.
No one goes to school to learn the trade of an executioner.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Professionals won't participate because that'd break their hippocratic oath. That just leaves schmucks like me and you to try to figure it out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

32 minutes. Huh.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

That is a long time to know someone is murdering you.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Just the pro life crowd being inhumane. Nothing to see here.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (5 children)

To be fair, insofar as execution methods go, nitrogen asphyxiation is far far far and away the most humane.

So, like, it is an improvement? It's less inhumane than they were being at any rate?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (12 children)

Considered too cruel to be used by vets because of the clear signs of distress shown in animals to which it was administered. But this guy says it's good enough for humans!

It's important that a prisoner not just be killed, but can feel themselves dying, apparently.

I understand why you would think this seems peaceful. But we have no idea whether it is, anyone claiming otherwise is bullshitting or lying, and the entire idea of "humane" execution is an oxymoron to begin with.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Considered too cruel to be used by vets because of the clear signs of distress shown in animals to which it was administered.

Could you provide a reference for this? According to the Wikipedia article on inert gas asphyxiation:

Diving animals such as rats and minks and burrowing animals are sensitive to low-oxygen atmospheres and (unlike humans) will avoid them, making purely hypoxic techniques possibly inhumane[citation needed] for them.

This makes sense, but there's also a [citation needed] there. And even if true, it explicitly draws a distinction between these sorts of animals and humans, which the rest of the article is quite emphatic do not have sensitivity to low oxygen.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

They were possibly confusing nitrogen with carbon dioxide. CO2 will definitely lead to distress in high concentrations, and has been used in some slaughterhouses.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's more humane than lethal injection, the only other way we do it, which I think is the argument here

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

Lethal injection with heroin or carfentanyl would be pretty humane I would say

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Any suggestions for alternatives? The poor unfortunate souls on death row salute you. Can’t cause them any distress now. I’m sure their victims got the same consideration.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Good thing executing prisoners never gets the wrong people and always makes the victims whole.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I would not say executing innocents is a good thing. I understand your compassion though. It speaks well to you. Unfortunately there is usually no being made whole when it comes to tragedy. I believe the bar for proving guilt when the death penalty is involved is quite high. I have seen the cases of the few exonerated from death row and I am thankful for that. There are people out there fighting for those wrongly accused. However, there are many more clear cut open and shut cases of those not deserving to exist among their fellow man who have done things to the innocent that are hard to even read.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Oh the bar is quite high. No problem then, it will only be a small number of definitely innocent people we murder.

How about we can execute people, but if they're later exonerated every single person involved in the execution themselves gets executed automatically. I think that may enforce a high enough standard for me.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

To be fair, killing a blank slate is different than killing a guy everybody wants dead

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

2 problems here. Firstly a fetus is not alive so can't be killed. Secondly I didn't want that guy dead.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

Hi, pro-choice mathematician who's done biology work here. Fetuses are alive. Fetuses are composed of living tissues. If a fetus was not alive, it wouldn't grow. If a fetus doesn't grow it can't be born. You will never win an argument with an anti-abortion nutjob if you get basic facts wrong. The reason a fetus doesn't have the same moral weight as the human it needs to live off of is because fetuses aren't sapient.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

1 - it's still stopping the existence of an organism and preventing a human life from happening after it already started to happen. Call it not killing something, but we're basically arguing semantics. I'm pro choice, but I mean, own what you are doing. It's not exactly preventative it's reactive.

2 - idk and idc who this hitman guy is, I meant your usual death row guy who viscously killed/etc multiple people in a horrifying way. Someone an overwhelming majority of people would have no problem with being killed. Someone who has demonstrated we permanently need out of society and has spread suffering. I'm anti death penalty, but not because there's any love lost with those people - only because we convict and kill the wrong people sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Weird stuff, Americans

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I dont support the death penalty in any way (well, maybe guillotine)

Its the vengeful right wing christofascists that love it. Unfortunately, they are overrepresented in our governments.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Guillotine is almost certainly worse than hypoxia; having nerves severed is agonizing. Having almost all of them severed would be insanely painful.

That said, what if we just didn't kill people. That would be cool.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If the nerves connected to the brain are severed, how can someone even know they're in pain? (Also, they die immediately.)

FYI, they were making a joke about complacent, exploitative rich people, e.g. the French Revolution.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"Immediately" is 4-10 seconds.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think the sudden blood pressure going to zero would probably end conscious awareness fairly quick

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

"fairly quick" is 4 to 10 seconds.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

When it comes to mixed bag news this is as mixed as it gets. If we're gonna execute people, we can at least do it as humanely as possible.

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