An Alabama inmate would be the test subject for the “experimental” execution method of nitrogen hypoxia, his lawyers argued, as they asked judges to deny the state’s request to carry out his death sentence using the new method.
In a Friday court filing, attorneys for Kenneth Eugene Smith asked the Alabama Supreme Court to reject the state attorney general’s request to set an execution date for Smith using the proposed new execution method. Nitrogen gas is authorized as an execution method in three states but it has never been used to put an inmate to death.
Smith’s attorneys argued the state has disclosed little information about how nitrogen executions would work, releasing only a redacted copy of the proposed protocol.
You know you live in a third world country if you have discussions about how to kill your citizens. There is no need for the death penalty but a twisted and false sense of justice.
I understand you POV, but I disagree.
There are people that are beyond rehabilitation, and life in prison is just a waste of time and resources.
What we should do is try to understand what is making people commit crimes and avoid it before it happens.
People on death row are more expensive than on life sentence. You could have them work without making it slave like but talking about the U.S. prison system in general just makes me want to throw up. Its no wonder that people would argue for killing if they dont view inmates a human beings. I guess there is a special flavor of “humanism” in the U.S. I can tell you the european countries are doing quite well without enslaving and killing their inmates.
European countries dont have shooters or rapists like in the US.
Apparently it’s a hot take: there are people who exist that we would all absolutely be better off were they dead.
This guy was someone who was paid to kill another person for a thousand dollars. This is not just “a citizen” unless you’re saying it makes sense to keep people around in society that will fucking murder someone for less than a months pay.
Counterpoint: Given the number of people in government who said government should murder me because of the rainbow pin on my lapel, I don’t want government to have the power to murder anyone even if we all agree they deserve it. What makes you think that this is the one thing the government is competent at?
But bro, it doesn’t affect me now so why should I worry bro man bro dude?
Dude bro man guy?!?
/s
The government is just fine at murdering people, innocent, guilty, it’s all the same. They’ll even fight to kill people regardless of overwhelming evidence of innocence. Sometimes they have to try a few times to kill the person, but if they murder them in the street, its a great way to get a paid vacation.
I never said this is a person that society needs to keep around.
I do not believe that living is a right that can be earned or unearned. It is a right everyone has. If a person is unfit for society they need to be seperated from society. If that means having them in prison for live than that is what we should do. Killing them is done for one purpose mainly: Because it gives some people a sense of justice. This sense of justice however is false as the only justice would be to undo what was done.
Congratulations, the laws of reality disagree with you. When authoritarians are knocking down your door to tear your life apart, remember: you decided to let them live.
It’s like you didn’t even read what he wrote.
When the authoritarians are knocking down your door you’ll think “I wish I had given the government more power to kill people. Only when the government can legally kill people are we safe from tyranny.”
Nice. If someone disagrees with you they are diasgreeing with reality? Sure makes sense. And nobody told me i personally can decide who is going to live. Damn man, now i feel bad about all those executions i could have stopped.
Nobody serving a life sentence is going to be anywhere near my door.
Don’t delude yourself – revolution isn’t a lawful action, regarless of one’s intentions.
That’s what they say, even keeping him locked up for life would be cheaper. Also how do you decide what’s gruesome enough to justify killing people, what about wrongfully convicted people they do exist and they got murdered. There are so many good arguments against and do few if any for the death penalty it’s mind-blowing to me how any more or less democratic society doesn’t abolish it.
TL;DR: No, there are plenty of good reasons why the death penalty should exist. The problem isn’t the penalty, it’s the people pointing it at innocents because it’s harder to prove guilt beyond a shadow of doubt. THAT is what needs reform, not the penalty. Otherwise you’re successfully putting more people into slavery when they just shouldn’t be consuming resources anymore, period.
This person isn’t wrongfully convicted, he’s been fighting his death penalty for years. He quite literally confessed, and his confession drove the man responsible for the hiring (it was through a third party) to kill himself.
Yes yes yes, “but what ifs” are very nice for people that don’t actually want to make hard decisions. The bottom line is bad people exist and should be killed. This man doesn’t deserve rights beyond those afforded to people who are sentenced to death.
The expense of the death penalty is related to the trials that are held, almost always in opposition of the ruling. If you were to compare the actual cost of the penalty itself to the cost of keeping someone in slavery, you would find that the numbers don’t support you.
The reality is you don’t have a problem with the death penalty, you have a problem with the people proposing the death penalty because not enough preparation goes into it. Which is perfectly rational, because if they are not proven beyond a shadow of doubt to be guilty then the death penalty should simply not be on the table.
The problem isn’t the sentence, the problem is people not treating human lives with enough respect when giving the sentence. Both things can be true. Literally point to any fascist/ authoritarian and suddenly the death penality doesn’t seem so bad. No one cried for Bin Laden being obliterated, no one would cry for a convicted hitman being killed.
Three counter points:
- Where state sanctioned killing is introduced violent crime and homicide typically rise afterwards. Potentially because society is saying its ok to kill someone if they really deserve it and your sure.
- It is near impossible to be 100% certain of someone’s guilt. Even with confessions. They could be protecting someone or simply not of right mind. If the state makes a mistake it is permanent and is murder in my opinion.
- Pricing has to take into account the legal costs a a printed with being as sure as possible etc. Even then there are cases of wrongful execution.
Those are some wild statements you make. Yes I have a problem with the penalty bc I think it’s wrong, simple as that. But I live in a country where punishment is fundamentally based on the idea of rehabilitation. And that often even applies for murderers. So I think that’s part of why I’m so opposed to the death penalty.
I doubt we can convince each other from our standpoints. So all I can say is have a great day.
I have a problem with your ridiculously vague statement of
The bottom line is bad people exist and should be killed
What makes a bad person? That they committed a crime (which crime, how bad is bad), that they show no remorse, that they are incapable of change (were they born evil or a victim of circumstance)?
You only have to look at how quickly decisions of law are changing (roe v wade for better or worse, definitely worse) to realise deciding on life ending ‘justice’ based on a human court of due process (where even confessing can be flawed) is fundamentally flawed.
How does it impact your day to day if we choose to incarcerate them instead?
But also, a little extra compassion in life would do you zero harm.
No one cried for Bin Laden being obliterated, no one would cry for a convicted hitman being killed.
Thats simply not true. I myself would very much rather have seen Bin Laden in Jail (and of course a due process beforehand), likewise Saddam or even Hitler…
Even if you’re right, that doesn’t mean we should actually kill them. People are people, they should be treated as such. We can throw them in jail far easier, and to the rest of us, it’s equivalent to them being dead.
Here’s the thing though.
I agree 100% that the world is probably better off without this asshole in it.
But I don’t think we should be doing that. For every one of these guys, you’ll have another guy who got railroaded by a crooked prosecutor, or who will later be proven innocent with better DNA testing. There’s just no way to be sure every one is ‘good’, and I’d rather let bad people live than accidentally kill good people.government shouldn’t be allowed to kill its own people
The state should never execute anyone because it implies two things that aren’t true:
- That the system is infallible.
- That a person doesn’t have the capacity to improve/rehabilitate.
That being said. I’ll take this method over any other for sure.
I absolutely agree with you in the first point, but I think there are cases where person really doesn’t have the capacity, or we don’t want to try it. I think of mass murderers or child murderers or something like that. People who are going to spend their whole life in jail with life-sentence with no way of ever getting out and who cost the state money and are the reason why some people want death sentence back in my country for example. The first point still applies however and there are cases of people getting out of jail after ten or fifteen years when new evidence is discovered.
America is so fucking stuck in stone age, it’s schocking at times!
deleted by creator
When the original news broke about Alabama using nitrogen, my wife woke me up by hitting my arm to tell me - because I’ve been saying that is the most humane possible method for the last 16 years.
I think the death penalty is stupid to begin with, and am kinda over talking about its merits after years of debate team in high school and college. But trying all of these seat-of-pants cocktails of midazolam and pentobarbital etc, and then inventing all of these ridiculous devices that require two people to push buttons at the same time so no one ever really knows whose button actually killed the person… it’s just needlessly complicated and dumb. Not to mention the fact that the legal costs involved in defending appeals and housing someone on death row are much higher than the cost of a life sentence anyway. And that’s leaving aside the statistically significant number of wrongful convictions…
I mean, we shouldn’t have the death penalty. But if we’re going to, it should be by nitrogen hypoxia.
I am split - there shouldn’t be a death penalty, and the horrors of botched executions go a long way toward undermining support for the system. While nitrogen hypoxia would be humane, it also makes the death penalty so much easier to sell. Part of me would rather have it be barbarous to undermine support. Though I can see the state being so incompetent that they end up gassing half of the executioners along with the inmate, even though they’re just putting a mask on the inmate’s face.
Might be trying to delay the execution itself since there is a shortage of the “regular” injection they use because of embargoes?
The issue is with the specific protocol being used. It’s not made public or documented. It’s almost all though they’re interested in torturing him instead of humanely executing him.
If done right. You know that people qualified to do it right don’t participate in executions, right?
That’s why they fuck up giving someone injections on a regular basis.
You’ve experienced this?
We should not be executing anyone. Hypoxia is well documented so he would not exactly be a test subject.
Note: if I were to commit medically induced suicide it would be by nitrogen hypoxia. By alla counts it is the best way to go.
1000% and I hope to have the right to die via this method some day.
Do we not have the right to kill ourselves?
What about n2o hypoxia?
And alla is seldom wrong about these things
A glib reply would be “What’s the worst that could happen?, they’d die?” but a far worse outcome is that they remain conscious but in constant pain for an unnecessarily long time. I’m personally against execution of any form but if it’s going to be done let’s make sure it’s humane.
well what you describe is how Normal executions go. Doctors won’t do it so it’s done by prison guards with no medical training and is often so disgusting the witnesses need counseling
deleted by creator
My brother in christ, public executions were a thing in a time when the majority was religious.
deleted by creator
(Jacob Geller’s The False Evolution of Execution Methods)
It’s different than you might imagine. There’s a certain unmistakable mix of institutional power, mandate, callousness, and incompetence that makes state execution’s uniquely awful.
I am against capital or even corporal punishment.
But if I were to pick my way of dying, nitrogen hypoxia is the way I would like to go
Nitrogen is the most common thing you breath, almost 80% of air being nitrogen.
You don’t feel like you are being choked, because that feeling does not come from less oxygen, but when other gasses like carbon dioxide is at a too high level. Foreign liquid, or even being unable to expand your lungs. There is no too low oxygen sensor in your body that is used to send pain signals.
You gradually lose your cognitive faculties, including feeling pain or self preservation.
I am against captial or even corporal punishment, even for heinous crimes.
If you are thinking about ending your life, seek help with health care professionals, everyone deserves a chance to have a better life.
All that said, I think nitrogen hypoxia is the most humane way of ending a life. I would even wish that my chicken nuggets got the least painful end to their lives
Alabama really shows itself to be one of the most savage states when it comes to their treatment of prisoners. Fucking monsters.
And may the head worthless POS of there burn in hell with abott and the other worthless shiteheads
Removed by mod
You can’t unexecute someone if you got it wrong, and the system has gotten these cases wrong more than once.
Let me guess, you’re a pedo and deflect attention from yourself by trolling on lemmy. Go fuck yourself, not little boys.
Removed by mod
You’re literally the most cringe psuedo intellectual on this platform.
Go bitch and moan about blue haired people or something and leave the adult conversations to everyone else.
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
Actually it’s pretty well understood.
The human body reacts to CO2 buildup with a ‘gasping for air’ sensation. Nitrogen however, not at all. The air we breathe is 80% nitrogen 20% oxygen, so we aren’t sensitive to nitrogen at all. Breathing air with little oxygen is something well understood as it can happen to pilots of unpressurized aircraft. Here’s a funny example of what happens when pressurization fails. Once ATC figures out he has hypoxia, they order him to descend to 11,000’ (which is usually the point hypoxia starts to kick in) and he’s fine. But while he’s hypoxic, he happily admits he has no control over his airplane and is totally unbothered by that fact.
There’s a thing called a hypoxia chamber- the oxygen % of the air is reduced (not eliminated) to simulate what it’s like being at high altitude without pressurization. Always funny videos there, grown men with oxygen-starved brains playing with a children’s puzzle trying to put the square block in the round hole.Execution by 100% nitrogen is the most humane death I can think of. The gas is odorless, and as it takes effect the prisoner would experience a euphoric feeling before just falling asleep and dying a few minutes later.
That said, I’m sure they’ll fuck this up somehow- most civilized people have concluded that execution is barbaric and unnecessary, so whoever builds the nitrogen gadget is probably not going to be the sharpest tool in the shed.
And that’s what a botched execution would look like- if you shut off the nitrogen too soon or don’t ensure a high enough nitrogen concentration, the prisoner will be left with brain damage but not dead.
I saw a video, I think on YouTube shorts, explaining how our bodies response when suffocating is from an abundance of CO2 rather than a lack of O2.
Maybe whoever suggested this method saw the same video?
deleted by creator
I support giving convicts with death sentences the right to choose the means (within reason). Nitrogen hypoxia is probably more humane than most of the methods we’ve tried, although I personally prefer bringing back the guillotine. If we’re willing to kill a man for justice, we ought be willing to reject childish euphemisms (putting him to sleep) and make a bloody mess of it.
make a bloody mess of it
Personally I’ve been advocating for the “shitload of explosives” method. It doesn’t get much more humane than being blown to a red mist in milliseconds, and the audience would love it.
Medicalized death sentences like the lethal injection seriously creep me out. Even a murderer deserves to face death with dignity, not strapped to a table and injected with poison.
Lmao who would love to see that? In videogames when you are fighting the bad guys, sure. But irl?
This is interesting, and I personally feel he is fighting it only because it buys him more time. In a different article (linked in this one), where they announce Alabama’s plan to use nitrogen it says:
Smith, in seeking to block the state’s second attempt to execute him by lethal injection, had argued that nitrogen should be available.
So he literally asked to use nitrogen, they said “ok” and now’s he’s saying “how dare you try to use me as a guinea pig”
Shocking news: man on death row does not want to die.
More at 11.
“I think something should be available” is not the same as “I volunteer to test it out”.
For example, I think ejection seats should be available on all fighter jets.
The correct analogy would be you refusing to get out of a fighter jet except via ejection seats, them refusing to be ejected lol. This guy apparently wasn’t saying it should be available in general but that it should be an option for him.
That said, I am in principle against executions.
This guy is apparently saying that he wants to know how they are planning to use nitrogen gas, and the state is refusing to tell him.
So the correct analogy would be you refusing to get out of a fighter jet except via ejection seats. Then someone says, “Okay you can get out via ‘ejection seats’, happy now?”. Then you say, “Hey what’s up with the air quotes around ‘ejection seats’? What exactly are you planning anyway? How does this ejection seat work?”. Then they say, “Don’t you worry about the details buddy. You’ll be ‘ejected’ from your ‘seat’, LOL! Now shut up and get in the plane”.
Fair point!
If you think his inconsistent argument is ridiculous, you don’t understand the legal system. It’s okay, that’s why there are lawyers. (1) Alternate pleading is a thing, (2) the State pulls the same shit except 1000% worse, (3) the judiciary, especially the GOP judiciary that is elected on a “tough on crime” platform (got to love politicized justice), is ABSOLUTELY the most inconsistent, as their goal is to accept any argument of the State that leads to speedy execution. It goes all the way up to the SCOTUS - former Chief Justice Rehnquist was absolutely a shining star of the death machine, regardless of actual innocence. EDIT: the thing that really pisses me off is when the media covers alternate pleading without context. It’s terribly biased reporting designed to give people justice boners and pump up support for the State. EDIT2: I might be slightly off with my terms of art - I’m in transactional law, not criminal law, and it’s been a hell of a long time since law school or anything involving criminal law beyond a traffic ticket.
i could never live with myself if i put anyone to death, regardless of how horrific an act they committed.
That’s why apparently the execution squads are told that at least one of them has blank bullets. And why two doctors do the lethal injection procedure simultaneously, but one of them is injecting saline. This way everyone can legitimately think “maybe it wasn’t me who killed them”. I think I read in in “Behave” by Robert M. Sapolsky.
Meanwhile, medieval executioners simply wore a hood so nobody knew who they were.
Yeah but I think my answer was not about “I wouldn’t want anyone to know I killed someone” but more about “I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I killed someone”.
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
My position: no government should be given the power to kill its citizens under any other circumstances than to protect other people from imminent violence, i.e. the same circumstances that would qualify as self-defence by a private individual.
For the sake of argument: if you really wanted a painless and humane death what could be better than a carefully modulated dose of opioids?
I’m guessing the answer is if they get high on the way out then it isn’t justice because only fear and suffering will assuage those with a vengeance boner.
No, it’s because opioids aren’t 100% effective at a painless death either. At this stage, no death we know of is truly “painless”. Well, that we can prove anyway. They’ve had patients hooked to brain monitors when they’ve died in their sleep, the brain goes through severe stress at the moment of death. Drowning is meant to be okay, but for obvious reasons, we can’t prove that.
There’s no way drowning is the way to do it… There’s a reason waterboarding is an “effective” means of torture.
Waterboarding isn’t drowning. It’s like mega drowning. Here’s one of many studies done on drowning that shows many people found it kind of calm as they neared death.
deleted by creator
I offered proof that drowning is calm. You’ve claimed the opposite but haven’t proven it. So, prove it.
deleted by creator
I live within walking distance of a beach, I swim.in the ocean plenty. Got any more dumb insults, or are you actually going to surprise me and attempt to prove your point?
What an idiot, he’s just turned down the most humane and painless way to go. You don’t notice nitrogen suffocation, because your body ignores nitrogen in the air and determines you’re suffocating by a build up in CO2. Instead, you pass out in blissful hypoxia.
I’m against the death penalty as a rule of thumb, but if you have to do it then it should only be done via nitrogen suffocation. Anything else is just a refelction of the vindictiveness of the people administering or pushing for the punishment - it doesn’t achieve anything, it doesn’t deter future crime, it’s just you getting your own back and trying to say it’s ok to harm others in this instance. If the goal is to remove them from society such that they don’t harm or cost society anymore, then this should be done without the kind of harmful intent that the criminal themselves demonstrated.
Tbh though I imagine this is just the guy’s lawyer trying to do anything he can to delay the execution. There’s some small chance that the state could do something wrong during the hearings that leads to some benefit for the prisoner. However I can only imagine the regret the prisoner might feel as he’s on the receiving ends of one of the other methods.
Yeah the difference is this method is actually promoted by the scientific community, rather than commercial interests. Nitrogen suffocation is used for assisted suicide.
I just wish we’d use it for pork. However because it’s so hazardous to humans (boiling nitrogen releases gas that expands very quickly and expells all the oxygen in the room) we just stick with CO2, which is very easy because it’s heavier than air so you just have walkways to protect the people. With nitrogen, they’d require much more expensive safety measures to protect people working nearby. Also, CO2 causes a feeling of suffocation, leading to the pig lashing about and suffering, and possibly spoiling the meat somewhat.
Electrocution is perhaps the worst. They actually limit the current, meaning it kills you a little more slowly or maybe not at all, because if they went full power they would literally cook the person and that would smell unpleasant for everyone else. Lethal injections aren’t much better, typically they paralyse the person first so they can feel themselves dying but not move to show any sign of it.
I’m certainly keen to learn of any further downsides to nitrogen, but as far as I’m aware it’s the best thing going (out of a horrible bunch of ways to kill). Like I said before, I’m against the death penalty as a rule, but if you’re going to do it then it should be as painless as possible.
I’ll take it if he doesn’t want it.
I was gonna say they could test on me, but I don’t want to support the death penalty.
Unless they’re pedophiles!
WoO stupid take
Why?
Pedophiles usually don’t want to be pedophiles and won’t act on their desires; they’re just quietly suffering from mental illness and just their existence shouldn’t change someone’s stance on the death penalty.
Yeah, I’m talking about the pedophile who do act on their desires.
Sorry that needs to be spelled out for you.
Glad we can both agree they deserve the death penalty.
I don’t know much about asphyxiation but it does not sound comfortable. Concerning lethal injection, it’s not certain how much pain the paralyzed body feels as the heart is being stopped – have there been EEG studies?
I would prefer execution by firing squad.
There’s plenty of knowledge about the effects of nitrogen from it being a workplace hazard in a lot of places.
One example is anchor chain lockers on ships. That big iron chain that just came out of the salt water wants to turn into iron oxide so it absorbs all the oxygen making the environment extremely nitrogen rich. In several cases people have been climbing down into it and without warning go unconscious. I think one case had three dead at the bottom before the fourth guy comes along with some brains and thinks maybe I shouldn’t go down there.
It’s supposed to be very painless. If I remember correctly your body can’t tell the difference between oxygen and nitrogen so you don’t have a feeling of lack of air, just continue breathing normally then fall asleep and expire.
Generally, the build up of CO2 is what triggers pain and panic of asphyxiation. Oxygen displacing gases certainly do cause fast unconsciousness and brain damage. Would seem very likely that nitrogen works well.
