‘Astonishingly cruel’: Alabama seeks to test execution method on death row ‘guinea pig’
‘Astonishingly cruel’: Alabama seeks to test execution method on death row ‘guinea pig’
Nine months after Kenneth Smith’s botched lethal injection, state attorney general has asked for approval to kill him with nitrogen
First off, I am against the death penalty. I suppose there are hypothetical scenarios were there may be some remorseless person who committed horrific crimes and for whom there is absolutely no doubt of guilt, and maybe then we can justify removing them from the world permanently. But in the real world, the death penalty is not limited to such scenarios. Innocents have been and continue to be executed. This is unacceptable.
But, if we aren't going to eliminate it, at the very least we can avoid unneeded suffering during it. As I understand it, nitrogen asphyxiation is a comparatively peaceful way to go. So this headline smells of bullshit to me.
It’s experimental. No institutional review board in the country could ethically ask this guy to volunteer for such an experiment, simply because of the coercive power dynamics inherent in asking such a thing of a prisoner. But the government can, by fiat, decide to experiment on him, and you’re ok with that? Even if “nitrogen asphyxiation is a comparatively peaceful way to go,” human medical experimentation qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment; otherwise, what’s the point of banning cruel and unusual punishment?
The only experiment is doing it to humans. It's used to kill chickens by the thousands. Because it causes them less stress, leading to better tasting meat.
It isn't experimental is the way the word is normally used. We know what the effects of nitrogen asphyxiation are. People are accidentally killed by it all the time. If were going to have a death penalty (and I would argue we shouldn't) then we should seek less cruel ways to do it, which nitrogen asphyxiation is.
It says the method is rejected even by vets. But it only says the nitrogen atmosphere can induce a stressful environment "in some species". Do these other species have stress triggers when low on oxygen? Is there any further explanation?
It also mentioned this method has been adopted by 3 states. Have there been any successful attempts?
I'm against the death penalty but that's no excuse to skimp on reporting. Those seem like obvious questions that would have easily found answers. That they aren't in the article, begs the question if they were asked, answered, and excluded? Or just not asked?
Yes, there are other species that react negatively to hypoxic environments:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertgasasphyxiation
But the idea with using it on humans is that we don't react negatively. We don't even feel like we're suffocating, like with excessive CO2. Nitrogen is plentiful and is already being used for legal suicide elsewhere, which is why they're wanting to use it.
Just posting this as an addendum to the information from the comment above. There is a 3D printed device called a Sarco Pod that has been developed for assisted suicides. As far as I know, it has yet to be deployed. However, it seems likely that it will be in the near future.
The prevailing objections to the death penalty appear to stem from the nature of the methods that have been utilized. I wonder if the sentiment would change if receiving the death penalty was effectively painless, and nearly instantaneous via one of these pods?
At that point you could certainly make an argument for life in prison being a significantly harsher, elongated, and cruel sentence. Just some food for thought.
Didn't he ask for that method himself? I'm sure he doesn't want to try injection again.
I hate the death penalty - its barbaric, it kills innocent people etc.
But if people are going to do it I can think of no better metaphor for a state sanctioned death penalty than an enourmous hydraulic press.
All these injections and ethical guidelines are misguided. The cruelty is the point so they might as well just make it quick and lean into it.
"Crushed by the weight of the system."
Maybe "torn apart by the gears of justice?"
I'm pro-death penalty in theory but against it in practice. There's definitely some people who forfeit their right to exist with the rest of us. But we can never apply it fairly or even guarantee we aren't executing actually innocent people. And the ugliness and evil of that is more than enough to make me against capital punishment.
It's sometimes wrong is my #1 reason.
Om top of that, it's not fairly distributed sometimes and it's also more expensive than just life in prison. With all that, what's the purpose? It's clearly to make other people feel good, not about justice. People love revenge porn, and I think that says a lot about us as people that we're willing to deal with all the negatives to bring us joy about ending another person's life.
If you botched an execution, then the convict should be commuted to life sentence or even pardoned if they suffered greatly. In addition, the people who botched it should be put on trial for malpractice and fined/jailed.
The executions aren't done by doctors, as that goes against their hypocratic oath. It's not even done by nurses in a lot of cases. They're done by people who have barely any training. Botched executions are a dime a dozen because of this.
To be clear, I am against all forms of capital punishment. It's barbaric and has no place in 2023.
or even pardoned if they suffered greatly
Uh, no.
I think you may be underestimating the types of people on death row and the crimes they have committed. Which is understandable as most people don't really encounter people like that and don't really consider the true horror the crimes committed
These people (and I'm assuming guilt has been correctly assigned here for the purposes of the argument) have committed horrific crimes. Raping and murdering children, wiping out entire familys, abudction then torture then murder, those kinds of things.
For example, the case of Johnny Johnson: https://youtu.be/ntpK9D3935o (warning: this crime is about as bad as it gets and is described in detail here). I won't describe the crime here. The video is worth a watch if you're curious but you have been warned.
There is no pardoning that. Ever. Under no circumstances should they ever be allowed to walk among us ever again. Even under the strictest possible supervision.
These crimes are so awful that we simply cannot forgive, and these people cannot be rehabilitated, and no second chance should be granted.
Death penalty or not (to which I can see both sides of the argument and is probably still something to be debated but isn't the point of this comment) I can't envision any solution of pardoning these criminals is ever acceptable.
An Edge case doesn't disprove the general case .
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It's not much of a guinea pig if you're just asphyxiating him, its pretty understood how that kills people. By the logic of calling him a guinea pig does that mean anytime anything is done to someone for the first time they're a guinea pig?
There are lots of ways to asphyxiate someone, and not all of them are fast and easy. And yes, guinea pigs having been used in lab experiments, that’s exactly the logic.
I understand the logic of it, I'm criticizing it for being sensationalist.
The process of putting someone to death is already traumatic to the guards that have to make it happen. It makes them question whether they can find salvation - even though their job made them do it.
Now you’re asking them to experiment on people? At the very least let’s use surefire methods & people who are already murderers for this profession
Yeah, didn't Switzerland just approve using it for doctor assisted euthanasia?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Kenneth Smith is one of two living Americans who can describe what it is like to survive an execution, having endured an aborted lethal injection last November during which he was subjected to excruciating pain tantamount, his lawyers claim, to torture.
If the state of Alabama has its way, he will become the test dummy for an execution method that has never before been used in judicial killings and which veterinarians consider unacceptable as a form of euthanasia for animals – death by nitrogen gas.
The choice of Smith as the first candidate for the technique, less than a year after he experienced a failed execution, has also been criticized as a double violation of the eighth amendment protection against “cruel and unusual punishments”.
Earlier that year, the state took more than three hours to kill Joe Nathan James and later abandoned the execution of Alan Miller after also failing to find a vein.
“The mask will be placed and adjusted on the condemned inmate’s face”, it says, and then after the prisoner has been allowed to make a final statement “the Warden will activate the nitrogen hypoxia system”.
Like many death penalty states, Oklahoma was looking for an alternative to lethal injection, having struggled to procure the necessary drugs as a result of an international boycott by pharmaceutical companies.
The original article contains 1,116 words, the summary contains 220 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
wtf the attempted murderers tried to execute him last time even after a judge put a stay on the order???
That's nightmarish. Although all execution is nightmarish. One day the judges involved with these crimes against humanity will hopefully face justice.
So often I am thankful that I dont have to live in this dystopion shithole country. Thanks for reminding me again.
Currently saving money to get out before next year's election shitshow. I envy you.
Why do we even still have the death penalty?
The protocol, the first that a state has released publicly for nitrogen, indicates that the gas will be pumped into Smith through a “mask assembly”, which will be connected to “breathing gas tubing”. “The mask will be placed and adjusted on the condemned inmate’s face”, it says, and then after the prisoner has been allowed to make a final statement “the Warden will activate the nitrogen hypoxia system”.
The gas will be passed through the mask into the prisoner for 15 minutes, or for five minutes beyond the moment that he flatlines, whichever is longer, the protocol says.
The details given are so vague, Denno said, that it leaves experts to “only speculate about how a state might conduct a nitrogen hypoxia execution”. She added that the placement of a mask on a prisoner’s face “is especially puzzling – what if the inmate tries to take it off, immediately or during the procedure?”
What a load of shit The Guardian has become. Just to be clear, did we all read the same thing? What details are left out? It seems pretty clear to me what they intend to do, does the how need to be written out in G-code or could your average person make that streeeeenuous mental leap themselves?
The most cruel parts of executions tend to be when the method fails. It's a fair question.
I don't believe the death penalty should exist. But I also think an airtight chamber would be a much better way to induce hypoxia than a cheap-ass mask. Given the state where this is happening, I don't have a lot of confidence they'll even know how to ensure the mask gives an airtight seal.
A mask sounds like an awful idea. If the mask does not give an airtight seal, they might survive. If they survive they will most likely get brain damage from the lack of oxygen. Then you have to do it again, and to a person that is now severely handicapped and very mentally challenged.
A helmet or a tank seems to me a better idea, but then you would need strong people to get the helmet on or the person into the tube.
The guardian is such a shit rag nowadays. It's like theyve just embraced the wing of the Labour Party that was convinced Corbyn was a communist antisemite. There is zero spine amongst the editors of the Guardian. They also are a supposed left-wing paper that regularly publishes opinions by supposed 'gender critics.'
At this point you can really only rely on the Financial Times as a vaguely left newspaper that doesn't entertain the culture war nonsense politics.
Of all the gases why Nitrogen? Argon is more commonly used for kill bags, I think.
Because nitrogen is already the dominant gas in breathable air. Because it is plentiful and readily available. Because lungs don't detect it as anything different than regular air. It has no side effects and no toxicity. It isn't the nitrogen that kills, it's the lack of oxygen. What humans detect when suffocating is excess carbon dioxide, so as long as that'a removed from the nitrogen enviroment, people will just blissfully slip into unconsciousness and then experience brain death from oxygen deprivation - while in a euphoric state the entire time it happens.
The article title is sensationalist clickbait at best, and outright disinformation at worst.
Cruel? Nitrogen asphyxiation is probably one of the most painless, gentle ways to go.
Your trigger that you can’t breathe is a buildup of carbon dioxide. But as you can still exhale, you feel no panic. You just slowly drift unconscious and die. I’d take it over most causes of death.
Execution is cruel, regardless of method.
I'm against the death penalty but if I ever murder a load of people then I'd like to be able able to freely choose death by nitrogen over a life in prison
You know what else is cruel? People killing other people. And the former continuing to live despite their cruelty.
The only rub against execution to me is the risk of executing the innocent. But that is not the concern here. There is no dispute this guy is guilty.
Opinion 👆.
Fact: it's necessary to remove certain people who are prone to violence and incapable of rehabilitation. If you have such a problem with execution, then volunteer your time, money, and home to accommodate a violent psychopath with you forever.
Exactly, the headline is just trying to get people to react.
It’s people’s that want to ban the death penalty. They have already have succeeded in getting pharmaceutical companies to stop providing the drugs traditionally used.
Nitrogen, though, would be hard to ban. There is plenty of it, and it is cheap and easy to isolate. So they are arguing hard that it shouldn’t be accepted before they can prove how painlessly effective it can be.
There's a BBC documentary about it, I think this one:
It's been a long time since I watched it, but I think the inert gas route is very pleasant. He even gets slightly high/happy from it.
Key takeaways:
edit: found it:
https://www.documentarytube.com/videos/how-to-kill-a-human-being-2/
Rendered unconcious within 15 seconds, dead within a minute.
In testing pigs would happily stick their heads in a space with pure nitrogen and munch on apples till they lost consciousness, fell over, then stick their heads back in the space with nitrogen to eat some more apples.
What kind of apples asking for a friend
Well yeah if we wanted it to be happy and comfortable we’ve had morphine for over a century
Yeah, compared to injecting horrifically painful substances, I don't see why this is controversial.
It's even better than that. Hypoxia causes feelings of euphoria! You get high, pass out, and die. It's the best way to go, IMO.
I'd take a firing squad or an enormous hydraulic press tbh. If I were to be an innocent stuck with a death penalty I'd be happy to know somebody will have to clean up a messy pile of guts after my quick death.
The whole point of using gas or chemicals for the death isnt to make the punishment humane - the death penalty is not humane in any way - its to make it easier on the people doing the killing. No mess, no fuss.
Citation needed
It’s human medical experimentation as a punishment that’s cruel and unusual.
It’s not experimentation. People have already died, even accidentally, from inert gas asphyxiation.