this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023

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475

Alabama wants to be the 1st state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe only nitrogen (abcnews.go.com)

submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

284 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen.

The Alabama attorney general’s office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58. The court filing indicated Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in three states but has never been used.

Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.

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[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

Can someone enlighten me why it's so hard to find an execution method?

I mean, tens of thousands of teens manage to execute themselves with the content of an average bathroom. How can it be that hard to find a fitting method?

Especially if there are things like carbon monoxide poisoning which has been used by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people to accidentally kill themselves without them even noticeing.

And if you want a method that's guaranteed to be painless, put someone's head into a large fires cutter and drop a 10 ton weight onto it from 50 meters height. In an instance, there's noting left that could feel weight.

Or ask Ocean Gate for advice. From what Youtube told me, submersible implosings happen within a few milliseconds and have so much speed and pressure that they effectively vaporize the people inside. Pretty sure that's rather painless.

[–] abigscaryhobo@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Without going on a whole dissertation, there are a lot of aspects that have to be figured out for a government sanctioned execution to occur.

You could in theory just have an officer whip out a shotgun and bang, problem solved, much like you mentioned with suicide. But when it's sanctioned by the government you have to be very discerning with a lot of different details.

Why are we ending this person's life

Because we have deemed their actions excessively heinous and do not want them to drain further on society by being incarcerated

In ending their life should we be causing them pain?

Huge debate, but the main reason we use lethal injection or gas executions instead now is to end their life without pain or torture. Ideally a person would just be turned off like a light without them even noticing.

How can you be sure you got the right person

Big question, but we are talking execution

What if the execution fails or goes incorrectly, now we've maimed someone and caused undue suffering, which as a people we have decided we wouldn't do.

Exactly. That's why there are so many issues surrounding lethal injection chemicals and sources. How do you create these chemicals properly and precisely, without spending excess money or profiting off govt sanctioned murder.

Why not carbon monoxide?

Short answer, it's flammable and dangerous to the people performing the executions. That's why nitrogen is a decent possibility for something like this, it is inert, common, and can be acquired and vented away with little issue.

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[–] PlanetOfOrd@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (10 children)

While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.

Isn't that how we're doing the death penalty anyway? We're trying to find a "painless" way to kill someone, but is there ever really a painless way to do this? I'd imagine even if I'm sitting in a massage chair with classical music playing it wouldn't matter if I knew that half an hour from now I wouldn't be leaving the room.

And we can't really ask doctors because doctors have taken an oath to "do no harm."

The death penalty is just a punishment no one wants to do (well, okay, I'm sure there are plenty of people that have no problem with it), but we've told ourselves that we have to do it.

[–] PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not only are there plenty of people who have no problem with it, there's plenty of people who will be upset the killing wasn't more barbaric.

And it's pure blood-lust. They know the criminal can never reoffend. They know the death won't bring back the victims or bring peace to their family. They know it won't stop other people committing the same crime. They weren't impacted by the crime in the slightest and don't seem to have any real compassion for those who were.

But they want to see the criminals fry anyway.

Threads like this make it extremely clear the the reason the western world isn't executing women in soccer stadiums is because the people who make those decisions said "no", not because it wouldn't draw a crowd.

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[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

It’s one of the more humane methods of assisted suicide. But also it’s the death penalty so not a good thing

[–] ineedaunion@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

Alabama should gas itself honestly.

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