‘Astonishingly cruel’: Alabama seeks to test execution method on death row ‘guinea pig’

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.

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 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?

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.

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.

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?

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

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!

So often I am thankful that I dont have to live in this dystopion shithole country. Thanks for reminding me again.

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.

Why do we even still have the death penalty?

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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?

Of all the gases why Nitrogen? Argon is more commonly used for kill bags, I think.