Tennessee is bringing back old sparky

[MontagK505]

Huh. Interesting thought. At a minimum, they should all view the execution when it happens. Unfortunately, the average stay on death row is 11 years. Our little thought experiment implies that the excution be done relatively quickly. Perhaps within a matter of months.

Naturally this limits the time available to go through the appeals process which would probably increase the rate of unintentional executions.

The main thing I am thinking of is that it would reduce capital sentences to the most vile crimes with the least doubtful evidence.

An alternate idea. Make execution up to the prisoner. You put him in a 8X10 ft cell. Slide his meals under the door. Give him a suicide switch. If he presses the switch. He's put to sleep with gas and he wakes up in a empty room strapped into a guillotine with an automatic timer.

 

[The Norseman]

The main thing I am thinking of is that it would reduce capital sentences to the most vile crimes with the least doubtful evidence.

Though I disagree with execution in general, I could buy this as a good compromise.

An alternate idea. Make execution up to the prisoner. You put him in a 8X10 ft cell. Slide his meals under the door. Give him a suicide switch. If he presses the switch. He's put to sleep with gas and he wakes up in a empty room strapped into a guillotine with an automatic timer.

Shades of The Pit and the Pendulum. That's not all bad.

 

[TragicMonkey]

My reasoning is that if you are going to order a persons death you should have the courage to carry it out.

Okay, Ned Stark. No need to lose your head over this.

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

The electric chair?! The electric chair?! What is this, 1890?!?!? THE ELECTRIC CHAIR?! They are bringing back that barbaric relic of the long-gone past today?!

Here's the great irony. As other posters have pointed out, they keep choosing methods that seem modern, technologically advanced, simple, quick and humane- but are actually inhumane, long, drawn-out, inefficient, ineffective, complex and painful. It makes society feel better because it seems less ugly, though a more "brutal" and "primitive" method might actually be much better for the prisoner. Executions should use methods that are :cough: straight to the point, if you will. And we've come full circle on this. Maybe Tennessee sees it as better than lethal injection, which has recently proven to be quite imperfect. But the electric chair was initially designed to be simple, modern and painless (it was seen as an up-to-date alternative to hanging) and it turned out to be anything but even back then:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-execution-by-electric-chair

The very first electrocution allegedly made George Westinghouse remark "They would have done better with an axe." Amazing, that we are still having that very same discussion today when they attempt methods that are supposedly "with the times" (in the case of our times, the modern-day practice of lethal injection). Even then, they argued that a medieval method might have been better after all.

I'm against the death penalty but if it has to be implemented, Jesus Christ, just shoot them in the head. Why did people ever decide that that was primeval? It doesn't make you Soviet, Nazi or North Korean to do that. It's just common sense. I don't understand why people regard the firing squad as "bizarre" and why one kept hearing that word a few years ago when Utah executed someone in that manner. Being shot isn't a strange way to die. People get fatally shot every day in America and beyond. It isn't pleasant, no, but it certainly isn't "weird" to die by firearm.

 

[Corsair 115]

No, like lining people up at the edge of a ditch and shooting them, the Nazi regime gave a useful technique a somewhat bad name.

It doesn't have to work like that. I was thinking something like this: (1) administer general anesthetic; (2) administer cyanide. Certain death, and the condemned isn't conscious during the second part of the procedure.

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Bill Maher suggested doing exactly that on tonight's episode of his show.

Wouldn't the prisoner be terrified and horrified as he or she was being administered general anesthesia, though? He'd obviously know this was his last moment alive and that he'd never wake up again. It would be mental torture to be given that stuff.

So it would be as bad as gassing to death was in the olden days. It would be essentially the gas chamber.

By the way, this is a grotesque subject to even think about. Bleh! It's ghastly to even talk about, too.

 

[MontagK505]

Bill Maher suggested doing exactly that on tonight's episode of his show.

Wouldn't the prisoner be terrified and horrified as he or she was being administered general anesthesia, though? He'd obviously know this was his last moment alive and that he'd never wake up again. It would be mental torture to be given that stuff.

So it would be as bad as gassing to death was in the olden days. It would be essentially the gas chamber.

By the way, this is a grotesque subject to even think about. Bleh! It's ghastly to even talk about, too.

Well you could sedate him/her in their sleep, fill the cell with NO2 then roll a portable guillotine into the cell, pull the lever and it's done. I've read a few accounts where people have topped themselves with homemade guillotines. One guy gave himself a large dose of sleeping pills and then stuck his head into a guillotine with a timer.

 

[MontagK505]

Okay, Ned Stark. No need to lose your head over this.

What I dislike is the idea of a committee ordering a specific death and then having some flunky do it out of sight.

 

[MontagK505]

Replace the mannequins in nuclear test sights with condemned.

I've read that if you are at ground zero and a nuclear bomb is detonated overhead, you will never see the flash because the Gamma rays from the fireball will destroy your nervous system before the nerve impulse can travel from your eye to your brain. Nuclear bombs however, are too expensive for the purpose of execution.

I suppose you could use high powered microwaves focused on the brain. Once the brain temperature hit 60C - 70C it would cause death.

 

[catsmate]

It doesn't have to work like that. I was thinking something like this: (1) administer general anesthetic; (2) administer cyanide. Certain death, and the condemned isn't conscious during the second part of the procedure.

Who administers the anesthetic? Medical professionals won't, amateurs have a tendency to screw up...

What I dislike is the idea of a committee ordering a specific death and then having some flunky do it out of sight.

Good point.

 

[12AX7]

An alternate idea. Make execution up to the prisoner. You put him in a 8X10 ft cell. Slide his meals under the door. Give him a suicide switch. If he presses the switch. He's put to sleep with gas and he wakes up in a empty room strapped into a guillotine with an automatic timer.

This sounds like a scene from a Saw movie. Why not simply guillotine him while he's passed out?

I think we should have the prisoner off himself if he chooses to. Put him in a cell designed like a DMV office (complete with DMV staff) with nothing but Justin Bieber music playing non-stop, and nothing but CSPAN on a monitor. Next to his table is a razor, a cyanide capsule, and a rope. Feed him daily nothing but plain rice cakes. Problem solved.

 

[newyorkguy]

What method of execution is least barbarous?

I'm astounded at the number of posters who seem to find this subject hilarious. Really astonished.

 

[BardKesnit]

I agree except that it's a damn sight bloody and we enlightened ( ) Americans are squeamish as hell. At least the inert gas asphyxiation (IGA) doesn't need special training, is humane to the prisoner and bloodless to watch. There are no poisons to worry about and there are still probably a few gas chambers still around that can be used as IGA chambers. It can easily be silent so the prisoner doesn't hear the deadly hissing of killing gases.

I've seen several people say IGA is painless, and the wikipedia article says the same. That doesn't make any sense to me, though. Regardless of what mixture of gases you are breathing, the point is that there is no oxygen. Isn't the person still going to be gasping for oxygen? I don't hear "painless" when it comes to suffocation.

(All that said, I'm not a doctor. I'm sure there is a physiological issue I am missing.)

I hesitate because I still think a sizable percentage of Americans would love to witness such an event, just as towns would gather for hangings or the guillotine.

I suspect you are right.

An alternate idea. Make execution up to the prisoner. You put him in a 8X10 ft cell. Slide his meals under the door. Give him a suicide switch. If he presses the switch. He's put to sleep with gas and he wakes up in a empty room strapped into a guillotine with an automatic timer.

And if the prisoner doesn't press the switch?

What method of execution is least barbarous?

I'm astounded at the number of posters who seem to find this subject hilarious. Really astonished.

I'm not seeing the humor in this thread. Seems to be a pretty serious discussion to me.

As I said before, we're starting from the assumption "if we have to execute prisoners, what is the most humane way to do it." A better starting point IMO would be "do we have to execute prisoners," but that is for another thread and has been discussed at length.

 

[12AX7]

I've seen several people say IGA is painless, and the wikipedia article says the same. That doesn't make any sense to me, though. Regardless of what mixture of gases you are breathing, the point is that there is no oxygen. Isn't the person still going to be gasping for oxygen? I don't hear "painless" when it comes to suffocation.

I've read where people are making helium hoods to kill themselves with. The idea is helium is breathable, so no feeling of suffocation.

ETA: Here ya go. Suicide bag

A suicide bag, also known as an exit bag, is a device consisting of a large plastic bag with a drawcord used to commit suicide. It is usually used in conjunction with an inert gas like helium or nitrogen, which prevents the panic, sense of suffocation and struggling during unconsciousness (the hypercapnic alarm response) usually caused by the deprivation of oxygen in the presence of carbon dioxide.

A 2010 study in the Journal of Medical Ethics found that helium in a bag or hood caused death in a quick and painless manner, and could play a role in "demedicalising assisted suicide".[27]

 

[GlennB]

I've seen several people say IGA is painless, and the wikipedia article says the same. That doesn't make any sense to me, though. Regardless of what mixture of gases you are breathing, the point is that there is no oxygen. Isn't the person still going to be gasping for oxygen?

It isn't lack of oxygen that causes that panicky 'gasping for breath', but build-up of CO2. If the CO2 can be eliminated (or is so dilute it doesn't matter) the person goes woozy, unconcious, then dead. One source I read described the woozy phase as 'sleepy euphoria', or similar.

So a room full of an inert gas would be a painless way to go though, quite possibly distressing if you know what's happening.

 

[newyorkguy]

Like, why not just get a good-sized high-explosive shaped charge, position it at the base of the skull, have maybe 3 detonators for redundancy, and go with that method? Best I can tell, that'd be quicker than pretty much anything else, though not so easy to watch for the witnesses - but I'm not too concerned about them.

Too expensive. Just throw them off a tall building.

Damage done to surrounding structures would be unacceptable. Spaying bits of people over a large area creates a biohazard.

That's actually a benefit to electrocution... the prison can serve BBQ at the after-execution party that they have.

They could modernize the chair simply by adding a selfie to the routine.

"Any last tweets?"

Or take them skydiving. Only their parachute doesn't open.

...I'm not seeing the humor in this thread. Seems to be a pretty serious discussion to me...

My mileage varies.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

If you kill them with helium, at least their last words will never be taken seriously.....

/me runs and hides

 

[Minoosh]

I'd choose hanging for myself, if I were being executed and got a choice. It's picturesque, short, and while it can be botched it would even so be more pleasant than being cooked alive by the chair. Hell, people have burst into flames on that thing.

And if they let you masturbate you could get that asphyxiation thing going.

 

[Minoosh]

I'm astounded at the number of posters who seem to find this subject hilarious. Really astonished.

Some people have really dark senses of humor.

Like me.

 

[GlennB]

What method of execution is least barbarous?

I'm astounded at the number of posters who seem to find this subject hilarious. Really astonished.

It's gallows humour.