Why not hanging for carrying out the death penalty?

[Darat]

You don't?



Or is this sarcasm?



I find your reply something I would expect from The Onion.



If you are serious, maybe you should check out The Innocence Project.

Because as I said in my opening post this thread isn't about whether the death penalty is right or wrong it's about what seems to be a blind spot in the USA regarding methods of executions.

 

[PitPat]

It's one of many blind spots. Not sure why a thread like this would exclude morality.

There are methods, maybe some better than others if you want to minimize suffering.

 

[Darat]

It's one of many blind spots. Not sure why a thread like this would exclude morality.

There are methods, maybe some better than others if you want to minimize suffering.

As I said it was reading the article in the opening post and it struck me that there was a lot of effort to find "new" ways of executing people which further struck me as strange considering we have some old traditional methods such as hanging which are humane in the sense of a quick end of life.

It does seem hanging has too many connotations of bad times for the USA to consider it.

 

[Olmstead]

What is the actual data on hanging being humane and simple? I feel like all accounts on that would come from societies that didn't actually care. And even then, the French specifically introduced a new type of execution because hanging was too much trouble.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Nitrogen suffocation would be my preferred method, if I had to choose, since the body apparently doesn't react to the lack of oxygen and you just go to sleep.

With an experienced hangman, the measured drop is quick and efficient, at least according to the accounts from the hangmen themselves; I don't know if it ever went wrong but they didn't report it.

The current methods used by the the various US states are all generally several degrees more barbaric than hanging, in my opinion. Lethal injection is very hit and miss, and I understand that there isn't a reliable formulation in use (what they use to put animals to sleep would probably work, but I seem to recall there are reasons that can't be used, and I think qualified doctors refuse to assist), and pain and distress are often caused.

In the UK botched drop hangings were very rare, a hangman who got it wrong even once would almost certainly lose their job. (Based on a very interesting tour of Bodmin Jail where the subject was discussed in some detail).

I'd be another vote for nitrogen. FWIW

 

[P.J. Denyer]

What is the actual data on hanging being humane and simple? I feel like all accounts on that would come from societies that didn't actually care. And even then, the French specifically introduced a new type of execution because hanging was too much trouble.

The Standard & Long (Measured) Drop methods were based on medical data and the intention was to be as humane as possible by rendering the victim unconscious instantly (with death following shortly after). In the UK at least the process was organised to be as fast as possible with the time from the prisoner entering the execution chamber to being unconcious with their neck broken being measured literally in seconds. It's cold comfort I know.

 

[catsmate]

A small thermonuclear bomb would be humane. And would give spectators an entertaining light show.

A length of detcord or portable door looped around the neck?

 

[catsmate]

Biggest problem, false convictions.

If that were solved then it's a no brainer. Police are confiscating fentanyl every day and thousands of people OD on it every year. So use the confiscated fentanyl. Then you just have the problem of starting IV access. If the phlebotomist fails to get an IV in, get another phlebotomist. You at least won't end up with someone writhing in pain when potassium goes into the tissues instead of into the bloodstream.

Professional organisations tends to decertify people who take part in executions.

 

[Daald]

The health care community on the whole have refused to participate.

But the health care community doesn't possess some arcane knowledge that they closely guard from anyone else.

Get some people to take a couple of classes on how to insert IVs and buy the necessary drugs which there should be an abundance of for legitimate use. The executioners don't need to be trained to the standard of a healthcare professional. They are aiming to be a failed healthcare professional after all.

 

[Chanakya]

Helium's supposed to be painless, isn't it? I think there's a place in ...Sweden?, that legally lets you off yourself, pleasantly, painlessly. It's kind of expensive, but it's all very ...well, nice. I'd seen a documentary about it one time, either on TV or on the net, I forget which. I could be mistaken, but I kind of think, I kind of half-remember, they use helium.

So whatever they use there, is probably the best way we have today to off someone. So it would seem a no-brainer to use that for death sentences, in those places that still have that barbaric punishment.


eta: Do they fill them up with drugs first, to alleviate anxiety and fear and so on? That should be common knowledge, but I'm afraid I don't know! They should, if they don't. Fill them up with a bunch of chemicals that'll have them smiling ear to ear, then hook them up to that helium contraption thing, while listening to music they like or watching some movie they like or whatever, and have them drift off quietly to sleep and death. Pretty nice way to go, that, if go you must. And no reason why it shouldn't be doable, that I can think of (well, unless people object to making it pleasant for criminals on death row).

 

[JoeMorgue]

There's a functional difference between someone committing suicide and someone being executed.

With gasses I think the issue is people trying to hold their breath and taking short shallow panic breaths. Stuff like that works best if you voluntarily take a good deep breath which people being killed against their will obviously aren't as likely to do.

Again I know it's horrible in real life context but strictly speaking totally within the context of the concept of a "humane execution" you don't want the process to require condemned to be an active participant, because they are an unknown variable.

 

[varwoche]

Anyway, I'm going to assume that euthanasia can be carried out painlessly and effectively. If that is the case, then the problem isn't the execution method, but the fact that medical professionals won't do executions, and ironically executioners aren't actually qualified to kill people.

I'd suggest setting up a fancy executioner school, but that career path seems like a dead end.

It takes minimal training to administer a shot. I see no reason why executioners can't be taught this trivial skill.

(I'm opposed to capital punishment but here we are.)

 

[Darat]

What is the actual data on hanging being humane and simple? I feel like all accounts on that would come from societies that didn't actually care. And even then, the French specifically introduced a new type of execution because hanging was too much trouble.

My perception comes from the various books I've read that were about executions, crimes and executioners, it could be that I am wrong.

 

[JoeMorgue]

For some context Japan I believe still DOES use hanging as its primary method.

 

[PitPat]

My perception comes from the various books I've read that were about executions, crimes and executioners, it could be that I am wrong.

Maybe you should keep those stories for your next first date.

There is no good way to deliberately kill another person regardless of how it's done. Unless it's war or self-defense kind of thing. Which apparently can happen.

 

[Chanakya]

There's a functional difference between someone committing suicide and someone being executed.

With gasses I think the issue is people trying to hold their breath and taking short shallow panic breaths. Stuff like that works best if you voluntarily take a good deep breath which people being killed against their will obviously aren't as likely to do. Again I know it's horrible in real life context but strictly speaking totally within the context of the concept of a "humane execution" you don't want the process to require condemned to be an active participant, because they are an unknown variable.

Fair point.

I don't know, might counseling and training help? That they'll have to go, is a given. So have sessions to have these guys reconcile to that inevitability, and then practice in order to make the going painless? (I suppose they'll prefer painless death to agony, no matter how brief the agony?)


...Not to forget, the skepticism thing! That suicide place, they claim it's perfectly painless, but is it really? That might be a valid question to go all skeptical about, and actually examine if that's so.

(This is fiction, but I remember this Lee Child thing, a Reacher thing, where they call in people who're willing to pay for quick painless dignified death. And then they kill them slowly, horribly, and make snuff shoots of it, and sell it. ...Now of course, that's crazy, if we're talking about the real world, won't happen. But still, the advertised "painless" death may in fact not be all that painless, who knows. Absolutely, one shouldn't swallow such a claim, without digging in deep and very clearly verifying that claim first.)

 

[P.J. Denyer]

My perception comes from the various books I've read that were about executions, crimes and executioners, it could be that I am wrong.

See #85 &#86, if you're thinking of hanging as practiced in the UK in the late 19th & 20th Centuries, it was about as close to humane as any form of capital punishment ever practiced. However I think we could do better, if one accepts the need for it that is.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Well that's kind of the problem with any method of dying being considered painless. It's not like we can ask people after it's over, we can only make educated guesses.

The method I described earlier, a large weight completely crushing the entire head, would leave real way for any "feeling" to occur at all, but as I said the reason we don't do stuff like that is that it looks horrible barbaric and disgusting and "we" want execution methods that LOOK clean and sterile and neat and that rather tips the hand as to what this really is all about.

We want methods of execution that make us feel better about the fact that we are kiling people.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I don't know, might counseling and training help? That they'll have to go, is a given. So have sessions to have these guys reconcile to that inevitability, and then practice in order to make the going painless? (I suppose they'll prefer painless death to agony, no matter how brief the agony?)

//Total Hijack//

I wrote a horror short story a few years back, a 1st person confession from a guy who was a member of an underground group of off the book executioners, sent clandestinely by the government to prisons to perform secret executions of prisoners.

The twist was he would be taken to the prisoner's cell while they were asleep and perform a lethal injection on them. The whole point was the idea that being executed wasn't cruel, seeing it coming was. So it was decided it was better of prisoners just went to bed one night and never work up. In the story most "natural cause" deaths of prisoners are death row or in prison for extreme crimes are really secret executions carried out by this secret organization. The public "They know it is coming" executions are only used to keep the ruse up and generally saved for really extreme cases that it is felt are worth the extra pain and suffering of seeing their death coming.

 

[PitPat]

I've heard this story and can't find the source. But with lethal injection there are three drugs involved, one person on each button but there's a coup de gras one. So they don't know who it was. So maybe that's how they live with or happy they did it. As a healthcare professional.