Why not hanging for carrying out the death penalty?

Myriad said:
I said earlier that using a mask invites a lot of things going wrong. Including, but not limited to, insufficient gas flow to the mask so it ends up being a de facto obstructive suffocation, or the mask allowing re-inhalation of exhaled breath which would both draw out the process (since exhaled breath still has quite a bit of oxygen in it) and allow CO2 to build up. I wonder if either of those possibilities actually contributed to what was observed and reported.

A chamber has unfortunate associations and guarantees a lot of extra preparation and fuss, but a clear hood something like what used to be called an "oxygen tent" in hospitals, flooded with a high flow of nitrogen, should be sufficient. Let the executioner wear an oxygen mask of his own, if he's afraid of "escaped nitrogen."
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Except that the convict knows their time is nigh and may well panic.

What I have in mind is pretty much indistinguishable from a typical jail cell, and no restraints are necessary.
 
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/25/alabama-executes-kenneth-smith-nitrogen-gas
Marty Roney of the Montgomery Advertiser reported that between 7.57pm local time and 8.01pm, “Smith writhed and convulsed on the gurney. He took deep breaths, his body shaking violently with his eyes rolling in the back of his head.”

Roney’s report continued: “Smith clenched his fists, his legs shook … He seemed to be gasping for air. The gurney shook several times.”

The Rev Jeff Hood, Smith’s spiritual adviser, was at Smith’s side for the execution, and said prison officials in the room “were visibly surprised at how bad this thing went”.

“What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for their life,” Hood said.

“It appeared that Smith was holding his breath as long as he could,” Alabama corrections commissioner John Hamm later told a press conference.
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I did not expect this.
 
GlennB said:
Breathing nitrogen or some other inert gas until you die is painless and stress-free, except that with an execution the stress lies in the fact that the victim knows they are about to die.
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I don't think there's a way around that. Maybe we send in midnight ninjas while they're asleep, so they don't know it's coming? But then you have the constant anxiety of knowing that at some point a ninja is gonna get you, and just not knowing when. I've got think that knowing they're going to die has to be excluded from the concept of "cruel and unusual".
 
GlennB said:
Yep. Seems to me that the whole 'ceremony' some insist on for an execution is the main problem.

So, spring it on the convict unexpectedly? Put them in a suitable cell well before the announced execution date. Provide food, drink and sleeping pills as appropriate then, days before the date they're expecting to die, switch the cell's ventilation system to a lethal nitrogen supply. They die in their sleep and the outside world is kept ignorant of this ruse.

But, hey, that's not dramatic enough to satisfy some ghouls, is it?
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Alternative, I figure we could also let the condemned opt for suicide. They have a date assigned, and let them select the option of their execution. But also give them the ability to say "Hey, I don't want to wait, please bring me the bottle full of sleeping pilis and I'll just take care of it myself".
 
theprestige said:
There's a school of thought which holds that execution must be as brutal and dehumanizing for the executioner as the original murder was for the murderer. Sometimes it's couched as something like, let the people who are in favor of the death penalty carry out the execution, see how they like it then. This is an argument by people who are against the death penalty.

I do not subscribe to that school of thought. As someone in favor of the death penalty, I want the execution to be as humane as possible, not only for the convicted, but for the executioner. If that means making it look more like anaesthesia, that's fine with me.
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Pretty much agreed. I generally support the death penalty, but the objective for me is to remove them from life as quickly and efficiently as possible, with no fanfare. When we put down a rabid animal, we don't feel the need to make a production of it, nor do we feel the need to make the veterinarian suffer for it. It's an unpleasant but necessary action, so let's be efficient.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Alternative, I figure we could also let the condemned opt for suicide. They have a date assigned, and let them select the option of their execution. But also give them the ability to say "Hey, I don't want to wait, please bring me the bottle full of sleeping pilis and I'll just take care of it myself".
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I've wondered if we should allow voluntary euthanasia i.e. suicide in our prisons. For a couple of reasons, the first being that I consider it a "human right" to be able to end my life when I want, the second is if we have someone imprisoned for probably the rest of their life, who accepts their guilt it would seem pragmatic to let them kill themselves and give them the means to do, we wouldn't have the expense of decades of years of their imprisonment.

Of course I can see many problems to overcome, the main one being whether we could manage appropriate safeguards.

Probably a bit off topic for this thread?
 
Myriad said:
I said earlier that using a mask invites a lot of things going wrong. Including, but not limited to, insufficient gas flow to the mask so it ends up being a de facto obstructive suffocation, or the mask allowing re-inhalation of exhaled breath which would both draw out the process (since exhaled breath still has quite a bit of oxygen in it) and allow CO2 to build up. I wonder if either of those possibilities actually contributed to what was observed and reported.

A chamber has unfortunate associations and guarantees a lot of extra preparation and fuss, but a clear hood something like what used to be called an "oxygen tent" in hospitals, flooded with a high flow of nitrogen, should be sufficient. Let the executioner wear an oxygen mask of his own, if he's afraid of "escaped nitrogen."
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I spent more of my childhood than I would have liked in an Oxygen Tent, it wasn't a hood, it was a clear plastic enclosure over my (hospital) bed.
 
Let's throw another hand grenade into the discussion.

What method of execution would leave the most viable organs?
 
Darat said:
I've wondered if we should allow voluntary euthanasia i.e. suicide in our prisons. For a couple of reasons, the first being that I consider it a "human right" to be able to end my life when I want, the second is if we have someone imprisoned for probably the rest of their life, who accepts their guilt it would seem pragmatic to let them kill themselves and give them the means to do, we wouldn't have the expense of decades of years of their imprisonment.

Of course I can see many problems to overcome, the main one being whether we could manage appropriate safeguards.

Probably a bit off topic for this thread?
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Yes, probably off topic, but I agree. I think a lot of it stems from my not having any ethical objection to suicide in the first place. Lacking a catholic background, I don't see it as a mortal sin, and I think it's cruel to force a person to continue living a life that they'd prefer to be shed of.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Let's throw another hand grenade into the discussion.

What method of execution would leave the most viable organs?
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Hmm. I started to say severance of the spinal cord at the base of the neck... but exsanguination via major artery might be better in terms of organ harvesting. It needs to be something that is very quick, doesn't introduce potentially harmful chemicals into the tissues, and leaves the eyes intact.

On the other hand... I think a lot of people might be a bit put off at receiving an organ from a condemned person. There's no logical reason for it that I can see, but humans aren't all that logical.
 
Emily's Cat said:
On the other hand... I think a lot of people might be a bit put off at receiving an organ from a condemned person. There's no logical reason for it that I can see, but humans aren't all that logical.
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I'm thinking that someone who needs a transplant is going to be more pragmatic.
 
//Dumb side question//

How much info about the donor to transplant precipitants usually have? Like if you got a... kidney and all you knew was "Recently deceased 47 year old male" would you really care beyond that?
 
Damn, haven't y'all ever seen horror movies? Organs from executed killers always end up causing the recipient to be haunted by the killer's ghost and/or possessed by the killer. Always.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
I spent more of my childhood than I would have liked in an Oxygen Tent, it wasn't a hood, it was a clear plastic enclosure over my (hospital) bed.
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By "hood" I didn't mean specifically a fabric head covering. I just meant a covering in general (also having "fume hood" in the back of my mind). An oxygen tent as you describe it is exactly what I was talking about.
 
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