Texas execution - DNA evidence debunked 10 years on

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm sorry I thought that was a man's name.

The relevance is she is familiar with the process and I've read they use the same chemical in both human and animal executions. ...

I'm pretty sure they use different chemicals. In this country to put down cats and dogs they mostly use "a very high dose of pentobarbital or sodium thiopental". In humans they typically anesthetize the person and use potassium to stop the heart.

typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution

Granted this may be a minor difference.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It's not that I didn't know all that, but that paper puts everything together, and into perspective.

Barbaric is a massive understatement.

Rolfe.

I don't claim to know here. I would appreciate if you could please explain why putting someone under anesthesia and then stopping the heart and respirations is more barbaric than giving an animal a dose of sedation that stops breathing?

I don't see the difference. Or were you referring to hanging, electrocution, beheading and/or firing squad? With those methods I do see the barbaric difference.

 

[Belz...]

The idea is other people learn if you murder you may be killed.

Yes, but so far it doesn't seem like capital punishment is much of a deterrent, specifically because most people don't think before commiting crimes.

 

[brenn]

Yes, but so far it doesn't seem like capital punishment is much of a deterrent, specifically because most people don't think before commiting crimes.

OK, then. We should just scrap the entire criminal justice system because it isn't a deterrent, because "most people don't think before commiting crimes." (Obviously, the argument applies equally to any crime/punishment).

Hmm...all I have to do is think for a minute and...Hey!...it deters me! Yep, I must be one of those rare people who avoids committing crimes because I don't want to face the punishment for them. Maybe, but I'm betting that world is just full of people who are deterred from doing all sorts of things by the possibility of punishment. I'm betting that even YOU are deterred from doing things by the possibility of punishment. I can't make you admit it, of course, so you can freely claim that punishment has nothing to do with why you obey the law. I'm sure you can convince people that you pay your taxes to help out the government and you obey the law just from your natural goodness.

Now if you want to say the death penalty is not a greater deterrent than prison, you are probably right - but only because we have made the penalty so slow, hidden and unlikely that it really adds nothing to the punishment potential for the crime. However, that doesn't support the old "criminals don't consider punishment" claim.

And yes, I have been dealing, face to face, with criminals, from the scene of the crime to prison, for about 23 years now. I've discussed motivations with more criminals than most of you will ever see.

 

[Suddenly]

I don't claim to know here. I would appreciate if you could please explain why putting someone under anesthesia and then stopping the heart and respirations is more barbaric than giving an animal a dose of sedation that stops breathing?

I don't see the difference. Or were you referring to hanging, electrocution, beheading and/or firing squad? With those methods I do see the barbaric difference.

Two of the three drugs in the three drug protocol are not really necessary and present the danger of a torturous death. The paralytic agent and the heart stopping agent are there to make the process of witnessing an execution easier. The former avoids any twitching or flopping around. The latter speeds things up.

A massive dose of sedatives makes you just as dead, but makes for an awkward ceremony seeing it can take awhile. When substantial risk of a torturous death is incurred for purposes of ceremony, describing it as barbaric seems reasonable.

 

[Belz...]

OK, then. We should just scrap the entire criminal justice system because it isn't a deterrent, because "most people don't think before commiting crimes." (Obviously, the argument applies equally to any crime/punishment).

In order: No (yes).

Hmm...all I have to do is think for a minute and...Hey!...it deters me!

Only to a degree and only for some crimes. "Hey, if I park there I can be fined up to 200$" doesn't seem to stop people from parking illegally, for instance. But even if it did, it wouldn't mean it that the presence of laws stops people from commiting crimes of passion.

Of course, since I never thought the justice system's purpose is to deter people, anyway, I still wouldn't agree with your "scrap" comment above.

Yep, I must be one of those rare people who avoids committing crimes because I don't want to face the punishment for them.

Perhaps. I prefer avoid crime because it harms my fellow citizens.

I can't make you admit it, of course

Ah, yes. Argument from statement's opposite. If I claim not to, it must be because I'm lying. That's such a nice way to prove that you can't possibly be wrong.

I won't claim that there is no deterence effect whatsoever that's involved in my actions, so you were wrong at even that. But it's not my primary reason for avoiding criminal action. If it's yours, then you're not the kind of person I'd want to hang out with.

I'm sure you can convince people that you pay your taxes to help out the government and you obey the law just from your natural goodness.

I pay taxes because they pay for services you and I need. I'd rather they managed that money better so it'd cost LESS, but hey...

Now if you want to say the death penalty is not a greater deterrent than prison, you are probably right - but only because we have made the penalty so slow, hidden and unlikely that it really adds nothing to the punishment potential for the crime.

That's your opinion.

 

[Rolfe]

A massive dose of sedatives makes you just as dead, but makes for an awkward ceremony seeing it can take awhile.

It doesn't take a while at all. I've put down a lot of animals with an overdose of pentobarbitone, and they literally fall off the end of the needle. We're talking a couple of seconds.

Sometimes the animal gives a little gasp or a sigh, that's all.

What seems to have happened is that some idiot looked at the method used to anaesthetise human patients, which is designed to depress respiration and so on as little as possible and keep them only just unconscious, while using a muscle relaxant to prevent movement which might interfere with the surgical field, and decided to base the execution method on that, rather than on the sensible barbiturate-only method.

It almost seems as if there was an element of, well these people are people, so we should treat them as people not as animals. The trouble is, the method chosen wasn't suitable for euthanasia. Now it's SOP though, the inclusion of the muscle relaxant is seen as a good thing because it prevents the little gasp or sigh or a few involuntary muscle twitches. This appears to make the onlookers feel better about it all, and never mind if the person being killed is paralysed but fully conscious, and suffocating to death while having fire injected into their veins.

Disgusting. Inhumane. I literally couldn't believe it when I first found out what was meant by "lethal injection" in the US penal system. If a vet put an animal down in that way, they'd be struck off for causing unnecessary suffering.

Rolfe.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I don't see why, if we must have the death penalty, the condemned shouldn't be allowed to choose from a selection of methods. The result is the same, and if the reasoning behind having the death penalty isn't supposed to include inflicting pain or providing a show, what does it matter? Dead is dead. Given a choice between some crazy combination of drugs which may be painful, electrocution, or a plastic bag and ten minutes to autoeroticize oneself to death, it seems clear which choice is more humane and a heck of a lot cheaper.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Yes, but so far it doesn't seem like capital punishment is much of a deterrent, specifically because most people don't think before commiting crimes.

I totally agree. And it costs more money than life without parole IIRC.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Two of the three drugs in the three drug protocol are not really necessary and present the danger of a torturous death. The paralytic agent and the heart stopping agent are there to make the process of witnessing an execution easier. The former avoids any twitching or flopping around. The latter speeds things up.

A massive dose of sedatives makes you just as dead, but makes for an awkward ceremony seeing it can take awhile. When substantial risk of a torturous death is incurred for purposes of ceremony, describing it as barbaric seems reasonable.

If you give enough morphine, it doesn't take that long to stop respirations. And I've not seen anyone who died of respiratory failure have seizures, though maybe it happens sometimes. I don't have an opinion on which is better or worse, they both result in death.

I don't buy the tortuous death argument. Seems contrived to me. We cut into patients during surgery under anesthesia. Surely that is as painful as a potassium injection. The person is supposed to be unconscious when the lethal drugs are given. If they are not, then the procedure isn't being done correctly.

 

[Rolfe]

If you give enough morphine, it doesn't take that long to stop respirations. And I've not seen anyone who died of respiratory failure have seizures, though maybe it happens sometimes. I don't have an opinion on which is better or worse, they both result in death.

There's no morphine involved in the US execution protocol.

Maybe you need to look up the clinical effects of i/v barbiturate administration.

I don't buy the tortuous death argument. Seems contrived to me. We cut into patients during surgery under anesthesia. Surely that is as painful as a potassium injection. The person is supposed to be unconscious when the lethal drugs are given. If they are not, then the procedure isn't being done correctly.

If the protocol works as intended, indeed the thiopentone will ensure that the convict is unconscious when the other drugs are given. The whole point of the argument is that there is a non-trivial risk of this not working as intended.

If you don't understand the issues surrounding this, which are similar to well-recognised problem of anaesthesia awareness, then you need to read the article Suddenly linked to earlier.

Anaesthetising the Public Conscience: Lethal Injection and Animal Euthanasia

This is an excellent and detailed exploration of the problem.

Rolfe.

 

[Suddenly]

It doesn't take a while at all. I've put down a lot of animals with an overdose of pentobarbitone, and they literally fall off the end of the needle. We're talking a couple of seconds.

Sometimes the animal gives a little gasp or a sigh, that's all.

Is death, as in end of heartbeat and breathing, immediate or are we talking just when the subject loses consciousness? What the pro-three drug people claim, as I understand, is that the heartbeat takes a while to stop.

It wouldn't surprise me that the whole thing is a solution looking for a problem.

 

[Suddenly]

If you give enough morphine, it doesn't take that long to stop respirations. And I've not seen anyone who died of respiratory failure have seizures, though maybe it happens sometimes. I don't have an opinion on which is better or worse, they both result in death.

I don't buy the tortuous death argument. Seems contrived to me. We cut into patients during surgery under anesthesia. Surely that is as painful as a potassium injection. The person is supposed to be unconscious when the lethal drugs are given. If they are not, then the procedure isn't being done correctly.

Beyond what Rolfe said, it is important to keep in mind the competence and care surrounding these things. Doctors will not take part. People that draw up protocols have cut and pasted without proofreading. I can't find the link, but there was a report of one executioner changing a dosage so he could just use one full vial. It is quite haphazard.

The biggest danger, as I understand it, is not cleanly inserting the needle into a vein. This screws everything up in that sedative takes longer to metabolize which leads to the nightmare result.. Add to that the number of people being executed that have had serious IV drug problems in the past, and you can see where this could go very badly.

 

[Rolfe]

Is death, as in end of heartbeat and breathing, immediate or are we talking just when the subject loses consciousness? What the pro-three drug people claim, as I understand, is that the heartbeat takes a while to stop.

By the time you have laid the body down and felt for the heart, there ain't nothing to feel, quite frankly.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Since SG seems to think morphine is involved and that the goal is simply to stop respiration, I don't think it's worth pursuing this with her. People need to learn what's really involved in this lethal injection thing, rather than just making unwarranted assumptions.

Rolfe.

 

[Beerina]

As charming as it is to hear foreigners tell Americans they are all horrific barbarians, I'd like to point out that not all the states have capital punishment. The United States is not a homogenous entity; our barbarism is well mixed with our enlightenment. But please, go back to your lovely generalizations. They engender much love here for you, and I'm sure nobody's going to start wondering why people with such a low opinion of Americans continually post to an American messageboard.

If you average the number of government executions over the past century or so, Europe's way the hell ahead.


********.

 

[Soapy Sam]

So your position is that it's perfectly acceptable to execute someone for a crime they didn't commit as long as they've committed other crimes?

Do you feel it is in some way more acceptable to jail him for ten years for a crime he didn't commit?

Surely the issue is not getting the sentence right, but getting the conviction right?

 

[Rolfe]

Do you feel it is in some way more acceptable to jail him for ten years for a crime he didn't commit?

Funnily enough, yes.

There are mistakes, and then there are fatal mistakes.

Surely the issue is not getting the sentence right, but getting the conviction right?

If we could always be sure of getting the conviction right, we'd be superhuman.

Rolfe.

 

[Soapy Sam]

I think we could get better though.
If the airline crash rate approached the wrong conviction rate, I'd walk.

 

[Rolfe]

I think we could get better though.
If the airline crash rate approached the wrong conviction rate, I'd walk.

I'm hardly going to disagree. It's not good. In fact it's bloody terrible.

Which makes it all the odder that every time someone starts a thread discussing an apparent miscarriage of justice, it gets infested by trolls insisting that court verdicts cannot be wrong and the person must be as guilty as hell. See the recent "West Memphis Three" thread as an example.

People like that scare the willies out of me.

But at least we didn't kill Sion Jenkins. He still has his life, and he's making something of it.

I don't think it's humanly possible for any criminal justice system never to convict an innocent person though, no matter how reformed.

Rolfe.