An Alabama inmate would be the test subject for the “experimental” execution method of nitrogen hypoxia, his lawyers argued, as they asked judges to deny the state’s request to carry out his death sentence using the new method.
In a Friday court filing, attorneys for Kenneth Eugene Smith asked the Alabama Supreme Court to reject the state attorney general’s request to set an execution date for Smith using the proposed new execution method. Nitrogen gas is authorized as an execution method in three states but it has never been used to put an inmate to death.
Smith’s attorneys argued the state has disclosed little information about how nitrogen executions would work, releasing only a redacted copy of the proposed protocol.
Why would you even bring up hunger when human trafficking exists in the world? Shame on you.
You literally slip into happy fun time
Is it really ‘happy fun time’ if you know you’re going to die?
Weirdly enough, it might be. There are videos of people deliberately testing hypoxia. I’ve seen one where the person controlling the test told the participant “you know you are dying right now, right?” and the participant responded “Oh” with a big smile. Now maybe the participant was more chill because they knew beforehand that they weren’t actually going to die. But they were still completely non-phased watching their brain shut down in real time.
I’m opposed to the death penalty. But if I had to choose my own way out of this world? Hypoxia is probably top of the list.
Listen to audio recordings of pilots with hypoxia, they understand something is very wrong with the plane, but they also think it’s just fine because they’re having a great day.
I always think about Destin from Smarter Everyday when I think about hypoxia. He does such a great job at articulating what he experienced and how difficult it was to know what to do in that moment.
I got a bit hypoxic on top of a mountain. It was 29°F with the wind you’d expect at 14000ft, and I’m just standing there in a t-shirt because I was just so nice and warm, also I was so loopy I could not stop laughing.
If done right. You know that people qualified to do it right don’t participate in executions, right?
That’s why they fuck up giving someone injections on a regular basis.
When the original news broke about Alabama using nitrogen, my wife woke me up by hitting my arm to tell me - because I’ve been saying that is the most humane possible method for the last 16 years.
I think the death penalty is stupid to begin with, and am kinda over talking about its merits after years of debate team in high school and college. But trying all of these seat-of-pants cocktails of midazolam and pentobarbital etc, and then inventing all of these ridiculous devices that require two people to push buttons at the same time so no one ever really knows whose button actually killed the person… it’s just needlessly complicated and dumb. Not to mention the fact that the legal costs involved in defending appeals and housing someone on death row are much higher than the cost of a life sentence anyway. And that’s leaving aside the statistically significant number of wrongful convictions…
I mean, we shouldn’t have the death penalty. But if we’re going to, it should be by nitrogen hypoxia.
I am split - there shouldn’t be a death penalty, and the horrors of botched executions go a long way toward undermining support for the system. While nitrogen hypoxia would be humane, it also makes the death penalty so much easier to sell. Part of me would rather have it be barbarous to undermine support. Though I can see the state being so incompetent that they end up gassing half of the executioners along with the inmate, even though they’re just putting a mask on the inmate’s face.
