If Kenneth Eugene Smith is brought to the Alabama death chamber to face execution next week for his role in the 1988 murder-for-hire of a pastor’s wife, the state plans to use an untested and untried method to end his life, suffocating him with a stream of nitrogen gas to be delivered through a face mask.
In a federal appeals court Friday, Smith’s lawyers sought to block it, arguing that not only have Smith’s constitutional rights been violated, but that he could be subjected to an agonizing death and that most of the details surrounding the state’s new execution protocol “deserve more scrutiny.”
The use of nitrogen gas will be a capital punishment first, even though it has not only been denounced by some medical professionals but also by veterinarians who oppose its use on animals. In 2020, the American Veterinary Medical Association advised against the use of nitrogen gas as a way to euthanize most mammals, calling it “distressing.” One of the few uses of nitrogen gas in animal euthanasia is with chickens.
The United Nations’ Office of The High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed alarm, saying in a statement that the untested method “could amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under international human rights law.”
This is so dumb I can’t get my head around it. Put a man in a chamber, flood it with N2, painless, easy death. Hell, he even gets to go out high as a kite!
Are we all so ignorant that this isn’t obvious?! FFS, I remember a tragedy where two teens died fucking in a giant helium balloon. They didn’t know they were dying.
CO2 overload is what triggers the choking/suffering response. Our bodies have no way to detect a lack of O2. We’ll happily breathe any non-noxious gas, as long as it’s not CO2. Hypoxia don’t sound like a bad way to go. .45ACP to the skull comes a close second, but I’d like to fade out stoned, given the chance.
Signed: Old guy with mild emphysema from smoking 20-years. I don’t get short of oxygen, I get short trying to pump the CO2 out.
Nitrogen doesn’t make you high… you’re probably thinking of N2O, nitrous oxide.
It is death penalty opponents that are against it.
The closest death penalty opponents have gotten to eliminating it is getting drug companies to stop supplying the traditional lethal injection drugs. With that, executions have ground to a near halt, as alternatives do not work as well and has been challenged.
But nitrogen is easy to obtain and painless. So if it gets used, there goes the need for drug companies. So opponents have taken to outlandish and disingenuous arguments claiming it is dangerous and painful despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. Once it is used for the first time, the experimental argument is dead. So they are desperate to avoid breaking the seal, as it were, on nitrogen asphyxiation.
Of course vets are against it. They have no difficulty getting the necessary drugs, and they have no desire to add new equipment for it.
Unfortunately, for many proponents of the death penalty suffering is the goal.
LOL no. We Americans want retribution and death without messy stuff like blood. Ya know, like Hollywood?
For my tastes? Shoot me in the head. But I’d take N2 gas over that.
I forget which state it is but there’s one where you can choose firing squad as your execution.
Simply chop his head with a guillotine. Almost zero percent chance of fucking up, quick and painless. No, that one story about the slapped head is bunkum. Standing up suddenly can cause you to faint due to low blood pressure. Having your neck cut off results in a much more sudden drop in blood pressure to the brain. People just don’t want to see the messy blood spilled. If you want to execute someone, deal with it.
Execution methods have weird requirements to be efficient, but also not look violent for those watching. They also get bonus points for looking high tech.
This is exactly why we should be hitting people with a beam that makes them glow and then disappear.
So strapped to a table then a bolt gun attached to the back of the table separates the spinal cord from the brain fits the bill. It doesn’t look violent, no one would even see the bolt go in and out. It is fast, it is reusable and it could even use renewable energy if it is powered by solar panels.
Welp. Here’s hard undeniable proof that CBSnews is absolutely worthless. They’re lying and putting together as many bad adjectives together as they can to make the most humane possible execution method sound absolutely terrible. This is literally the way I want to die. It’s simply hypoxia without the CO2 spike that makes you feel like you’re suffocating. You get a good buzz this way. FFS, I literally hyperventilate and then hold my breath while jerking it for this effect!
Fuck CBS and all the people trying to make this look bad. The only bad about it is that we’re still killing people with a legal system that convicts innocents like me.
I literally hyperventilate and then hold my breath while jerking it for this effect!
Shit, thanks for letting us know I guess.
Daily reminder that execution costs taxpayers more than life in prison.
