Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen.
The Alabama attorney general’s office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58. The court filing indicated Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in three states but has never been used.
Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.
Alabama should gas itself honestly.
I am by no means pro death penalty, but I prefer this over the lethal injection. It’s a very painful and horrifying way to go and not at all like the drugs they give someone for medical euthanasia, while suffocating on nitrogen is actually relatively painless.
Small government folks sure are horny about giving their government the power to murder them.
Actually the (small L) libertarians are a little split on this issue, with most seeming to agree with me that the death penalty is a stupid fucking idea from multiple standpoints. Can’t trust the govt to get a damn thing right and that is no-take-backsies so no room for fuck ups (which they definitely have fucked up and killed innocent people, only to learn someone lied after it is too latw.)
OH you meant the republicans, who say “small government” but then through their actions prove they are just “the other side” of “big government” from the dems. Well, they’re “lying” in order to manipulate people into voting for them (tbf, I know that’s how they all get votes).
Yep. Which is how we end up building FUCKING concentration camps in the country and pave that road for a dictatorship to take over one of, if not the, leading super powers of the world.
This shit needs to stop and we need to address what is happening in the south before we start having some repeats that end in mass death. Enough is enough.
Sure, but as long as they have the death penalty, it’s probably best they do it as humanely as possible.
Some states are bringing back firing squads, which definitely feels like a huge step back. If they’re going to kill someone, using an actual painless option instead of lethal injection or shooting them seems like as much of a step forward as we can get up to actually not executing people.
For the person being executed, firing squads are among the most “humane” methods. It’s fast, reliable, and simple. It’s not common because the brutality of painting someone’s brains on the wall is too clear for onlookers.
Let him rot in prison.
ABOLISH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
That’s how it should be. But as with most things, it comes down to money. It’s cheaper to execute.
It’s really not cheaper in practice, the legal hurdles for the death penalty are more expensive to overcome than just keeping someone locked up for life.
It might get cheaper if you’re executing in volume, like thousands of people, but then we’d be looking at a whole other sort of problems (like “how did we turn into China?”)
assuming the person is truly guilty
That’s the part where it falls to bits for me.
Although you could allow people to choose euthanasia. Although even there it should be carried out privately rather than some ghoulish ceremony.
Capital punishment is government sanctioned killing. Outside of war, the government should not have the power to kill anyone.
For these people, death is also the easy way out. Prison time is harder.
Not to mention cost. The complexity, finality, and litigation drive cost through the roof and make it much more expensive than life in prison.
Sure sure, but the comment above wanted the person to rot in jail for the rest of their existence. Which is why I mentioned a very specified a situation where the crime is clear.
You’re arguing for cases where an innocent person may be found guilty - which is a very valid argument. I’m trying to figure out this crowd that wants people to suffer forever while they won’t even think of that person again in their life, besides maybe pay taxes to keep them alive.
“Smith was one of two men paid $1,000 each to murder Elizabeth Sennett on behalf of her preacher husband, Charles Sennett Sr., who was in debt and wanted to collect life insurance money.”
Hold on, so why is he being executed? He wasn’t the one who ordered the murder. It seems like lots of other people request murders but those people aren’t sentenced to death.
Because he accepted money in exchange to brutally beat and stabbed a person to death. “Just following orders,” has never been an acceptable excuse for an individual to commit a crime, but especially when it’s not an order in a military hierarchy, it’s payment and a voluntary agreement. Fuck him.
Sennet Sr. committed suicide the moment the police started to investigate him. That’s why he’s not about to be executed.
I don’t think that was the argument being made. The argument, to me, is why sentenced to death instead of some other sentence. And, were the others that are also part of this crime sentenced.
The article doesn’t seem to say anything about what happened to the others that are involved. Focused a lot on the execution method.
Sounds like the guy just did this for the money so I also don’t understand why he’s being sentenced to death. Should just be prison time. But, I don’t have all the facts here.
He’s sentenced to death because he committed a capital murder in a state with the death penalty and a jury found him guilty. “I did it for money” is not exactly a legal defense. An innocent person was still killed, and arguably doing it for money is worse. Fuck him.
The other guy involved in the killing has already been executed, over ten years ago. It’s a well documented case and took me about a minute of Googling to figure out this guy isn’t particularly being singled out for death and the other got a lighter sentence.
I personally don’t believe in the death penalty, but also if he didn’t want to be executed for murder, he shouldn’t have committed murder in the deep south.
To be very, very clear, I do not support the death penalty but the rat race isn’t an excuse to kill someone.
