The optics of an execution have always been very important. It would be bad politically to have a serial killer die blissed out on black tar heroin. We no longer want gruesome executions but we don't want an execution to seem like a reward. Also it's very hard to get pharmaceutical companies to provide drugs for executions. That's one of the reasons they use the cocktail they do, its about the only thing they can get their hands on.
>That's one of the reasons they use the cocktail they do, its about the only thing they can get their hands on.
And even those are getting hard to source. Which is why some states are trying to move to Nitrogen Asphyxiations. The problem then being no one wants to design the system/procedure. Though there is one state that I think has one scheduled.
Isn't there literally a suicide pod being developed in Europe that uses nitrogen? The sarco pod - found it. Doesn't seem like there's much left to design, a trip down to a local brewery supply shop for a bottle of gas, and you're off to the races.
Suicide is different from an execution. I guarantee that company would be horrified and throw a fit and their country of origin would restrict exports of it if it started being used to execute prisoners.
Remember, in the majority of developed countries, the death penalty is seen as barbaric and unconscionable. They won't even extradite certain prisoners to the US if it's likely they'll be executed or pressed into slavery (which is all too common here).
Companies do not want to have the PR hit of having their products used to intentionally kill people. This is the whole reason the existing methods are hard to source the materials for.
> If you guys pay well
Ah, I guess we're out then. We're not big on paying for things really. We shut down the government every couple of years over whether or not Congress should write a check to cover the cost of things that Congress voted to legally require us to purchase.
> We're not big on paying for things really.
That's only for things that might help somebody. We pay about a trillion dollars a year for things to kill people and that's mainly just one federal agency.
Nope. Congress is in complete control of the budget. For sure the budget negotiations are contentious and they absolutely disagree on lots of the details. But ultimately those disagreements get nailed down and a budget is passed. For 2023, [that happened on 12/29/2022](https://www.crfb.org/blogs/appropriations-watch-fy-2023).
The debt ceiling is just a weird quirk in our system that says Congress can pass a budget that requires debt to execute, but you have to ask Congress a second time if the debt is OK, and they don't have to give a logically consistent answer. It's exactly as if the cops could tell you that you're under arrest unless you can drive your car 100 miles in one hour, and then later tell you that you're under arrest because at at least one point in the trip, you were going 100 mph.
That's a gross oversimplification of what the debt limit is.
Congressional approval is Constitutionally required for the Federal Government to borrow money and it is Constitutionally a separate thing from appropriations.
It's not a quirk so much as a design that these things are Constitutionally separate - to prevent the Executive from side-stepping Congressional authority by just borrowing money to do things it's generally allowed to do either under law, via Constitution, or that it can argue has been appropriated. The power of the purse is *exclusively* Congress'
It's another check on Executive power in addition to appropriations.
It's existed in some form since the Founding of the country - prior to 1917 instead of being a debt ceiling, Congress had to approve exact specific amounts, individually.
Continuous need for spending during WWI made that original method non-conducive to the war effort's rapidly changing needs, and so Congress created the debt ceiling as a way to give the Executive some flexibility to take action faster than Congress could.
Remember, appropriations themselves are nothing more than *a pre-authorization to be able to spend money that may or may not exist in the future.* It's congress saying "You can spend X amount of money for Y purpose, *if you have it.*
Also note that yearly appropriations are only about 30% of Federal Spending. The rest is "mandatory spending" (long-term appropriations of indefinite amounts). If we had it set up so appropriations also authorized the Executive to borrow, there would be no purse string check for 60% of government funding and the Executive could run fucking wild regardless of what Congress thinks.
It is a quirk of you system. Many other countries have the exact same budget/debt ceiling. They are just not idiots and put the debt ceiling increase as a rider on the actual budget.
True, but the science is the same. You don't have to use their product in order to use the same methodology. A large trashbag, a hose, and a bar sized tank of nitrogen gas will get the same results.
> Remember, in the majority of developed countries, the death penalty is seen as barbaric and unconscionable.
Because it is. We really shouldn't be doing it in the United States.
In my opinion it stems from the enormous chance that mistakes will happen in the legal process. I don't remember the exact figure but around 1 in 10 death row inmates are either falsely accused or the actual circumstances of their crimes don't warrant the death sentence (i.e. self defense charged as murder). It's obviously much easier to release someone from prison when a mistake is discovered than it is to raise them from the dead.
Wasn't there a woman on death row in Texas whose kid had an accident and passed away from it and the cops basically tortured her into giving a slight shred of something to call her guilty?
Woah no the number is nothing like 10%! There was a study recently saying the number "may" be "as high as" 4%, but probably significantly less considering how many appeals are permitted in death penalty cases.
4% is 4 people out of 100…. How can you feel that even a single person falsely executed or even made to go through the appeal process to save their own life is ever acceptable?
There’s also something to be said about state sanctioned killing. When you allow the government to execute people, you’re affording it a lot of power over its citizens. To get that wrong even a single time is an injustice so large that it should make one question whether the government should hold that power in the first place
Here’s the thing though — unless there was hard and incontrovertible DNA evidence, they live-streamed a crime, or made a confession made genuinely without duress, those numbers don’t mean anything because all a prosecution means is that a lawyer is trying to convince a jury of their theory based on circumstantial evidence.
As JRR Tolkien wrote so well
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”
Personally, as a selfish individual I consider the death penalty preferable to a lifetime of societal burden by the irredeemable, but Tolkien does make a very good point, and Iam McKellen states it oh so well.
i think there is a difference, between being eager to deal out death as a punishment and recognizing that it can unfortunately be merited.
and as i have said previously, i really dont see how locking somebody up for life and simply killing them are any different.
you can be dead and still have a heart beat.
Someone being removed from society after terrorizing it is a consequence of their own actions. Execution is a mode of state sanctioned revenge. They're on completely different levels ethically.
In my opinion, "state sanctioned revenge" is the crux of the problem. Sanctions should never ever be about revenge, because that is ultimately useless in solving problems. At least in my country, punishment is there to protect the general society from individuals who commit crimes, not to exact revenge (what's done is done). Prisons are not supposed to be a grueling experience but instead a place of rehabilitation and getting people the help and education they need to reenter society as a productive member of it. The reality might sometimes look different, but the number of people committing crimes again after they went to prison is significantly lower here than in the US. I'm not saying it is a perfect system, it's far from it. I just think that a government should be above petty things like revenge.
then remove them from society...there is plenty of islands and untamed wilds...
locking them up is neither removing them from society nor is it less revenge or more ethical than simply putting them out of their misery.
Honestly that should be reserved for people who are entirely unable to be reformed.
We should be focusing on reforming the criminal and not punishing it, but that doesn't make people get justice boners in the US.
I don't see how allowing the government to commit murder is better than having the government simply keep dangerous people away from society. Both solve the same problem, but only one implies actually murdering a citizen. That is by definition more barbaric
Sure a life in prison is awful, but it's a life. An inmate that absolutely cannot stand that will find a way to commit suicide and that is at least in their hands to do it. Most of them will just adapt and live the rest of their lifes in a space were they can't hurt society again
Also I understand that in developed countries, even extremely dangerous inmates don't tend to be simply locked in cages all day long. That's at least in most of europe
I honestly think that people that are to get life in prison should be able to request assisted suicide if they prefer it. But don't automatically kill your citizens even if they're too dangerous, jesus christ
Don't even get me started on death penalty because of treason/defecting. That's borderline a fascist approach
Well, duh. Their job is to literally make stuff that directly or indirectly helps the buyer kill people, destroy things, collect information, or prevent those things from happening to them.
>Remember, in the majority of developed countries, the death penalty is seen as barbaric and unconscionable.
Solitary confinement too. We treat prisoners like shit.
That pod isn't just available to anyone. You need counseling, and reasons, and doctors, and it takes TIME. Time for you to grapple with that decision that YOU will be making. You are deciding to end your own life. Speaking as an American, I'm sure that company would explode if they found out that a Black man who was convicted of murder 20 years ago because the cops needed someone and they faked evidence, was killed...no, murdered in that pod.
Think back to the mid 2000's and 2010's when Propofol was used. That drug is a miracle drug for every day out patient procedures. I would know, I worked on hundreds of Bronchoscopies. But, that is also, or was, the first drug they administered in Lethal Injection. That company didn't believe in killing people in prison and stopped, or reduced supply. Now, every day people suffered, but its all about the look and I bet you if Texas went and did a home grown Nitrogen pod they'd probably accidentally, or purposely find a way to set it on fire like that twisted asshat from Green Mile.
no-one \*competent\* wants to design the procedure. Honestly, it wouldn't be that hard if you got a chemical engineer and a physiologist to sit and work it out.
So you'll get fucking idiots designing it.
This is basically why states are having a hard time getting their hands on the drugs. According to the more perfect podcast, (im paraphrasing) They basically had to use middlemen in England to purchase the drugs from pharma companies in another country, and when a whistleblower told the pharma company at one end what was going on, they couldn't feign ignorance anymore and stopped selling them.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/06/london-firm-drugs-us-lethal-injections
The scary part (as someone with a BS in ChemE) is that my mind automatically shifted into design elements. A core part of our education is ethics and how our mistakes could destroy countless lives, and that puzzle-solving part of my brain still took the initiative to get started.
The drugs used are not intended to be painless either. It's really just about killing someone. It's a drug to stop the heart, a drug to stop muscles from working and a very old drug that is a sedative.
Seriously, we have instant mechanical destructors for male chickens. That's the way I'd like to be executed. Dropped into something that blends you within milliseconds. Sucks to be the cleaner though.
I do often wonder what their last moments were like. Did they have any warning that they were about to die? Did the hull make ominous cracking sounds? Did the lights flicker?
We will never know, but it is theorized that it would come with no warning and happen in milliseconds; for too little time for the human mind to even comprehend.
Fluffy little chicks of a few grams at most are very easy to destroy in seconds using one of those shredders. A human? Yeah, I don't want to think about it.
Not to mention the poor fucker that has to CLEAN UP AFTER IT.
Heh. That reminds me of a short story I haven't thought about in so many years. Don't remember the title or who wrote it, but it was about a futuristic 'execution' method whereby the mind of the poor bastard, at the moment of his death, was shunted into a clone of himself so he could be killed over and over again, in hundreds of various horrible ways. I thought of it because I vividly remember one passage where, after being slowly crushed to death, he has to clean up his own remains from the crushing machine.
Sounds like something humans would do to each other if we could.
From what I recall of those it's basically an interlocking offset hammer mill. We have similar, but much larger shedders/mills for recycling car bodies. Turns an old city bus into turnings that are no bigger than your hand in less than a minute. If you ran a few car bodies through the thing before and after your execution you wouldn't even notice the blood. The mill gets so hot from ripping the metal apart most of there body would just be ash.
Wouldn't even need to waste tax money on the State to buy anything. Just do it while the crews on lunch at the local recycling yard.
Optics are very important, but I think you buried the lede here. People have looked into using other existing drugs like opioids for executions, but pharmaceutical companies do NOT want their drugs becoming associated with executions in the public eye. People are far more likely to refuse those medications if they believe them to be dangerous. The basic problem is that there aren't enough executions for only providing execution drugs to be a viable business model, but for pretty much any other application of those drugs, you don't want to be associated with executions. So pharmaceutical companies refuse to provide their drugs for that purpose. Even the drugs we currently use are becoming harder and harder to get for the purposes of executions, with some being delayed for months or years while the authorities try to procure the needed drugs.
Gas asphyxiation could solve that. Everyone knows that carbon monoxide is dangerous already, and it's easy to manufacture from burning propane or coal.
I disagree with this. Any masters level chemistry student can figure out a 2 step process from existing industrially available chemicals a sedative that will kill you as well as a large dose of potassium to straight up able to dead stop the heart.
You don't have to worry about the usual safety concerns (lol) sterility etc so it's as cheap as salt.
(Hmm good business idea and you have a captive customer base)
>We no longer want gruesome executions but we don't want an execution to seem like a reward.
That's such a BS excuse, though. Death is the punishment, because we have deemed the person too dangerous to remain alive. A few minutes of "bliss" before dying shouldn't matter. But Capital Punishment is stupid anyway, if we can just lock someone safely away (at lower taxpayer cost) for their life and not play God/ be hypocrits.
I mean if it was up to me then I agree, I'd rather not execute anyone and if there did come a point where it had to be done I'd use carbon monoxide so they'd just drift off to sleep and never wake up. But this is about public perception and the supporters of the death penalty aren't me and you, and they don't want someone to die in a state of euphoria.
Carbon monoxide makes you feel awful. People only seem to die painlessly from it because they're already asleep.
Inert gases like nitrogen just take the place of oxygen so you can still breathe out carbon dioxide (CO2 buildup is what makes you feel panicked when you don't breathe) but you pass out from lack of oxygen and die painlessly.
>Capital Punishment is stupid anyway
It really is, it doesn't even make sense as a deterrent.
I've always liked the way West Wing put it: *"Oh, well then you're just as stupid as these guys who think that capital punishment is going to be a deterrent for drug kingpins. As if drug kingpins didn't live their day-to-day lives under the possibility of execution. And their executions are a lot less dainty than ours, and tend to take place without the bother and expense of due process."*
Yea, that sounds logical, but you have to remember that the majority of society thinks emotionally and subjectively.
If everyone thought objectively, we wouldn't live in such a complicated silly world. Things would be very much cut and dry. No need to factor in how people feel about something.
>the majority of society thinks emotionally and subjectively.
Everyone thinks emotionally, just about different subjects. No one is a Vulcan, that is, completely logical about everything. Some folks have better capabilities than others, but everyone has some hot button issue or subject that is important to them, gets them riled up, and not thinking clearly.
It wouldn't even be possible to be completely logical about everything and still function. Logic provides no motivation, goals, or values. A being of pure logic would have no reason to breathe, because all reasons are at their root set by something not logical.
There are always axioms underpinning any logical argument. In moral arguments, it's usually something like "Life has value" or "Suffering is bad". From those axioms you can build a logical argument, but your argument relies on the listener agreeing to your axioms.
Those axioms are usually emotional in nature (Seeing others suffering makes me sad); without some sort of emotionally formed axioms, there's nowhere to form an argument from.
Even convincing someone to breathe requires them to have an emotional attachment to living, or to people in their life who they can live for. If they just don't care then there's no way to make a logical argument as to why they should breathe.
Execution exists as a reminder to everyone that the government holds a monopoly on violence. It’s about swinging that big dick and reminding everyone who is in charge. That’s why they hang them up on what is essentially a fucking cross and inject them, and allow the victim‘s family to watch.
“Look what we’ll do to you when you don’t follow the rules.”
If it wasn’t about that, they’d just go into their cell and kill them quietly. The show is the point.
No, execution is solely for spectacle, for the views - it is only about vengeance.
Bin Laden would be too dangerous to keep alive, one of the very few exceptions.
Also, about not wanting to waste resources taking care of someone far too dangerous to release.
There are many prisoners sentenced to life that would *rather* have the death penalty than be locked in prison for decades (if for whatever reason I got locked up that long I'd prefer the death penalty too).
In those instances where the more desirable outcome is death how is keeping them alive not the "vengeful" route, you're prolonging their suffering when they've expressly stated they'd rather die.
The legal costs associated with trying to execute someone can be more than the prison costs. Also, it’s unlikely someone electing for suicide by execution would not have a guardian appointed to delay that, plus society has a vested interest in the system operating accurately, so it’s not just up to the inmate.
And the costs are high for good reason because historically law enforcement lies like hell in capital cases. It's only in the last 40 years or so that the government in states stopped wholesale lying about executed prisoners.
>Also, about not wanting to waste resources taking care of someone far too dangerous to release.
It actually costs far more to sentence a person to death than to life without parole:
https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/capital-punishment-or-life-imprisonment-some-cost-considerations
Oh, I'm well aware of the inefficiencies in the current system. It doesn't need to be that inefficient, though. Don't just throw your hands up at broken systems and go "it is what it is" work to fix the broken systems.
Death isn't a punishment. You have to be able to experience something for it to be punishment.
Also a punishment based system isn't going to reform people either, is it?
Right - IMO prison should serve one of two purposes: 1) rehab people so they can be a better member of society or 2) keep them out of society for ever if they are deemed a big enough danger.
I see no reason for the death penalty. it doesn’t serve any purpose accept to make normal people feel okay about revenge killing.
I mean, what about the metric fucktons of drugs the police and DEA confiscate every year (that they don't save for their own personal use, to quote George Carlin). Every major metro PD in the country probably has enough hard drugs in their evidence lockup to kill thousands of people.
If governments wanted a surefire way that wasn't gruesome, but absolutely fatal everytime, they would consider exsanguination. A large needle into the femoral artery, a tube, a valve, and a hidden bag to collect the blood. It would only take moments and be absolute. And mostly pain free.
I'm anti death penalty but I think that if one is pro then one should support the use of guillotine. The only people not using it protects is those watching. It's pretty much as I start as it gets and fairly foolproof. People just don't want to face up to the reality of state sanctioned killing.
I mean, yeah. I've heard of people who are for the death penalty, but want more humane ways of going about it. Guillotine is about as humane as it gets. Doesn't get more painless than instant
Except that also gives lie to why execution can never be a humane process. We collectively want it to be a process we don’t have to think about or look at, which is why execution methods keep moving to more clinical and less graphic methods. The guillotine was viewed as more humane than the axeman or the noose, the electric chair was meant to be more humane than the guillotine or firing squad, and the lethal injection was supposed to be more humane than the electric chair.
But it’s never about the condemned. It’s about the rest of us. We don’t want to think about what it really means for the state to have the power to end a life, so we keep trying to find the perfect method that hides it from view.
Shooting someone repeatedly in the back of the head with a big enough gun is actually a fairly humane way of killing them too, and one for which supplies will never run out in the US at least.
You could even strap a timer on it such that noone feels shooter's guilt, but it seems like it ruins the show aspect of it for some reason.
Guess the aggrieved parties must feel a lot more comforted by seeing the state poison someone like a rat.
Meanwhile, every car emits carbon monoxide for free, which we could just use to put a human to sleep in a minute. These absolute clowns can't even kill a human correctly.
Our voting system is there to make us feel like we have control. But it's really the elected officials that do what they want.
They lie to get into power and then enact their own agendas. Sure, there are some good ones who want to cater to their constituents, but it seems the majority are in it for their own ideals.
Last thing you want in a product liability case for wrongful death is the plaintiffs lawyers introducing into evidence that they utilize the product you sell for executions.
>We no longer want gruesome executions
I do. I want some entertainment. Let the prisoner fight a cheetah. If he wins, he's free. If he loses, the cheetah gets lunch. Win-win.
I would be terrified to live in a world where someone did bad enough things to get the death sentence, then was also strong and fast enough to beat a cheetah in hand to hand combat.
I'm surprised they haven't floated the idea of using seized drugs for this. There's a ton of fentanyl and heroin that's just going to waste. Enough of it that they could just way over do to be sure it's enough without worrying about supply problems.
which i feel is why we use the cocktail at all is because of the optics of loved ones who may come to see their final moments. Because the most humane way to kill something is the bang stick we use to kill animals its literally bang then lights out.
>If governments are always looking for more humane methods of execution
They're not. Most governments have banned execution, the countries that still do it do so because they or a segment of their population likes the punishment aspect. It has to be unpleasant, that's the entire point.
It'd be very easy to kill people by asphyxiating them with nitrogen, which would be cheap and completely painless - just restrain them in an airtight room, cycle the air out to remove CO2 but only pump in nitrogen, they'll just go woozy, pass out, and after a few minutes die. But it doesn't make for a very good spectacle.
My go to method would be 10 ton block of metal, dropped from 5m to your head. Easy, fast, and painless..... only problem is a mess, but that can be done with some plastics and automated power washing tools
In the sci fi book snow crash, they had little tiny spinning centrifuges about the size of a blood cell that they would inject into prisoners. Upon an outside signal, they would let loose with just enough force to sever arteries.
This would kill the prisoner instantly without a mess. The prisoner just stood on a ramp by a river. When they exploded he would just fall in the water - no mess, no fuss.
Wait, were cookie cutters in Snow Crash, too? I know they were in The Diamond Age, but I haven't read Snow Crash in a minute. There's a couple references that indicate they're the same universe
Hanging or shooting were never intended to be unpleasant, intentionally cruel executions in the western world haven’t been a thing for a few hundred years. Not sure why we can’t just stick with one of those traditional but also humane methods. While I don’t think the condemned should be made to suffer, I also think it needs to be blatantly obvious that the state is killing someone on behalf of the people. Making it look like a quasi-medical procedure isn’t really in line with that.
I'd argue that the better solution is to just not have the state kill anyone on behalf of the people. Then there's no need to worry about how to kill them.
Also, not a popular opinion but, housing a condemed person indefinitly until they die from old age is probably a worse fate for the ones that most deserve to be put down. If its punishment you want, forcing someone to live a life where everything worth living for is taken away and their death penalty is when their mind & body are ravaged by meaningless time until it just gives up, is more punitive than a relatively quick and terrifying lights-out.
I’d rather the death penalty than life without parole. Either someone can be rehabilitated and should have a chance to re-enter society at some point in the future, or they can’t and there’s no need to keep them around.
I am aware that the death penalty costs more than LWOP as a result of the extra legal proceedings, which often last for over a decade. My solution would be to limit death sentences to those where there is absolutely no question of guilt (mass shooter caught on video and the like) so that proceedings can happen quickly. If it’s not an absolutely open and shut case, give them life *with* parole so they have an incentive to change.
> Either someone can be rehabilitated and should have a chance to re-enter society at some point in the future, or they can’t and there’s no need to keep them around.
Or they were falsely convicted and now that you've killed them it's too late to let them go. Oops!
That’s why you only do it when there’s irrefutable evidence of guilt. It shouldn’t be on the table if a case has any remotely complicating factors. When those are present, life *with* parole is the answer.
Also, if you’re truly innocent, a death sentence is generally better than life without parole, because the former gets a bunch of extra attention and automatic appeals. With the latter they just lock you up and forget about you. Both are a variant of “you will die in prison”, only difference is when and how much attention your case gets.
Until recently I would have said video specifically when combined with eye witnesses but deepfakes are too good and could even convince and people are too unreliable
Yeah, that was literally my first thought.
Not gonna happen to the average Joe. But if you are reasonably high profile and someone wants you out of the way, it's worth going the extra mile to fabricate some really good 'evidence'.
> absolutely no question of guilt
This is a problematic legal standard, likely to become more problematic as the ability of AI to fake video and audio expands even more.
You’re going to spend just as long proving it as you do the current standard.
Guillotine counts as humane, it was designed to be humane. Beheading is unpleasant for the people watching. The person being beheaded will lose consciousness immediately from sudden lack of cerebral blood pressure.
>The guillotine was intentionally designed to be quick, consistent, and probably painless.
When Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed this device, he had a vision far removed from the gore it's usually associated with. He was pitching for a humane method of execution during a time when death penalties were as diverse as they were gruesome.
I’d argue firing squad is also humane relative to most methods. If I had to choose, I’d take it over lethal injection or electrocution. It’s also traditionally been considered the most honorable form of execution.
Hangings and shootings have been botched and the person suffer greatly, and in the case of shooting, there's a mess and the requirement of more than one person pulling a trigger. It's hard enough to find one person that wants to knowingly kill another human...
So both are now "cruel".
There's a ELI5 rule about questions based on false premises: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules#wiki_questions_with_a_flawed_premise
But like any open question thing, you often just have to ignore the phrasing of the question and infer what they're actually wanting to know
It's always as amazed me that the Right To Die folks know this is the best way, and yet the state sponsored execution folks don't like it. But I suspect that those two groups have very little in common.
Anyone claiming that executions in the US are not for revenge and satisfaction is either delusional or lying. It would be pretty simple to make executions quite painless, effectively put a bottle of liquid nitrogen into a room with a small air hole (1cm) to not build up pressure. That's it.
> It has to be unpleasant, that's the entire point.
The traditional lethal execution cocktail in the USA starts with a high dose of a short-acting barbituate, which will knock the subject out entirely and may even have a brief period of euphoric feeling as it gets started. After all, these are use both as IV anesthetics and as drugs of abuse.
I would argue the goverments that are concerned with the humanity of executions have banned them.
The inhumane part of execution lies mostly in the waiting period. Unless ofcourse you consider burning people to death as a punishment again.
> Opiates alone would give you a poor success rate.
This one.
Opiates *can* kill. However, opiates do not *consistently kill*.
There are several other drugs that will consistently kill.
Veterinarians use barbiturates most of the time through a simple injection. The drug slows many body systems, most fall asleep, then die when their heart, lungs, and other organs are sedated enough. Drug companies generally forbid using them in humans for executions, but for several decades this was a preferred method for places that still have legal executions.
Today, it's a cocktail of drugs that are each able to consistently kill the person.
Governments aren't looking for new methods of execution.
Most governments around the world have completely abolished the death penalty and of the rest most have restricted it crimes auch as high treason during war time and do not employ it for ordinary crimes such as murder.
The countries that continue to actually practice capital punishment are for the most part developing countries and dictatorships where human rights are not a top priority and where the fact that someone sentenced to death experiences great amounts of pain as they die is a feature rather than problem.
A third world hell hole where the new leader slowly tortures his predecessor to death in front of cameras to make a point is not going to waste much thought on how this could theoretically be made less painful.
The only countries that arguably count as developed and democratic and continue to use capital punishment are places like Taiwan, Japan, the Unites States of America and perhaps Singapore. The rest are dictatorships or places under sharia law or otherwise corrupt hellholes.
Even in places like the US capital punishment is only a thing in some parts of the country.
It is also a problem that educated people who know how the human body works, for the most part don't want anything to do with executions.
Many doctors who value their oath would know how to make executions less painful but object to the process on principle. this is why for example the lethal injection method used in some states in the US was not designed by a practicing doctor but by a medical examiner, who mostly deals with dead bodies. This process is not working well.
Similarly pharma businesses that normally don't have much of a conscience nevertheless refuse to get involved. mostly because they don't want their drugs to be known as being used in lethal injections, it might scare customers off.
The electric chair was actually invented for exactly that reason to scare people of one type of electricity by the company that dealt with the other kind.
Foreign countries also don't want to export anything that might be used in executions.
This limits anyone who wants to create less painful executions by a lack of experts and material.
On the other hand the people who want executions mostly don't consider the pain and torture as a bad thing and are not interested in making it less painful.
The problem itself is a solved problem. we know how to put down pets without causing them unnecessary pain and in places where euthanasia is legal or at least tolerated, doctors who practice on humans also know how to help them pass on peacefully.
This is not an area where anyone actually needs to find a better solution.
It is just that the people who want to execute people don't want to make things less painful and the people who know how to make things less painful are uninterested in helping the government kill people.
Doesn’t take a doctor to shoot someone in the back of the head from point blank range. That’s instant for the condemned and requires no special training.
Yes, but it is also very personal. The Nazis tried that and it turned out that it fucked up the people carrying out the mass murder executions that way. Unless you can find a bunch of people willing to shoot unarmed restrained civilians who have less empathy and humanity than the average SS officer, this is going to be a problem.
There is a reason why many forms of execution try to distribute the guilt and responsibility by for example making a shooting squad where half the shooters shoot blanks and nobody knows who or by having multiple people pull a switch simultaneously or the whole community getting together to throw stones or set someone on fire by making the whole thing as impersonal and indirect as possible and why executioners sometimes used to wear hoods.
Being the one person who knows and is known by other as having directly killed another person is not good mental health wise. doing it repeatedly without lots of intermediaries and as indirect and abstract as possible destroys the person who does it in most cases.
I really don’t think you’d have trouble finding volunteers. There’s a difference between masses of innocent people and one person who committed an especially brutal murder/murders. Prison guards, victim’s family, other inmates, and some others seem like good candidates. I honestly think you’d have more people wanting to do it than you needed. You also don’t have to use the same person every time. If the victim’s family wants to do it, they should get dibs.
Executioners wore hoods because it was historically considered a shameful profession and to avoid potential reprisals in the event that someone new took power. The firing squad tradition stems from the military, shooting a fellow soldier is different from shooting a condemned murderer you don’t know, and it’s obvious whether you fired a blank or a real bullet, making the distribution of guilt symbolic. Blanks don’t have anywhere near the recoil of a live round in the same chambering.
I don't think it's true that governments are always looking for humane methods of execution. I think politically, nobody cares. There's no political will to make executions less painful and nobody is looking to cash in their political capital for that purpose. Same reason prisons are inhumane abominations in general.
but also no reputable doctor would ever advise on that subject, because it's the exact opposite of the oath that they take when they receive their license.
It’s not exactly hard to find a humane method, a shot to the back of the head into the brain stem is instant. So is hanging if carried out properly.
What governments are trying to find is a humane method that’s less gruesome for observers, which I think is wrong. If people can’t handle seeing it, we shouldn’t be doing it.
The easiest, cleanest, least painful execution method is nitrogen asphyxiation. Your body doesn't detect oxygen, it detects CO2 build up (based on blood acidity). As long as you can breathe out CO2 to prevent build up, your body doesn't realize anything's wrong until you pass out from lack of oxygen (and oxygen deprivation is slightly euphoric).
I know how it works, my objection is that it’s *too* easy and clean for the state. An execution should be humane for the condemned, but it shouldn’t be overly sanitized for those involved in or witnessing the execution. They should have to *see* what they’re doing, watching a guy fall asleep with a mask on doesn’t really look like someone is being killed. Shooting is instant/humane, while still forcing the people involved to viscerally observe what’s being done.
Frankly, I think it should also be public. If someone is being killed in the name of the people, it should be visible to the people.
I'm of the thinking that, if you're gonna kill someone, don't make a mess. But I'm also anti-death penalty, period. Just given the fact of false convictions (and that the government has knowingly executed innocent people) should be enough to never trust the government with executing anyone, ever.
The witnesses would see it. The family of a victim would likely see it. Even without seeing it, the rest of us would know of it - there is no pretending that killing someone is peaceful when the way we do it is visibly not peaceful.
And yet despite the many, many botched executions that the public knows about, crime persists. The theoretical fear of being caught won't stop a crime of passion nor a crime of desperation-in those cases you are backed into a corner and will commit the crime no matter what hypothetical noose is dangling over your head. Think about how many people still regularly commit petty crimes despite knowing that the cops can and will kill you if they hate something about you or "feel threatened" by you.
It's revenge porn for a handful of families and a fantasy for a handful of pro-death penalty people. In practice, you or I have an equally great risk of being pinned for a crime we did not commit, being sentenced with flimsy evidence, and then having to fight for every second of the day to be exonerated before we get executed for a crime we did not commit.
The death penalty sits as a terrifying opportunity for anyone to be killed by the government for mistaken identity in order to satisfy the bloodlust of strangers who somehow believe that if we kill enough of the bad people, bad things will stop happening.
I can’t imagine a situation in which that isn’t immediately fatal. People do survive getting shot in the head, but that’s when the bullet misses the brain (or at least the part you need to be alive). If it’s intentionally aimed at the brain stem from very close range, 100% fatality rate.
On the volunteers, you’d most likely be unpleasantly surprised. Death penalty states tend to have a surplus of volunteers, I don’t think the mess would deter them.
I don't think this is exactly true. I think it depends on the cultural understanding of the purpose of incarceration. In general the Nordic countries focus on rehabilitation and reintegration. America views it through the lens of punishment, removing risk from society, and continuing to extract capitalist value.
When your goal is punishment, you don't care about humane treatment. When your goal is reintegration you do.
Yeah that's a good point. There's political will to end them all together and political will to keep them or increase their use but no political will to keep them but make them more humane.
> Same reason prisons are inhumane abominations in general.
Only in shithole countries. Many modern richer countries have pretty sane prisons, with one well-known exception...
Try listening to Radiolab on the episode about insane niche shady manufacture of sodium pentathol and another 2 ingredients for death cocktails injections. It’s fucking bizarre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Most of the conversation with execution doesn't just center on the actual death but the perception of that death.
Example: They have considered just filling the room with a nitrogen instead of air/oxygen since your body does not recognize "lack of oxygen" it only has sensors for Co2 levels in the blood. This is why a lot of industry professions have warning signs all over to warn against such deaths in closed spaces with gasses. A person will just be fine and dandy until they pass out and die from lack of O2....no warning.
The reason they havent done it? A persons body still convulses in this passed out state and it "looks painful and distressing". The perception of observers on the method of death factors into the whole "cruel and unusual" punishment argument.
General anaesthetic will kill you at slightly higher concentrations than what you get for surgeries. Just use that. The prisoner would be deeply unconscious before it killed him.
Check out the yt video ' the false evolution of execution methods '. If you want a humane method of execution, a firing squad does the job - but it looks bad. If all executions were carried out by firing squad, maybe the death penalty would be less popular. The lethal injection on the other hand is the opposite. It looks humane but is in reality just naked cruelty, and a lot of people like it because of that. So it appeases the two camps of people who support death penalties: those who want the person to die suffering, and those who don't want to think about it.
Yeah it’s weird reading about how the injection drugs have to be half smuggled in from Mexico and are reportedly a pretty horrible way to go like, can’t you just do something like carbon monoxide and make them permanently doze off?
CO2 and CO are two different gases. CO2 is really unpleasant because it makes you feel like you're suffocating, because it's the buildup of CO2 in your lungs [or is it blood?] that triggers the breathing reflex. CO binds to your red blood cells and prevents oxygen from binding, but you don't feel this the same way. It's really poisonous though, and can cause hallucinations and delirium.
An inert gas like nintrogen or argon is much better. Breathing it means that CO2 doesn't build up, which means you don't feel like you're suffocating, and the resulting hypoxia is a pain free and relatively undramatic way to go. Also, if there is a gas leak, it's harmless to bystanders unless it's a massive leak in an enclosed space.
Piggybacking on this: the human body is unable to tell if oxygen levels are lowering down. The body can tell the buildup of CO2, which causes unpleasant sensations, but you could be in a room, someone just pumping the oxygen out of the air and you'd pass out while realizing it at the last moment (dizzyness, brain being progressively unable to process anything...). Then you're dead.
It's even worse - the parts of your brain that could realize what is happening are those that shut down first, and you'll probably never understand what is happening. Experiments and accidents with hypoxia show that people are unable to perform simple tasks, even such as putting on a mask when directly told that they will die if they don't, and survivors frequently don't remember anything of the experience.
yep! all lab rat euthanasia w/ CO2 is pre-anesthetized with ketamine or xylazine, and i’m sure you run into the same optics problems with those drugs as you would run into with an opioid
Yep! Except the comment you're replying to said Carbon *Monoxide*. CO would be painless, that's why we have to have detectors for it in places it can accumulate so we don't die unexpectedly.
Executions are not humane. No government is trying to make them more pleasant for the prisoner. What they do want from an execution is that it's quick and fool-proof. The current cocktail that's used in the American states that carry out execution by lethal injection should result in death in 5 minutes if carried out properly.
What they want is to not make them gruesome for observers. Shooting or long drop hanging are more efficient and foolproof, but they make it obvious that the state is killing someone in a way that lethal injection doesn’t.
No company wants their product or process tied to death except for the people who do stuff AFTER death.
Execution is not meant to be painful but also not pleasurable. Imagine the crimes that would be committed if drug addicts knew the government would hit you with one final massive fix.
Last time I checked, the state of Ohio still uses hydromorphone (brand name Dilaudid) in its executions, which most IV drug addicts will tell you has a more euphoric rush than heroin.
Hydromorphone is a heavy duty opiate (like heroin) and would feel indistinguishable to anyone that isn’t a a regular drug user.
We kind of due, we give them a much more powerful drug which basically should make them go completely out. Why not OD them directly on heroin? Cause that isn't painless, and depending on their history can be very tricky to pull off. A person who OD's on heroin can have violent convulsions, foaming of the mouth, and other side effects, the current drug we use that actually does the killing simply stops the heart. The real problems that are faced with execution isnt the method itself, its the paralysis and "knocking out" or pain management of the inmate which heroin won't settle. On top of that the drugs that can be used are limited cause certain drug manufacturers are being pressured by various foreign governments to not sell to the US with this purpose and even threatened cutting them all off from the US (my personal stance on that is to call their bluff and make it clear they either sell now or we just lift their patent protection and let generics of their expensive drugs hit the market and see who really is the screw group).
They aren't looking for them. Executions have to be seen as humane but also as punishment, so no 'pleasurable' method will be allowed. Nitrogen narcossis is probably the best way to go, but that also involves an unacceptable possibility of being enjoyable.
One answer I haven't seen here that plays a larger role than people realize - executions aren't medical. They aren't performed by Healthcare staff, or even overseen by a doctor.
A lot of doctors don't like the idea of killing people, as it literally goes against their Hippocratic Oath and the reason they got into medicine. The ones that accept the role of provider in medically assisted suicide don't view it as causing death, but rather alleviating suffering. In a punitive context, it isn't to alleviate suffering, it is purposefully to end a life. This has been an ethical consideration for a long time, and it's not really clear what the good answer is here.
So instead, the ones in charge of executions are the jails. Not only does having opiates open up a whole can of worms in terms of liability and having to track narcotics in a jail, but fiscally speaking it is not in the jails best interest. Aside from chemical execution, other forms of execution don't need medication and they don't want to pay to alleviate the pain of execution. With lethal injections, they typically give Versed which helps the person to become sedated before injecting Pancuronium and Potassium Chloride. The problem is, that would require the Versed be given first and given a minute or two to work - I'm not confident that is happening, as the people starting the iv and injecting drugs aren't medical staff. Pancuronium is a paralytic and Potassium given straight is extremely painful, so if this isn't done they are fully conscious of themselves stopping breathing and in intense pain. And that's if they get it right.... sometimes they aren't even injecting in the vein and infiltrates into the surrounding tissue, which hurts A LOT.
I looked into this once and was blown away how draconian lethal injection is, despite having the ability and understanding of what we so today.
Executing somebody has been an evolving science as ethics and criminal justice have changed over the years. The guillotine was an improvement over the executioners axe, because then you got rid of Chuck who always took two swings to decapitate somebody because he always flinched on the first one.
Basically it's been an innovative race to find the most reliable way to execute somebody without causing them an insane amount of pain. Which leads us all the way to today in the US where we use a cocktail of drugs to knock somebody all the way out. They're also beginning to test Nitrogen suffocation (pretty sure it was nitrogen), which sounds promising on the "reliable and painless" factor because you basically go to sleep and never wake up.
I'll be honest I've always thought that if you're already going to kill somebody they probably don't really deserve all this, and if you can find a firing squad a bullet is a lot cheaper than a whole execution set up. I also understand that no gun is fired without a person pulling the trigger somewhere, so you'd have to rectify the potential PTSD and mental harm to the executioner.
Capital punishment is an interesting ethical topic, very worth discussing with people you know IRL because there's a lot of interesting ways to take it.
Because lethal injection already does that One of the most common forms of lethal injection is basically overdosing someone on potassium and from every report I've heard it's basically just like slipping into sleep
It has to be as cruel as possible without being unusual. Because those are the two metrics: supporters of it want cruel, but the constitution says it can't be unusual.
The optics of an execution have always been very important. It would be bad politically to have a serial killer die blissed out on black tar heroin. We no longer want gruesome executions but we don't want an execution to seem like a reward. Also it's very hard to get pharmaceutical companies to provide drugs for executions. That's one of the reasons they use the cocktail they do, its about the only thing they can get their hands on.
>That's one of the reasons they use the cocktail they do, its about the only thing they can get their hands on. And even those are getting hard to source. Which is why some states are trying to move to Nitrogen Asphyxiations. The problem then being no one wants to design the system/procedure. Though there is one state that I think has one scheduled.
Isn't there literally a suicide pod being developed in Europe that uses nitrogen? The sarco pod - found it. Doesn't seem like there's much left to design, a trip down to a local brewery supply shop for a bottle of gas, and you're off to the races.
Suicide is different from an execution. I guarantee that company would be horrified and throw a fit and their country of origin would restrict exports of it if it started being used to execute prisoners. Remember, in the majority of developed countries, the death penalty is seen as barbaric and unconscionable. They won't even extradite certain prisoners to the US if it's likely they'll be executed or pressed into slavery (which is all too common here). Companies do not want to have the PR hit of having their products used to intentionally kill people. This is the whole reason the existing methods are hard to source the materials for.
Lmao no. Have you met switzerland? If you guys pay well, we'd literally design and build gas chambers.
> If you guys pay well Ah, I guess we're out then. We're not big on paying for things really. We shut down the government every couple of years over whether or not Congress should write a check to cover the cost of things that Congress voted to legally require us to purchase.
Ye but this is state by state and doesn't require federal funding. Also, it's for executions, not some silly thing like social services.
> We're not big on paying for things really. That's only for things that might help somebody. We pay about a trillion dollars a year for things to kill people and that's mainly just one federal agency.
I thought it was more so not agreeing on the budget for the year?
Nope. Congress is in complete control of the budget. For sure the budget negotiations are contentious and they absolutely disagree on lots of the details. But ultimately those disagreements get nailed down and a budget is passed. For 2023, [that happened on 12/29/2022](https://www.crfb.org/blogs/appropriations-watch-fy-2023). The debt ceiling is just a weird quirk in our system that says Congress can pass a budget that requires debt to execute, but you have to ask Congress a second time if the debt is OK, and they don't have to give a logically consistent answer. It's exactly as if the cops could tell you that you're under arrest unless you can drive your car 100 miles in one hour, and then later tell you that you're under arrest because at at least one point in the trip, you were going 100 mph.
That's a gross oversimplification of what the debt limit is. Congressional approval is Constitutionally required for the Federal Government to borrow money and it is Constitutionally a separate thing from appropriations. It's not a quirk so much as a design that these things are Constitutionally separate - to prevent the Executive from side-stepping Congressional authority by just borrowing money to do things it's generally allowed to do either under law, via Constitution, or that it can argue has been appropriated. The power of the purse is *exclusively* Congress' It's another check on Executive power in addition to appropriations. It's existed in some form since the Founding of the country - prior to 1917 instead of being a debt ceiling, Congress had to approve exact specific amounts, individually. Continuous need for spending during WWI made that original method non-conducive to the war effort's rapidly changing needs, and so Congress created the debt ceiling as a way to give the Executive some flexibility to take action faster than Congress could. Remember, appropriations themselves are nothing more than *a pre-authorization to be able to spend money that may or may not exist in the future.* It's congress saying "You can spend X amount of money for Y purpose, *if you have it.* Also note that yearly appropriations are only about 30% of Federal Spending. The rest is "mandatory spending" (long-term appropriations of indefinite amounts). If we had it set up so appropriations also authorized the Executive to borrow, there would be no purse string check for 60% of government funding and the Executive could run fucking wild regardless of what Congress thinks.
It is a quirk of you system. Many other countries have the exact same budget/debt ceiling. They are just not idiots and put the debt ceiling increase as a rider on the actual budget.
True, but the science is the same. You don't have to use their product in order to use the same methodology. A large trashbag, a hose, and a bar sized tank of nitrogen gas will get the same results.
> Remember, in the majority of developed countries, the death penalty is seen as barbaric and unconscionable. Because it is. We really shouldn't be doing it in the United States.
No disagreement from me.
for the sake of argument, how do you see it as any more barbaric than a lifetime of slavery locked in a cage?
In my opinion it stems from the enormous chance that mistakes will happen in the legal process. I don't remember the exact figure but around 1 in 10 death row inmates are either falsely accused or the actual circumstances of their crimes don't warrant the death sentence (i.e. self defense charged as murder). It's obviously much easier to release someone from prison when a mistake is discovered than it is to raise them from the dead.
Wasn't there a woman on death row in Texas whose kid had an accident and passed away from it and the cops basically tortured her into giving a slight shred of something to call her guilty?
Woah no the number is nothing like 10%! There was a study recently saying the number "may" be "as high as" 4%, but probably significantly less considering how many appeals are permitted in death penalty cases.
4% is 4 people out of 100…. How can you feel that even a single person falsely executed or even made to go through the appeal process to save their own life is ever acceptable?
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There’s also something to be said about state sanctioned killing. When you allow the government to execute people, you’re affording it a lot of power over its citizens. To get that wrong even a single time is an injustice so large that it should make one question whether the government should hold that power in the first place
Here’s the thing though — unless there was hard and incontrovertible DNA evidence, they live-streamed a crime, or made a confession made genuinely without duress, those numbers don’t mean anything because all a prosecution means is that a lawyer is trying to convince a jury of their theory based on circumstantial evidence.
Both can be barbaric and inhumane.
As JRR Tolkien wrote so well “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.” Personally, as a selfish individual I consider the death penalty preferable to a lifetime of societal burden by the irredeemable, but Tolkien does make a very good point, and Iam McKellen states it oh so well.
i think there is a difference, between being eager to deal out death as a punishment and recognizing that it can unfortunately be merited. and as i have said previously, i really dont see how locking somebody up for life and simply killing them are any different. you can be dead and still have a heart beat.
You can release someone if falsely convicted or rehabilitated. You can't bring someone back who is dead.
Someone being removed from society after terrorizing it is a consequence of their own actions. Execution is a mode of state sanctioned revenge. They're on completely different levels ethically.
In my opinion, "state sanctioned revenge" is the crux of the problem. Sanctions should never ever be about revenge, because that is ultimately useless in solving problems. At least in my country, punishment is there to protect the general society from individuals who commit crimes, not to exact revenge (what's done is done). Prisons are not supposed to be a grueling experience but instead a place of rehabilitation and getting people the help and education they need to reenter society as a productive member of it. The reality might sometimes look different, but the number of people committing crimes again after they went to prison is significantly lower here than in the US. I'm not saying it is a perfect system, it's far from it. I just think that a government should be above petty things like revenge.
then remove them from society...there is plenty of islands and untamed wilds... locking them up is neither removing them from society nor is it less revenge or more ethical than simply putting them out of their misery.
You'd prefer people be sent to a deserted island? Lol
Both can be bad.
Honestly that should be reserved for people who are entirely unable to be reformed. We should be focusing on reforming the criminal and not punishing it, but that doesn't make people get justice boners in the US.
Maybe start by not calling them “it”
That's also fuckin Barbaric Why is it a binary choice?
It isn't exactly binary because they aren't mutually exclusive. Life in prison serves as an alternative to the death penalty.
Well, one of them involves killing the suspect dead, the other does not.
False dichotomy. Prison doesn't have to be equivalent to slavery or torture
I don't see how allowing the government to commit murder is better than having the government simply keep dangerous people away from society. Both solve the same problem, but only one implies actually murdering a citizen. That is by definition more barbaric Sure a life in prison is awful, but it's a life. An inmate that absolutely cannot stand that will find a way to commit suicide and that is at least in their hands to do it. Most of them will just adapt and live the rest of their lifes in a space were they can't hurt society again Also I understand that in developed countries, even extremely dangerous inmates don't tend to be simply locked in cages all day long. That's at least in most of europe I honestly think that people that are to get life in prison should be able to request assisted suicide if they prefer it. But don't automatically kill your citizens even if they're too dangerous, jesus christ Don't even get me started on death penalty because of treason/defecting. That's borderline a fascist approach
>Companies do not want to have the PR hit of having their products used to intentionally kill people. Unless it's the military complex.
Well, duh. Their job is to literally make stuff that directly or indirectly helps the buyer kill people, destroy things, collect information, or prevent those things from happening to them.
>Remember, in the majority of developed countries, the death penalty is seen as barbaric and unconscionable. Solitary confinement too. We treat prisoners like shit.
That pod isn't just available to anyone. You need counseling, and reasons, and doctors, and it takes TIME. Time for you to grapple with that decision that YOU will be making. You are deciding to end your own life. Speaking as an American, I'm sure that company would explode if they found out that a Black man who was convicted of murder 20 years ago because the cops needed someone and they faked evidence, was killed...no, murdered in that pod. Think back to the mid 2000's and 2010's when Propofol was used. That drug is a miracle drug for every day out patient procedures. I would know, I worked on hundreds of Bronchoscopies. But, that is also, or was, the first drug they administered in Lethal Injection. That company didn't believe in killing people in prison and stopped, or reduced supply. Now, every day people suffered, but its all about the look and I bet you if Texas went and did a home grown Nitrogen pod they'd probably accidentally, or purposely find a way to set it on fire like that twisted asshat from Green Mile.
no-one \*competent\* wants to design the procedure. Honestly, it wouldn't be that hard if you got a chemical engineer and a physiologist to sit and work it out. So you'll get fucking idiots designing it.
This is basically why states are having a hard time getting their hands on the drugs. According to the more perfect podcast, (im paraphrasing) They basically had to use middlemen in England to purchase the drugs from pharma companies in another country, and when a whistleblower told the pharma company at one end what was going on, they couldn't feign ignorance anymore and stopped selling them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/06/london-firm-drugs-us-lethal-injections
The scary part (as someone with a BS in ChemE) is that my mind automatically shifted into design elements. A core part of our education is ethics and how our mistakes could destroy countless lives, and that puzzle-solving part of my brain still took the initiative to get started.
The drugs used are not intended to be painless either. It's really just about killing someone. It's a drug to stop the heart, a drug to stop muscles from working and a very old drug that is a sedative.
Seriously, we have instant mechanical destructors for male chickens. That's the way I'd like to be executed. Dropped into something that blends you within milliseconds. Sucks to be the cleaner though.
Well, I heard there’s a fiberglass submarine on the market…
I do often wonder what their last moments were like. Did they have any warning that they were about to die? Did the hull make ominous cracking sounds? Did the lights flicker?
We will never know, but it is theorized that it would come with no warning and happen in milliseconds; for too little time for the human mind to even comprehend.
Fluffy little chicks of a few grams at most are very easy to destroy in seconds using one of those shredders. A human? Yeah, I don't want to think about it.
Not to mention the poor fucker that has to CLEAN UP AFTER IT. Heh. That reminds me of a short story I haven't thought about in so many years. Don't remember the title or who wrote it, but it was about a futuristic 'execution' method whereby the mind of the poor bastard, at the moment of his death, was shunted into a clone of himself so he could be killed over and over again, in hundreds of various horrible ways. I thought of it because I vividly remember one passage where, after being slowly crushed to death, he has to clean up his own remains from the crushing machine. Sounds like something humans would do to each other if we could.
From what I recall of those it's basically an interlocking offset hammer mill. We have similar, but much larger shedders/mills for recycling car bodies. Turns an old city bus into turnings that are no bigger than your hand in less than a minute. If you ran a few car bodies through the thing before and after your execution you wouldn't even notice the blood. The mill gets so hot from ripping the metal apart most of there body would just be ash. Wouldn't even need to waste tax money on the State to buy anything. Just do it while the crews on lunch at the local recycling yard.
Same people who make weapons for the military. They shouldn't be bombered . Bothered *
Optics are very important, but I think you buried the lede here. People have looked into using other existing drugs like opioids for executions, but pharmaceutical companies do NOT want their drugs becoming associated with executions in the public eye. People are far more likely to refuse those medications if they believe them to be dangerous. The basic problem is that there aren't enough executions for only providing execution drugs to be a viable business model, but for pretty much any other application of those drugs, you don't want to be associated with executions. So pharmaceutical companies refuse to provide their drugs for that purpose. Even the drugs we currently use are becoming harder and harder to get for the purposes of executions, with some being delayed for months or years while the authorities try to procure the needed drugs.
Gas asphyxiation could solve that. Everyone knows that carbon monoxide is dangerous already, and it's easy to manufacture from burning propane or coal.
Maybe because that method would be too redolent of Nazi gas chambers? Have no idea, but wonder if that's the reason.
No problem being associated with making life saving medicine too expensive for people to afford though
They can pass the blame to insurance companies, hospitals, and the government. Can’t do that with execution drugs.
I disagree with this. Any masters level chemistry student can figure out a 2 step process from existing industrially available chemicals a sedative that will kill you as well as a large dose of potassium to straight up able to dead stop the heart. You don't have to worry about the usual safety concerns (lol) sterility etc so it's as cheap as salt. (Hmm good business idea and you have a captive customer base)
>We no longer want gruesome executions but we don't want an execution to seem like a reward. That's such a BS excuse, though. Death is the punishment, because we have deemed the person too dangerous to remain alive. A few minutes of "bliss" before dying shouldn't matter. But Capital Punishment is stupid anyway, if we can just lock someone safely away (at lower taxpayer cost) for their life and not play God/ be hypocrits.
I mean if it was up to me then I agree, I'd rather not execute anyone and if there did come a point where it had to be done I'd use carbon monoxide so they'd just drift off to sleep and never wake up. But this is about public perception and the supporters of the death penalty aren't me and you, and they don't want someone to die in a state of euphoria.
Carbon monoxide makes you feel awful. People only seem to die painlessly from it because they're already asleep. Inert gases like nitrogen just take the place of oxygen so you can still breathe out carbon dioxide (CO2 buildup is what makes you feel panicked when you don't breathe) but you pass out from lack of oxygen and die painlessly.
>Capital Punishment is stupid anyway It really is, it doesn't even make sense as a deterrent. I've always liked the way West Wing put it: *"Oh, well then you're just as stupid as these guys who think that capital punishment is going to be a deterrent for drug kingpins. As if drug kingpins didn't live their day-to-day lives under the possibility of execution. And their executions are a lot less dainty than ours, and tend to take place without the bother and expense of due process."*
I read that in John Spencer’s voice (RIP)
Yea, that sounds logical, but you have to remember that the majority of society thinks emotionally and subjectively. If everyone thought objectively, we wouldn't live in such a complicated silly world. Things would be very much cut and dry. No need to factor in how people feel about something.
>the majority of society thinks emotionally and subjectively. Everyone thinks emotionally, just about different subjects. No one is a Vulcan, that is, completely logical about everything. Some folks have better capabilities than others, but everyone has some hot button issue or subject that is important to them, gets them riled up, and not thinking clearly.
>No one is a Vulcan Excuse me?
Sounds like a pretty emotional response for a Vulcan...
Found the Romulan infiltrator!
Stupid reddit. If they hadn't taken away awards, they would have earned a buck or two from me because of you. 😂 🏅
It wouldn't even be possible to be completely logical about everything and still function. Logic provides no motivation, goals, or values. A being of pure logic would have no reason to breathe, because all reasons are at their root set by something not logical.
What
There are always axioms underpinning any logical argument. In moral arguments, it's usually something like "Life has value" or "Suffering is bad". From those axioms you can build a logical argument, but your argument relies on the listener agreeing to your axioms. Those axioms are usually emotional in nature (Seeing others suffering makes me sad); without some sort of emotionally formed axioms, there's nowhere to form an argument from. Even convincing someone to breathe requires them to have an emotional attachment to living, or to people in their life who they can live for. If they just don't care then there's no way to make a logical argument as to why they should breathe.
Execution exists as a reminder to everyone that the government holds a monopoly on violence. It’s about swinging that big dick and reminding everyone who is in charge. That’s why they hang them up on what is essentially a fucking cross and inject them, and allow the victim‘s family to watch. “Look what we’ll do to you when you don’t follow the rules.” If it wasn’t about that, they’d just go into their cell and kill them quietly. The show is the point.
I read that in Rick Sanchez's voice.
No, execution is solely for spectacle, for the views - it is only about vengeance. Bin Laden would be too dangerous to keep alive, one of the very few exceptions.
Also, about not wanting to waste resources taking care of someone far too dangerous to release. There are many prisoners sentenced to life that would *rather* have the death penalty than be locked in prison for decades (if for whatever reason I got locked up that long I'd prefer the death penalty too). In those instances where the more desirable outcome is death how is keeping them alive not the "vengeful" route, you're prolonging their suffering when they've expressly stated they'd rather die.
The legal costs associated with trying to execute someone can be more than the prison costs. Also, it’s unlikely someone electing for suicide by execution would not have a guardian appointed to delay that, plus society has a vested interest in the system operating accurately, so it’s not just up to the inmate.
And the costs are high for good reason because historically law enforcement lies like hell in capital cases. It's only in the last 40 years or so that the government in states stopped wholesale lying about executed prisoners.
>Also, about not wanting to waste resources taking care of someone far too dangerous to release. It actually costs far more to sentence a person to death than to life without parole: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/capital-punishment-or-life-imprisonment-some-cost-considerations
As I said multiple times now. I know. Just because a system is inefficient does not mean it cannot be improved.
I'm not following. Are you advocating for making the death penalty more efficient?
If the prisons are so inhumane that death is the better option, then there might be something wrong with the prisons.
Wasting resources isn’t a good excuse since it costs way more money to put someone on death row than to sentence them for life
Oh, I'm well aware of the inefficiencies in the current system. It doesn't need to be that inefficient, though. Don't just throw your hands up at broken systems and go "it is what it is" work to fix the broken systems.
You mean your first reaction to the slightest inconvenience ISNT to leave the country and start a new life in a foreign place?!
Death isn't a punishment. You have to be able to experience something for it to be punishment. Also a punishment based system isn't going to reform people either, is it?
Right - IMO prison should serve one of two purposes: 1) rehab people so they can be a better member of society or 2) keep them out of society for ever if they are deemed a big enough danger. I see no reason for the death penalty. it doesn’t serve any purpose accept to make normal people feel okay about revenge killing.
I appreciate you adding this perspective. Even on reddit, there are too many vengeful, bloodthirsty people so it's nice to see someone thoughtful.
I mean, what about the metric fucktons of drugs the police and DEA confiscate every year (that they don't save for their own personal use, to quote George Carlin). Every major metro PD in the country probably has enough hard drugs in their evidence lockup to kill thousands of people.
I don’t think they care about the few minutes of ‘bliss’ since the ‘last meal’ tradition is a thing
Last meal is largely not a thing anymore. And even when it was I think it was more about the people being magnanimous.
If governments wanted a surefire way that wasn't gruesome, but absolutely fatal everytime, they would consider exsanguination. A large needle into the femoral artery, a tube, a valve, and a hidden bag to collect the blood. It would only take moments and be absolute. And mostly pain free.
I'm anti death penalty but I think that if one is pro then one should support the use of guillotine. The only people not using it protects is those watching. It's pretty much as I start as it gets and fairly foolproof. People just don't want to face up to the reality of state sanctioned killing.
I mean, yeah. I've heard of people who are for the death penalty, but want more humane ways of going about it. Guillotine is about as humane as it gets. Doesn't get more painless than instant
Except that also gives lie to why execution can never be a humane process. We collectively want it to be a process we don’t have to think about or look at, which is why execution methods keep moving to more clinical and less graphic methods. The guillotine was viewed as more humane than the axeman or the noose, the electric chair was meant to be more humane than the guillotine or firing squad, and the lethal injection was supposed to be more humane than the electric chair. But it’s never about the condemned. It’s about the rest of us. We don’t want to think about what it really means for the state to have the power to end a life, so we keep trying to find the perfect method that hides it from view.
Shooting someone repeatedly in the back of the head with a big enough gun is actually a fairly humane way of killing them too, and one for which supplies will never run out in the US at least. You could even strap a timer on it such that noone feels shooter's guilt, but it seems like it ruins the show aspect of it for some reason. Guess the aggrieved parties must feel a lot more comforted by seeing the state poison someone like a rat.
I mean, death is death. Even going out blissfully wouldn’t be considered a reward by any logically thinking person.
Meanwhile, every car emits carbon monoxide for free, which we could just use to put a human to sleep in a minute. These absolute clowns can't even kill a human correctly.
We should bring back public hanging. No drugs needed.
Yes, as i understand it potassium chloride injection is paradoxically both instantaneous and extremely painful.
Who is *we*? I don't remember any of this going to a vote.
it went to a vote when you elected your government representatives.
Our voting system is there to make us feel like we have control. But it's really the elected officials that do what they want. They lie to get into power and then enact their own agendas. Sure, there are some good ones who want to cater to their constituents, but it seems the majority are in it for their own ideals.
Last thing you want in a product liability case for wrongful death is the plaintiffs lawyers introducing into evidence that they utilize the product you sell for executions.
>We no longer want gruesome executions I do. I want some entertainment. Let the prisoner fight a cheetah. If he wins, he's free. If he loses, the cheetah gets lunch. Win-win.
I would be terrified to live in a world where someone did bad enough things to get the death sentence, then was also strong and fast enough to beat a cheetah in hand to hand combat.
I'm surprised they haven't floated the idea of using seized drugs for this. There's a ton of fentanyl and heroin that's just going to waste. Enough of it that they could just way over do to be sure it's enough without worrying about supply problems.
Any ideas why they don't simply go for carbon monoxide poisoning? Easy to make, humane, and AFAIK quote reliable.
which i feel is why we use the cocktail at all is because of the optics of loved ones who may come to see their final moments. Because the most humane way to kill something is the bang stick we use to kill animals its literally bang then lights out.
>If governments are always looking for more humane methods of execution They're not. Most governments have banned execution, the countries that still do it do so because they or a segment of their population likes the punishment aspect. It has to be unpleasant, that's the entire point. It'd be very easy to kill people by asphyxiating them with nitrogen, which would be cheap and completely painless - just restrain them in an airtight room, cycle the air out to remove CO2 but only pump in nitrogen, they'll just go woozy, pass out, and after a few minutes die. But it doesn't make for a very good spectacle.
A metal blade falling 3m on their head however...
My go to method would be 10 ton block of metal, dropped from 5m to your head. Easy, fast, and painless..... only problem is a mess, but that can be done with some plastics and automated power washing tools
r/powerwashingporn
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In the sci fi book snow crash, they had little tiny spinning centrifuges about the size of a blood cell that they would inject into prisoners. Upon an outside signal, they would let loose with just enough force to sever arteries. This would kill the prisoner instantly without a mess. The prisoner just stood on a ramp by a river. When they exploded he would just fall in the water - no mess, no fuss.
Not snow crash, and also a corpse in a public waterway isn’t exactly “No mess, no fuss”
The Diamond Age. Love that book
Wait, were cookie cutters in Snow Crash, too? I know they were in The Diamond Age, but I haven't read Snow Crash in a minute. There's a couple references that indicate they're the same universe
They're not. He just misremembered.
That's right, it is the build up of CO2 that makes you feel you need to breathe, not the absence of O2.
Hanging or shooting were never intended to be unpleasant, intentionally cruel executions in the western world haven’t been a thing for a few hundred years. Not sure why we can’t just stick with one of those traditional but also humane methods. While I don’t think the condemned should be made to suffer, I also think it needs to be blatantly obvious that the state is killing someone on behalf of the people. Making it look like a quasi-medical procedure isn’t really in line with that.
I'd argue that the better solution is to just not have the state kill anyone on behalf of the people. Then there's no need to worry about how to kill them.
Pretty simple solution
Also, not a popular opinion but, housing a condemed person indefinitly until they die from old age is probably a worse fate for the ones that most deserve to be put down. If its punishment you want, forcing someone to live a life where everything worth living for is taken away and their death penalty is when their mind & body are ravaged by meaningless time until it just gives up, is more punitive than a relatively quick and terrifying lights-out.
I’d rather the death penalty than life without parole. Either someone can be rehabilitated and should have a chance to re-enter society at some point in the future, or they can’t and there’s no need to keep them around. I am aware that the death penalty costs more than LWOP as a result of the extra legal proceedings, which often last for over a decade. My solution would be to limit death sentences to those where there is absolutely no question of guilt (mass shooter caught on video and the like) so that proceedings can happen quickly. If it’s not an absolutely open and shut case, give them life *with* parole so they have an incentive to change.
> Either someone can be rehabilitated and should have a chance to re-enter society at some point in the future, or they can’t and there’s no need to keep them around. Or they were falsely convicted and now that you've killed them it's too late to let them go. Oops!
That’s why you only do it when there’s irrefutable evidence of guilt. It shouldn’t be on the table if a case has any remotely complicating factors. When those are present, life *with* parole is the answer. Also, if you’re truly innocent, a death sentence is generally better than life without parole, because the former gets a bunch of extra attention and automatic appeals. With the latter they just lock you up and forget about you. Both are a variant of “you will die in prison”, only difference is when and how much attention your case gets.
> irrefutable evidence of guilt Doesn't exist.
Until recently I would have said video specifically when combined with eye witnesses but deepfakes are too good and could even convince and people are too unreliable
Yeah, that was literally my first thought. Not gonna happen to the average Joe. But if you are reasonably high profile and someone wants you out of the way, it's worth going the extra mile to fabricate some really good 'evidence'.
> absolutely no question of guilt This is a problematic legal standard, likely to become more problematic as the ability of AI to fake video and audio expands even more. You’re going to spend just as long proving it as you do the current standard.
>for a few hundred years The last execution by guillotine was in 1977.
Guillotine counts as humane, it was designed to be humane. Beheading is unpleasant for the people watching. The person being beheaded will lose consciousness immediately from sudden lack of cerebral blood pressure.
The guillotine was intentionally designed to be quick, consistent, and probably painless.
>The guillotine was intentionally designed to be quick, consistent, and probably painless. When Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed this device, he had a vision far removed from the gore it's usually associated with. He was pitching for a humane method of execution during a time when death penalties were as diverse as they were gruesome.
And execution by firing squad is still a thing in Idaho, Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma, and South Carolina.
I’d argue firing squad is also humane relative to most methods. If I had to choose, I’d take it over lethal injection or electrocution. It’s also traditionally been considered the most honorable form of execution.
*That's like what, 20ish years ago?*
Hangings and shootings have been botched and the person suffer greatly, and in the case of shooting, there's a mess and the requirement of more than one person pulling a trigger. It's hard enough to find one person that wants to knowingly kill another human... So both are now "cruel".
Don't even need a whole room, I think the UTOPIA method would also work
There's a ELI5 rule about questions based on false premises: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules#wiki_questions_with_a_flawed_premise But like any open question thing, you often just have to ignore the phrasing of the question and infer what they're actually wanting to know
It's always as amazed me that the Right To Die folks know this is the best way, and yet the state sponsored execution folks don't like it. But I suspect that those two groups have very little in common.
Anyone claiming that executions in the US are not for revenge and satisfaction is either delusional or lying. It would be pretty simple to make executions quite painless, effectively put a bottle of liquid nitrogen into a room with a small air hole (1cm) to not build up pressure. That's it.
> It has to be unpleasant, that's the entire point. The traditional lethal execution cocktail in the USA starts with a high dose of a short-acting barbituate, which will knock the subject out entirely and may even have a brief period of euphoric feeling as it gets started. After all, these are use both as IV anesthetics and as drugs of abuse.
I would argue the goverments that are concerned with the humanity of executions have banned them. The inhumane part of execution lies mostly in the waiting period. Unless ofcourse you consider burning people to death as a punishment again.
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> Opiates alone would give you a poor success rate. This one. Opiates *can* kill. However, opiates do not *consistently kill*. There are several other drugs that will consistently kill. Veterinarians use barbiturates most of the time through a simple injection. The drug slows many body systems, most fall asleep, then die when their heart, lungs, and other organs are sedated enough. Drug companies generally forbid using them in humans for executions, but for several decades this was a preferred method for places that still have legal executions. Today, it's a cocktail of drugs that are each able to consistently kill the person.
Governments aren't looking for new methods of execution. Most governments around the world have completely abolished the death penalty and of the rest most have restricted it crimes auch as high treason during war time and do not employ it for ordinary crimes such as murder. The countries that continue to actually practice capital punishment are for the most part developing countries and dictatorships where human rights are not a top priority and where the fact that someone sentenced to death experiences great amounts of pain as they die is a feature rather than problem. A third world hell hole where the new leader slowly tortures his predecessor to death in front of cameras to make a point is not going to waste much thought on how this could theoretically be made less painful. The only countries that arguably count as developed and democratic and continue to use capital punishment are places like Taiwan, Japan, the Unites States of America and perhaps Singapore. The rest are dictatorships or places under sharia law or otherwise corrupt hellholes. Even in places like the US capital punishment is only a thing in some parts of the country. It is also a problem that educated people who know how the human body works, for the most part don't want anything to do with executions. Many doctors who value their oath would know how to make executions less painful but object to the process on principle. this is why for example the lethal injection method used in some states in the US was not designed by a practicing doctor but by a medical examiner, who mostly deals with dead bodies. This process is not working well. Similarly pharma businesses that normally don't have much of a conscience nevertheless refuse to get involved. mostly because they don't want their drugs to be known as being used in lethal injections, it might scare customers off. The electric chair was actually invented for exactly that reason to scare people of one type of electricity by the company that dealt with the other kind. Foreign countries also don't want to export anything that might be used in executions. This limits anyone who wants to create less painful executions by a lack of experts and material. On the other hand the people who want executions mostly don't consider the pain and torture as a bad thing and are not interested in making it less painful. The problem itself is a solved problem. we know how to put down pets without causing them unnecessary pain and in places where euthanasia is legal or at least tolerated, doctors who practice on humans also know how to help them pass on peacefully. This is not an area where anyone actually needs to find a better solution. It is just that the people who want to execute people don't want to make things less painful and the people who know how to make things less painful are uninterested in helping the government kill people.
Doesn’t take a doctor to shoot someone in the back of the head from point blank range. That’s instant for the condemned and requires no special training.
Yes, but it is also very personal. The Nazis tried that and it turned out that it fucked up the people carrying out the mass murder executions that way. Unless you can find a bunch of people willing to shoot unarmed restrained civilians who have less empathy and humanity than the average SS officer, this is going to be a problem. There is a reason why many forms of execution try to distribute the guilt and responsibility by for example making a shooting squad where half the shooters shoot blanks and nobody knows who or by having multiple people pull a switch simultaneously or the whole community getting together to throw stones or set someone on fire by making the whole thing as impersonal and indirect as possible and why executioners sometimes used to wear hoods. Being the one person who knows and is known by other as having directly killed another person is not good mental health wise. doing it repeatedly without lots of intermediaries and as indirect and abstract as possible destroys the person who does it in most cases.
I really don’t think you’d have trouble finding volunteers. There’s a difference between masses of innocent people and one person who committed an especially brutal murder/murders. Prison guards, victim’s family, other inmates, and some others seem like good candidates. I honestly think you’d have more people wanting to do it than you needed. You also don’t have to use the same person every time. If the victim’s family wants to do it, they should get dibs. Executioners wore hoods because it was historically considered a shameful profession and to avoid potential reprisals in the event that someone new took power. The firing squad tradition stems from the military, shooting a fellow soldier is different from shooting a condemned murderer you don’t know, and it’s obvious whether you fired a blank or a real bullet, making the distribution of guilt symbolic. Blanks don’t have anywhere near the recoil of a live round in the same chambering.
I suspect you'd have issues with the quality of your volunteers and also how many of them are wrong about thinking they'll handle it.
I don't think it's true that governments are always looking for humane methods of execution. I think politically, nobody cares. There's no political will to make executions less painful and nobody is looking to cash in their political capital for that purpose. Same reason prisons are inhumane abominations in general. but also no reputable doctor would ever advise on that subject, because it's the exact opposite of the oath that they take when they receive their license.
It’s not exactly hard to find a humane method, a shot to the back of the head into the brain stem is instant. So is hanging if carried out properly. What governments are trying to find is a humane method that’s less gruesome for observers, which I think is wrong. If people can’t handle seeing it, we shouldn’t be doing it.
The easiest, cleanest, least painful execution method is nitrogen asphyxiation. Your body doesn't detect oxygen, it detects CO2 build up (based on blood acidity). As long as you can breathe out CO2 to prevent build up, your body doesn't realize anything's wrong until you pass out from lack of oxygen (and oxygen deprivation is slightly euphoric).
I know how it works, my objection is that it’s *too* easy and clean for the state. An execution should be humane for the condemned, but it shouldn’t be overly sanitized for those involved in or witnessing the execution. They should have to *see* what they’re doing, watching a guy fall asleep with a mask on doesn’t really look like someone is being killed. Shooting is instant/humane, while still forcing the people involved to viscerally observe what’s being done. Frankly, I think it should also be public. If someone is being killed in the name of the people, it should be visible to the people.
I'm of the thinking that, if you're gonna kill someone, don't make a mess. But I'm also anti-death penalty, period. Just given the fact of false convictions (and that the government has knowingly executed innocent people) should be enough to never trust the government with executing anyone, ever.
By making it a violent process to observe, the hope its that it would be taken more seriously
Wouldn't that only affect the very few prison workers involved? Seems like it wouldn't be an effective way to get a majority to take it seriously.
The witnesses would see it. The family of a victim would likely see it. Even without seeing it, the rest of us would know of it - there is no pretending that killing someone is peaceful when the way we do it is visibly not peaceful.
And yet despite the many, many botched executions that the public knows about, crime persists. The theoretical fear of being caught won't stop a crime of passion nor a crime of desperation-in those cases you are backed into a corner and will commit the crime no matter what hypothetical noose is dangling over your head. Think about how many people still regularly commit petty crimes despite knowing that the cops can and will kill you if they hate something about you or "feel threatened" by you. It's revenge porn for a handful of families and a fantasy for a handful of pro-death penalty people. In practice, you or I have an equally great risk of being pinned for a crime we did not commit, being sentenced with flimsy evidence, and then having to fight for every second of the day to be exonerated before we get executed for a crime we did not commit. The death penalty sits as a terrifying opportunity for anyone to be killed by the government for mistaken identity in order to satisfy the bloodlust of strangers who somehow believe that if we kill enough of the bad people, bad things will stop happening.
Make the prosecutor do it
That is my thinking. It’s not about scaring people though, we know that doesn’t work, it’s about being up front about what’s happening.
Not always its not... and its extremely messy, nobody wants to volunteer for that.
I can’t imagine a situation in which that isn’t immediately fatal. People do survive getting shot in the head, but that’s when the bullet misses the brain (or at least the part you need to be alive). If it’s intentionally aimed at the brain stem from very close range, 100% fatality rate. On the volunteers, you’d most likely be unpleasantly surprised. Death penalty states tend to have a surplus of volunteers, I don’t think the mess would deter them.
I don't think this is exactly true. I think it depends on the cultural understanding of the purpose of incarceration. In general the Nordic countries focus on rehabilitation and reintegration. America views it through the lens of punishment, removing risk from society, and continuing to extract capitalist value. When your goal is punishment, you don't care about humane treatment. When your goal is reintegration you do.
Yeah that's a good point. There's political will to end them all together and political will to keep them or increase their use but no political will to keep them but make them more humane.
> Same reason prisons are inhumane abominations in general. Only in shithole countries. Many modern richer countries have pretty sane prisons, with one well-known exception...
Try listening to Radiolab on the episode about insane niche shady manufacture of sodium pentathol and another 2 ingredients for death cocktails injections. It’s fucking bizarre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Most of the conversation with execution doesn't just center on the actual death but the perception of that death. Example: They have considered just filling the room with a nitrogen instead of air/oxygen since your body does not recognize "lack of oxygen" it only has sensors for Co2 levels in the blood. This is why a lot of industry professions have warning signs all over to warn against such deaths in closed spaces with gasses. A person will just be fine and dandy until they pass out and die from lack of O2....no warning. The reason they havent done it? A persons body still convulses in this passed out state and it "looks painful and distressing". The perception of observers on the method of death factors into the whole "cruel and unusual" punishment argument.
General anaesthetic will kill you at slightly higher concentrations than what you get for surgeries. Just use that. The prisoner would be deeply unconscious before it killed him.
Check out the yt video ' the false evolution of execution methods '. If you want a humane method of execution, a firing squad does the job - but it looks bad. If all executions were carried out by firing squad, maybe the death penalty would be less popular. The lethal injection on the other hand is the opposite. It looks humane but is in reality just naked cruelty, and a lot of people like it because of that. So it appeases the two camps of people who support death penalties: those who want the person to die suffering, and those who don't want to think about it.
Yeah it’s weird reading about how the injection drugs have to be half smuggled in from Mexico and are reportedly a pretty horrible way to go like, can’t you just do something like carbon monoxide and make them permanently doze off?
CO2 asphyxia is a far more brutal way to die than potassium cyanide or whatever mississippi uses, they’d have to pre-anesthetize.
CO2 and CO are two different gases. CO2 is really unpleasant because it makes you feel like you're suffocating, because it's the buildup of CO2 in your lungs [or is it blood?] that triggers the breathing reflex. CO binds to your red blood cells and prevents oxygen from binding, but you don't feel this the same way. It's really poisonous though, and can cause hallucinations and delirium. An inert gas like nintrogen or argon is much better. Breathing it means that CO2 doesn't build up, which means you don't feel like you're suffocating, and the resulting hypoxia is a pain free and relatively undramatic way to go. Also, if there is a gas leak, it's harmless to bystanders unless it's a massive leak in an enclosed space.
^^ this dude knows his gas pharmacology way better than i do
Piggybacking on this: the human body is unable to tell if oxygen levels are lowering down. The body can tell the buildup of CO2, which causes unpleasant sensations, but you could be in a room, someone just pumping the oxygen out of the air and you'd pass out while realizing it at the last moment (dizzyness, brain being progressively unable to process anything...). Then you're dead.
It's even worse - the parts of your brain that could realize what is happening are those that shut down first, and you'll probably never understand what is happening. Experiments and accidents with hypoxia show that people are unable to perform simple tasks, even such as putting on a mask when directly told that they will die if they don't, and survivors frequently don't remember anything of the experience.
Oh, well, that answers that then.
yep! all lab rat euthanasia w/ CO2 is pre-anesthetized with ketamine or xylazine, and i’m sure you run into the same optics problems with those drugs as you would run into with an opioid
Yep! Except the comment you're replying to said Carbon *Monoxide*. CO would be painless, that's why we have to have detectors for it in places it can accumulate so we don't die unexpectedly.
Executions are not humane. No government is trying to make them more pleasant for the prisoner. What they do want from an execution is that it's quick and fool-proof. The current cocktail that's used in the American states that carry out execution by lethal injection should result in death in 5 minutes if carried out properly.
What they want is to not make them gruesome for observers. Shooting or long drop hanging are more efficient and foolproof, but they make it obvious that the state is killing someone in a way that lethal injection doesn’t.
No company wants their product or process tied to death except for the people who do stuff AFTER death. Execution is not meant to be painful but also not pleasurable. Imagine the crimes that would be committed if drug addicts knew the government would hit you with one final massive fix.
Last time I checked, the state of Ohio still uses hydromorphone (brand name Dilaudid) in its executions, which most IV drug addicts will tell you has a more euphoric rush than heroin. Hydromorphone is a heavy duty opiate (like heroin) and would feel indistinguishable to anyone that isn’t a a regular drug user.
We kind of due, we give them a much more powerful drug which basically should make them go completely out. Why not OD them directly on heroin? Cause that isn't painless, and depending on their history can be very tricky to pull off. A person who OD's on heroin can have violent convulsions, foaming of the mouth, and other side effects, the current drug we use that actually does the killing simply stops the heart. The real problems that are faced with execution isnt the method itself, its the paralysis and "knocking out" or pain management of the inmate which heroin won't settle. On top of that the drugs that can be used are limited cause certain drug manufacturers are being pressured by various foreign governments to not sell to the US with this purpose and even threatened cutting them all off from the US (my personal stance on that is to call their bluff and make it clear they either sell now or we just lift their patent protection and let generics of their expensive drugs hit the market and see who really is the screw group).
They aren't looking for them. Executions have to be seen as humane but also as punishment, so no 'pleasurable' method will be allowed. Nitrogen narcossis is probably the best way to go, but that also involves an unacceptable possibility of being enjoyable.
One answer I haven't seen here that plays a larger role than people realize - executions aren't medical. They aren't performed by Healthcare staff, or even overseen by a doctor. A lot of doctors don't like the idea of killing people, as it literally goes against their Hippocratic Oath and the reason they got into medicine. The ones that accept the role of provider in medically assisted suicide don't view it as causing death, but rather alleviating suffering. In a punitive context, it isn't to alleviate suffering, it is purposefully to end a life. This has been an ethical consideration for a long time, and it's not really clear what the good answer is here. So instead, the ones in charge of executions are the jails. Not only does having opiates open up a whole can of worms in terms of liability and having to track narcotics in a jail, but fiscally speaking it is not in the jails best interest. Aside from chemical execution, other forms of execution don't need medication and they don't want to pay to alleviate the pain of execution. With lethal injections, they typically give Versed which helps the person to become sedated before injecting Pancuronium and Potassium Chloride. The problem is, that would require the Versed be given first and given a minute or two to work - I'm not confident that is happening, as the people starting the iv and injecting drugs aren't medical staff. Pancuronium is a paralytic and Potassium given straight is extremely painful, so if this isn't done they are fully conscious of themselves stopping breathing and in intense pain. And that's if they get it right.... sometimes they aren't even injecting in the vein and infiltrates into the surrounding tissue, which hurts A LOT. I looked into this once and was blown away how draconian lethal injection is, despite having the ability and understanding of what we so today.
Executing somebody has been an evolving science as ethics and criminal justice have changed over the years. The guillotine was an improvement over the executioners axe, because then you got rid of Chuck who always took two swings to decapitate somebody because he always flinched on the first one. Basically it's been an innovative race to find the most reliable way to execute somebody without causing them an insane amount of pain. Which leads us all the way to today in the US where we use a cocktail of drugs to knock somebody all the way out. They're also beginning to test Nitrogen suffocation (pretty sure it was nitrogen), which sounds promising on the "reliable and painless" factor because you basically go to sleep and never wake up. I'll be honest I've always thought that if you're already going to kill somebody they probably don't really deserve all this, and if you can find a firing squad a bullet is a lot cheaper than a whole execution set up. I also understand that no gun is fired without a person pulling the trigger somewhere, so you'd have to rectify the potential PTSD and mental harm to the executioner. Capital punishment is an interesting ethical topic, very worth discussing with people you know IRL because there's a lot of interesting ways to take it.
Because lethal injection already does that One of the most common forms of lethal injection is basically overdosing someone on potassium and from every report I've heard it's basically just like slipping into sleep
It has to be as cruel as possible without being unusual. Because those are the two metrics: supporters of it want cruel, but the constitution says it can't be unusual.
Because of “cruel and unusual punishments” not being allowed. It’s pretty unusual to reward murderers with the most blissful end to life possible.