All this complication around methods of execution baffles me.
Why don’t we use a massive dose of fentanyl or some other opioid? I’ve got to be missing something, because that seems like a simple, one-step process that doesn’t risk the pain of paralytics and potassium chloride.
I think the death penalty is a useless relic, but if we’re going to do it, why make it so bizarre?
I understand the desire to make it humane. But killing someone is not particularly humane in the first place.
You also have to wonder about whether it’s worth making killing someone super humane since, you know, they’re gonna die anyway. So they have an unpleasant few seconds, or perhaps minutes, and then they’re dead.
I mean, they just suffered some 10 years or more of imprisonment, often solitary, which is extremely inhumane in general. What’s 2 more minutes?
That said, we have plenty of fast and humane execution methods that are hard to botch. Most involve a swift disabling of the brain stem.
Like a bullet to the back of the neck, hanging, guillotine, that long nail thing they use for cows.
All those seem easier, cheaper, more reliable, and faster than these lethal injection and electric chair contraptions.
It has nothing to do with being humane and everything to do with appearing humane and, even more importantly, avoiding association with otherwise extremely similar killing. Shooting prisoners in the head would be humane, but it would invite comparison to terrorists, revolutionaries, and other unsavories. However warranted the comparisons are, dressing up executions in medical nonsense avoids them, so our government does it.
Nitrogen would be a lot safer for everyone else around. You can release lots of N2 in a reasonably ventilated room without harm but that's not the case with CO.
Everything I’ve heard about hypoxia indicates that it’s a neutral or pleasant experience. You lose your higher mental functions first so you don’t panic or worry about what’s going on. You feel fine until you keel over. The fact that this isn’t the standard way to do it is a clear sign to me that the people making these decisions aren’t interested in making it quick and simple.
There are symptoms. It's only a nice, calm death if you're sleeping - so you'd want to do the usual suicide technique of sleeping pills + carbon monoxide.
Yes, it is mindbogglingly barbaric. What's weirdest is that we seemed to have regressed from even historical levels. A simple long drop hanging or guillotining would probably be more humane than most of the methods in use today - and with administration of a strong sedative beforehand even more so.
Most crimes that would qualify for the death penalty are the result of psycopaths (serial killers, and such), or wanton criminals - if someone is comitting armed robbery armed an heavy firepower, they're prepared to die - by either the bullet or the government.
That would require either the state finding a legal source of fentanyl that is willing to sell them the drug for that purpose (challenging, given most pharma companies refuse due to some mix of principles and not wanting their product to be associated with death) or the state contracting with black market suppliers.
Given the state imprisons low level illicit drug suppliers, I'm guessing the hypocrisy of granting legit contracts to illicit drug manufacturers is enough to make the black market route a non-starter.
It's not just principles that causes the issue for pharma companies (although the principles are, I think, real and truly held by the senior executives of those companies) - the EU has also banned export of any drugs for use in executions which makes it legally problematic for them too.
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That would require either the state finding a legal source of fentanyl that is willing to sell them the drug for that purpose (challenging, given most pharma companies refuse due to some mix of principles and not wanting their product to be associated with death) or the state contracting with black market suppliers.
Or simply open a small gouvernmental lab that produces the drug in the small amounts necessary.
Opioid overdose is not as reliably deadly as people think. Yes, it CAN kill, but it doesn’t always, and not in a defined time period, and not always cleanly - respiratory arrest vs. cardiac arrest vs. brain death. The goal of the protocol is to have a process that has a very high likelihood of causing death within a fairly short period.
That may have been true in the past, it is definitely not true at this point in time. The current understanding of the law is that executions must result in death with the least possible pain for the subject.
The battles in the courts over the past 5 years have been around challenges to various execution protocols based on their cruelty and pain - and those have been largely successful.
But that’s definitely not the point of lethal injection. It was adopted as a “humane” way of executing the condemned. So, for those who truly want a painless and non-messy death, it really isn’t as hard as they’re making it on themselves.
A handful of sleeping pills and a solid dose of Fentanyl will do it.
I wouldn't say "definitely". There is some evidence that the complexity around lethal injection is to leave room for "accidents" that can cause the executed to suffer before they die.
Citation needed. From what I understand, 1) that theory is incorrect and the death penalty is not seen as a deterrent by potential future criminals (rather it may be the opposite) [citation coming]; and 2) Policymakers who say it is a deterrent are either lying or disinformed.
My understanding of the death penalty is that it is intended as violent punishment and is done gruesomely for the purposes of revenge. Read any thread online about a bad crime and you will see mobs of people calling for violent, public murders of the accused. It's human nature for a lot of people and something I think a civilized nation would immediately outlaw, especially ones that pride themselves on not doing "cruel and unusual punishment". I remember reading that the death penalty in the US doesn't fall under that category merely because of the 'and' clause and the relatively common nature of gruesome murders by the State in the US.
[citations]. It seems that states without the death penalty have lower murder rates, suggesting the opposite forces are true compared to your post (edit: i.e, it might even mean that a place with state-sanctioned/performed murder is more likely to have murders).
That's what I was saying. The death penalty is about making a violent example of someone (regardless of whether it is effective). A compassionate execution is a failed execution because it fails to make the statement that was the point of the exercise.
That's only one of the possible takes on death penalty. Another one is that it permanently removes a threat from society (life sentence doesn't, because the prisoner can still escape).
In practice, though, it seems that most people who support death penalty do see it as a punishment intended mainly for deterrence, and what they refer to as "justice" (i.e. cathartic vengeance - "torturing someone who made me feel bad makes me feel good").
Why don’t we use a massive dose of fentanyl or some other opioid? I’ve got to be missing something, because that seems like a simple, one-step process that doesn’t risk the pain of paralytics and potassium chloride.
I think the death penalty is a useless relic, but if we’re going to do it, why make it so bizarre?