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Kenneth Smith ‘struggled for life’ for 22 minutes in Alabama nitrogen gas execution: Updates
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
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I will not choose a method because all options require a trained an licensed medical professional to implement humanely, and nobody who qualifies will participate because they have ethics that prohibit causing harm to be licensed medical professionals. That includes putting someone to death against their will.
Picking a method is agreeing with the assumption that we have to put people to death.
The thing is, all of the humane ways to kill someone require the person to be a willing participant in the process. Nitrogen works when the person is relaxed and breathing normally for example.
So you'd rather have someone die in agony, rather than make a decision?
I'm asking that if an evil must happen, should it be a different, lesser evil, or a normalised greater evil? The whether the evil should happen at all is a separate debate.
As I said, I agree with you on the latter. The death penalty shouldn't be a thing. I'm asking about the situation until you (as a society) actually get that far.
Smith clearly died in agony from this method. Lethal injection was also promoted as painless, which it would be in theory and was not in practice for the same fundamental issue that the whole death penalty process involves incompetent people fucking up because competent people won't take part in it.
I can't pick a method when it is guaranteed to be horrible because of the context of the death penalty.
I will gladly pick a method or two for people who want to be euthanized and participate willingly. Those same methods will always be torture to someone who does not want to die as long as incompetent people are running the show.
All options do not require a medical professional to administer. It does not take someone with a doctor's knowledge or skill to make an airproof chamber. It won't take a doctor to set up a system to add air to the chamber. You don't need to be a doctor to rig a way to flood the chamber with another gas and remove the oxygen. Non-doctors can wheel him in, strapped to a bed. Then the regular pre-PhD's can operate the system. Now the scientists and engineers to design this death trap may have doctorates, but they don't need medical licenses. Design it well enough and a chimp or small child can operate the chamber controls. You will need a medical professional to declare death, though.
Hard to design a system that can be operated by a chimp when the people actually designing and implementing the process are clearly incompetent.
If they don't have a medical professional monitoring the person's oxygen levels to ensure he is dying as fast as it is supposed to work, how will they know if their made up bullshit about it being humane when forced upon someone is accurate?
Imagine if they were putting a free diver or other person who has practiced holding their breath for extended periods of time, how would they know if it was even working without monitoring them?
The states that execute people have lied about every prior method being 'humane' and non of them ever were in practice on someone who did not want to die. The electric chair supposedly killed the person instantly, but that was a lie. Lethal injection was supposed to be putting someone to sleep and described in the same way as nitrogen, but that was clearly a lie in practice because the people that do it are incompetent.
Quoting an article about safe use of nitrogen, it is odorless, tasteless, and colorless. At extreme low levels of oxygen, nitrogen can cause unconsciousness and death in seconds and without warning.
I'm not talking about the chimps who executed this guy designing the system, I'm talking about qualified scientists designing it. The beauty is, you don't need a medical doctor to monitor oxygen levels if you rapidly remove the oxygen and add nitrogen. Send in slightly chilled nitrogen and the air will rise above it. Relief valve up top spits out the oxygen. Homeboy is unconsciousness before he realizes why the air just got cold.
The freediver will hold his breath confidently for four minutes, exhale, suck in pure nitrogen, and be out in a breath or two.
I agree that the state does lie and incompetently kills people, but we can design a system that does it well. I just don't agree they should ever use it.
Which qualified scientists designed this system?
No idea, I was discussing hypotheticals.
Why bother? People are being put to death in the real world where competent people are not involved in executions.
Well you said you didn't want to pick an execution method because they all needed medical doctors, so I proposed a situation that doesn't require one except to declare death. But good point, we'll only pick up this discussion after you break in and rip the mask off the next execution victim.
No, your proposal would still need a doctor.
The only thing that wouldn't is a guillotine.
I disagree, you wouldn't need a medical doctor in my proposal except to declare death.
Your proposal is unicorns and rainbows fantasy land bullshit.
I disagree to this as well.