I’m 100% against the death penalty, however I would question whether the condemned man actually suffered here. I think when Dignitas give terminally ill people barbiturate overdoses in Switzerland for voulantry euthanasia, it’s often the case that the dying person there also snores or gasps for 45 minutes to an hour whilst unconscious, before passing. In that context, it’s not deemed cruel and unusual punishment. I believe it is possible to be cruel in the failure to set the IV properly, so that the botched injection causes injury and pain. Gasping alone doesn’t show that the condemned man suffered, although it must surely traumatise the witnesses. If you put someone on a ventilator and gave them the same injection, how long would it take them to wake up naturally? I think a lot more than 2 hours
I have often struggled to explain my opinion of capital punishment, but I think you articulated it perfectly.
And to contribute to the discussion, I believe there are a few states that still let the condemned choose firing squad. Wikipedia tells me it’s Oklahoma and Utah. Apparently Missouri is also considering it.
I wonder if a firing squad option would make a capital punishment supporter more or less in favor?
Just use that little toy from “No Country for Old Men.” I’m sure Mr. Chigurh would lend it out.
Totally agree, if after all you rally do want the state to murder people, at least have the decency to be quick. N2 sounds humane, or I always thought having my head splatted by an industrial steam hammer would be too quick to notice - if very messy.
Doesn’t solve the problems of frequent miscarriages of justice, the cost of the appeals and admin, the harm to those who have to do the killing, the undermining of the moral position of the state, or the disproportionate racial profile of those sentenced though…
I used to agree with you very much. There are criminals who simply deserve to die. The problem is, we suck at figuring out which ones they are. Sometimes we kill innocent people. It was the hard statistics on race that changed my mind for good. The capital punishment system will always be evil, because it allows mere humans to decide.
Not trying to oppose your statement in general. We Americans do love complicated machines, and have decided to overcomplicate something that really shouldn’t be done at all - certainly not dishonestly.
Anyway, I just popped in to let you know that India, for one, has successfully used voting machines since 2004. They’re even battery-powered so they can be used rurally, and include pictograms for people who can’t read. When done right, EVM’s are a good thing.
And I keep thinking (as a licensed veterinarian), “How fucking difficult can it be? We’ve got drugs that reliably, safely, and comfortably euthanize pets.”. These are not “secret cocktails”, but rather well known barbituates etc… Human physiology is not so different that any of the widely commercially available drugs designed exactly for this purpose in the veterinary world wouldn’t work well without all this horrible guesswork.
Heck, I even know of one veterinarian (sadly who suffered from rather severe depression), who catheterized himself, and hooked that up to a bag of saline which he had added a massive dose of “Beuthanasia-D” solution to. It certainly did the job, and if descriptions from those who found him, did not appear to have caused anything other than a peaceful death.
I’d have imagined that a firing squad was the preferred method. Americans like guns, and shooting people, what’s not to like?
(tongue slightly in cheek)
I’m also against the death penalty, although not in principle. There are certainly crimes that deserve it. But I can’t think of a justice system that I trust to carry it out. You can’t unkill someone if you get the wrong person.
I’m from Texas, and I have loads of friends and family who support it. But when I’ve asked, most of them would replace it with true “life without parole” if they believed that there as truly no chance of parole. As one of them told me yesterday “The only people who will really never get out are the kids who sold pot three times.” When I mentioned that this same system is who they’re trusting with life and death, I got a “Hmmmm.” Seed planted?
Thanks for that - I did not know India used voting machines. I stand corrected.
This author was just interviewed this morning on NPR:
Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty: Austin Sarat
The book summarizes his review of all executions in the US since the 1800’s. It sounds like there is a higher rate of botched lethal injections than seen with the other (problematic) methods of execution.
The interview is here:
Death Penalty Expert On Why Lethal Injection Is So Problematic : NPR
Beuthanasia, after some googling consists at least in part of pentobarbital. Which is the exact drug not available to those hobby pharmacists. So I guess they had been using those methods, lost them, then started their guesswork. Because nothing could possibly be worse than staying this vitally important execution until better methods are established.
My suggestion is also to just stop fucking murdering murderers you murdering fucks.
Because it’s not reliable. Most people in prison have a history of abusing drugs or alcohol or both. Some of these can have an extremely high tolerance. Also, a morphine OD would not be clean - it would at first cause severe vomiting in many.
Pharmacist here. Hospice patients are different from the average criminal on death row. Elderly/debilitated people are more vulnerable to respiratory depression from opioids and benzodiazepines and are frequently unofficially “euthanized” when their doses are jacked up slightly. Contrast with a young to middle-aged person in relative good health (usually), who is likely to have a history of drug/alcohol abuse, and increased tolerance as a result. The right dose would be harder to land on, and they are less likely to go gently.
What about folks who stop breathing on heroin. I’ve seen that happen more than once, and it always seemed pretty peaceful, if you ignore the poverty/class and drug issues.
Well, that was Nazi science and thus obviously wrong, like their findings about the dangers of smoking and how to build rockets.
A firing squad? Why not a bullet directly through the head? Too messy? Too traumatizing for the killer?
Of course, the American way would be to auction off the right to execute someone.
Heroin = morphine. Same issues.
Basically: yes.
If you read the NYTimes Article that @anon41912231 was good enough to find, you’ll find out that the originator of the three-drug protocol was chief medical examiner in Oklahoma at the time he developed it (in 1977). He came up with the plan in response to request:
State lawmakers had asked him if there was a more humane way to execute people than methods like electrocution and the firing squad.
So, state lawmakers wanted a “more humane” method of dispatching people. Considering the fact that they already knew the error rates on suicide by drug versus gun, they weren’t really asking for something truly humane, just something apparently more humane, and with the best likelihood of working the first time around.
Remember - in the states, first there was hanging, then firing squad, then there was electrocution, and then drugs via gas chamber or injection. It’s all a horrible effort to remove the people performing the act from the death itself. Electrocution, now considered torturous, was developed as a more humane method of killing to replace hanging - which at that point was considered wrong due to failed executions.
There is no reason to hide the brutality of a state-ordered death. I’m relieved to live in a state with a moratorium on executions, and hope we will nationally cease this act in my lifetime.
