Untested drug cocktails from secret sources leads to tortuous executions in Oklahoma

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These hospital-type settings of modern execution chambers were created for the comfort of the spectators, not the condemned.

I’m against capital punishment, but barring a ban I say we bring back the headsman’s axe. If you’re bloodthirsty enough to demand an execution then you should have to see the actual blood.

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Not that I’m trying to brainstorm a new or better execution method, but what would happen if they first sedated people as if for an operation?

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Tortuous and torturous as well. I’m sure that, in short order, they’ll prove to be tortious too.

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My friend suggested a quite humane (in the sense of no pain and little discomfort) execution method, which is unfortunately also extremely horrific: strap the condemned person flat on a platform in a small room and then drop a large 1000-ton block onto them from a great height. It’s basically guaranteed to completely annihilate them in a matter of microseconds, which is faster than the pain can register. Apart from a small nuclear or fuel-air incendiary bomb, there’s not much guaranteed to be that fast.

But of course, it would be too horrible to implement. Personally I don’t see why we don’t use an inert gas, optionally combined with a mild sedative or euphoric, to displace the oxygen in the room. It would be more pleasant than poison, which we seem obsessed with. I think we just have a psychological need to administer a killing blow; painless asphyxiation is too close to mere deprivation.

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They do. They use sodium thiopental which is an anesthetic.

Presumably, that is one of the chemicals Europe is no longer selling to the US, though I don’t know for sure.

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Yes, the idea that people want to go and watch another human being die and then… they are upset by the fact that the death was unpleasant?

The idea that people being sentenced to death, who live for days, weeks and years with their executions hanging over their heads, who are marched ceremoniously to their own deaths are not meant to suffer is preposterous.

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I hate the idea of the death penalty, but I agree. Sadly, I think a lot of the people that like the death penalty would like it more if it were bloodier :frowning:

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I’m not sure how you would “test” drugs that are intended to kill.

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Man, you put it that way and the Death Penalty seems positively barbaric…

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How about we have a moratorium on executions until we can assure 100% judicial accuracy. By which I mean, forever.

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And, as Ned Stark said, the one handing down the sentence should swing the sword.

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I’m sure Walter White could hook them up.

If you want to know how these drugs are tested, you need look no further than the very article we are discussing.

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If you’re talking about a person who raped and murdered an 11 month old baby, some sickos would probably buy tickets to see that execution. Heck, they’d probably set up NASCAR-style vendor booths as well.

The untested drugs had nothing to do with this. His veins collapsed and he had a heart attack. The same thing can happen to you in the hospital getting an IV put in.

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Oh. Just a coincidence then? Well, that’s a relief. On with the show!

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You can say this without knowing what the drug was, what dosage was given to him, his medical history, or really anything else? Can assure us from with good evidence or at least from a position of strong authority that it is literally impossible for a substance, having been injected into your veins, to trigger your veins to collapse through any bodily process? If not, your claim is baseless nonsense.

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What’s wrong with a bullet to the brain stem? Pretty much instant, and costs the taxpayer about $0.40. Death is not pleasant. The idea of a humane execution is ludicrous.

Personally, I’d prefer to see people die in the same manner as their victims.

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Not defending the state from this, as I’m massively anti state-killing in my name, but it’s really hard to get people to feel sympathy for someone who kidnapped, raped, buried alive, and then raped the friend of the first victim in front of the first victim while still having her be buried. To a large number of people in this country, this execution was God’s way of not letting the guy off peaceably.

So it’s going to be very hard to change the conversation when a large amount of the people involved absolutely are thrilled it happened this way.

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