Slashdot Mirror
Controversial Execution In Ohio Uses New Lethal Drug Combination
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "CNN reports that Ohio inmate Dennis McGuire appeared to gasp and convulse for roughly 10 minutes before he finally died during his execution by lethal injection using a new combination of drugs. The new drugs were used because European-based manufacturers banned U.S. prisons from using their drugs in executions — among them, Danish-based Lundbeck, which manufactures pentobarbital. The state used a combination of the drugs midazolam, a sedative, and the painkiller hydromorphone, the state corrections department told CNN. In an opinion piece written for CNN earlier this week, a law professor noted that McGuire's attorneys argued he would 'suffocate to death in agony and terror.' 'The state disagrees. But the truth is that no one knows exactly how McGuire will die, how long it will take or what he will experience in the process,' wrote Elisabeth A. Semel, clinic professor of law and director of the Death Penalty Clinic at U.C. Berkeley School of Law. According to a pool report from journalists who witnessed the execution, the whole process took more than 15 minutes, during which McGuire made 'several loud snorting or snoring sounds.' Allen Bohnert, a public defender who lead McGuire's appeal to stop his execution in federal court on the grounds that the drugs would cause undue agony and terror, called the execution process a 'failed experiment' and said his office will look into what happened. 'The people of the state of Ohio should be appalled by what took place here today in their name.'"
So ignoring for a minute all the ethical questions etc, just thinking about the process. I do not have medical training, but I have always wondered why they can't just use the drugs used for general anesthetic in general surgeries? Put someone under with those, then you can stop their heart painlessly when they're unconscious. Certainly there is a large supply of those drugs around.
Hasn't this been a solved problem for a hundred years or so?
There's a reason that independent third parties adjudicate trials and not friends and family of the victim and accused.
I guess I should be appalled, but.. the dude slaughtered a pregnant girl; I don't care how he died exactly at all. In fact, I'm going to consider this a successful QA test and move on.
An eye for an eye, and the whole world is blind.
But more unpleasant than I'd expect a civilized society to behave. There's a reason people have generally looked up to the US. This sort of thing is not exactly America's proudest achievement, and history will not look kindly upon the quantity and manner of execution.
false equivilancy. This man might be a monster, but we are not. We are civilized. We are not going to torture people out of revenge or for any other reason.
The purpose of criminal justice is to keep bad people from harming society. Not to make us feel better, with some feel good violence or torture.
Please keep your biblical eye for and eye type mentality out of my country. Or go move to some country like saudia arabia
Since innocent people end up on death-row and are frequently exonnerated by DNA or new evidence, then how can it be logical to maintain a death penalty? If you're going to say "well, maybe .1% of the time an innocent person is put to death but it's for the greater good", then how about you line up to be the next .1%?
Screw morphine. I've wondered why we don't just use nitrogen to suffocate them. There is no suffocation reflex, because the body's suffocation reflex is based on overabundance of CO2, not underabundance of O2. It's completely painless - they pass out within a minute and never wake up. In the oil and shipping industries we have "Nitrogen: The Silent Killer" posters plastered everywhere in enclosed at-risk spaces. I never understood why we deal with expensive drug cocktails when we have tanks of simple N2 ready to be used.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Suffocation through nitrogen is the answer. The body doesn't build up CO2 (which is the cause of unpleasantness when holding ones breath). Pain free execution.
Oh yes, it's much better to put the vicious murderer in prison for 60 years or so, at $75,000+ a year.
Considering the whole appeals process ends up costing more than life in prison, yes, that would be better.
Exactly this. I'm only a second year med student and even I could tell you that trying to kill someone with the mixture of drugs in the summary would be a really ugly process. I'm pretty sure we can't use propofol for the same reason we can't use the pentobarbital mentioned in the summary, but honestly a regular dose of propofol to knock someone unconscious plus a pneumatic piston like we use to humanely kill food animals would be the obvious option. Sure it makes a bigger mess, but it's WAY more humane for the person being executed, the one who were trying to protect from unnecessary cruelty and suffering. Propofol plus guillotine works well too. As it turns out medical science knows a lot more about reliably making people unconscious with drugs than about reliably killing them with drugs. Given that, if the killing is to happen, it should be done with something we know works reliably and quickly.
"Thou shall not kill" is a bad interpretation of the commandment. The original text uses the word for "murder" as in "no killing an innocent person". Executions for punishment are not uncommon in the Bible.
It ain't just about the victim's family, asshole - it's so that he can never do the same crime again, and we don't have to bear the cost of his remaining days.
Bullshit. LWOP is cheaper than capital punishment. Fact.
It's got nothing to do with public safety and fuck all to with economics. It's about retribution, satisfying the bloodlust of an angry mob. Capital punishment is lynch-mob justice. It's expensive, ineffective, and barbaric. Period.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
And you're an animal for saying so, and should also die.
See how easy that is?
I'm all for putting violent animals out of our misery...
An unfortunate reality. In terms Slashdot understands, it's why you don't let your PC technicians take home bad hardware -- suddenly you'd have a lot more "bad" hardware cropping up.
we are all humans and we know what justice is. If a person did something horrible, then yes it's justice to do it back to them.
So how does your definition of justice differ from your definition of revenge?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Personally, I'd like to see hanging make a comeback.
It's still acceptable in Washington. Firing Squads are acceptable in Utah.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
I agree, All this injection stuff is to spare OUR feelings, not the prisoner's. If we were so concerned about humane execution we would use the guillotine. But that is messy and prevents us from pretending we aren't killing a person. If the person deserves it, let's at least be grown up enough to be honest about it.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Money's a bad consideration. Death Row inmates cost more than regular life-sentence inmates to house.
Goddammit just when I get my first +5 the Beta rolls out and kills everything
The rack was cruel. Crucifixion was cruel. Beheading with an axe was, well, hit or miss.
You're right. Cruelty is relative. One could even make a case that incarceration for life is cruel... but that would lead to silly (and dangerous) ideas.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Beheading with an axe was, well, hit or miss.
My mod points don't give me an option for "worst joke ever".
...Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed.
gas chambers of all types are dangerous,
Nitrogen doesn't need a "gas chamber". Just a mask and reservoir bag (aka non-rebreather mask). Cost: $20 for the disposable mask. A few bucks per cubic metre for high-grade nitrogen. (I'd also add a bubbler to remove any odours, and warm and humidify the gas.)
a fixed aim bench rifle of sufficient bore directly to the head
Judging from bolt-guns at slaughterhouses, there's an error rate. And the result of an error is nasty. (Whereas if the nitrogen doesn't work, it just doesn't work.)
This is the problem with all methods of execution. The guillotine sometimes wouldn't cut all the way through. The noose wouldn't break their neck (or the rope would break). The cyanide wouldn't release properly. The electric chair wouldn't make proper contact through the skin, burning them alive instead of instantly electrocuting them. And sometimes the anaesthetic doses for lethal injection go wrong, so the person wakes up as the kill-you-horribly part is injected; or they use the wrong drugs. This the advantage of nitrogen, anything less than a kill is benign.
or we could just make life without parole the top possible penalty and save a ton of money AND make errors more reversible
Or that.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
The only downside i've really seen to the process is how they keep executing people who eventually turned out to be innocent
If that's not a dealbreaker in your opinion, there's something very wrong with you.