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States Turn To an Unproven Method of Execution: Nitrogen Gas (nytimes.com)
States are reportedly turning to nitrogen gas to carry out the death penalty. "Oklahoma, Alabama and Mississippi have authorized nitrogen for executions and are developing protocols to use it, which represents a leap into the unknown," reports The New York Times. "There is no scientific data on executing people with nitrogen, leading some experts to question whether states, in trying to solve old problems, may create new ones." Slashdot reader schwit1 shares an excerpt from a report via The New York Times: What little is known about human death by nitrogen comes from industrial and medical accidents and its use in suicide. In accidents, when people have been exposed to high levels of nitrogen and little air in an enclosed space, they have died quickly. In some cases co-workers who rushed in to rescue them also collapsed and died. Nitrogen itself is not poisonous, but someone who inhales it, with no air, will pass out quickly, probably in less than a minute, and die soon after -- from lack of oxygen. The same is true of other physiologically inert gases, including helium and argon, which kill only by replacing oxygen.
Death from nitrogen is thought to be painless. It should prevent the condition that causes feelings of suffocation: the buildup of carbon dioxide from not being able to exhale. Humans are highly sensitive to carbon dioxide -- too much brings on the panicky feeling of not being able to breathe. Somewhat surprisingly, the lack of oxygen doesn't trigger that same reflex. Someone breathing pure nitrogen can still exhale carbon dioxide and therefore should not have the sensation of smothering.
Death from nitrogen is thought to be painless. It should prevent the condition that causes feelings of suffocation: the buildup of carbon dioxide from not being able to exhale. Humans are highly sensitive to carbon dioxide -- too much brings on the panicky feeling of not being able to breathe. Somewhat surprisingly, the lack of oxygen doesn't trigger that same reflex. Someone breathing pure nitrogen can still exhale carbon dioxide and therefore should not have the sensation of smothering.
That word doesn't mean what they think it means.
Because cavemen. And also lying about it, because "punishment" is something you can walk away from. This is revenge and savagery.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Life in prison with no possibility of parole. That is 1/4 the cost, much more humane, and can be reversed if you realize you made a mistake such as crooked forensic scientists getting caught faking the data or police detectives forcing fake confessions. These things happen and it is much easier to say, "oops sorry" when the person is still alive.
The death penalty DOES NOT reduce crime.
The problem comes with the name. What do you call a nitrogen gas execution chamber?
Obviously, a "gas chamber". That term has some baggage.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
With life imprisonment as the other option, it is far more humane. That would be true if we had Swedish prisons, which are practically luxury apartments. Being caged and isolated do severe damage to the human psyche. The only legit moral issue with the death penalty is that it's imperative to be completely sure you have a guilty man; admittedly, our system is awful at this.
It's strange that places that have the highest distrust of government also are cool with the government executing people. Just yesterday, there was a story of a guy who was on death row for 16 years before he was completely exonerated. I would think that just one of those cases would be enough so that anyone with a moral compass would oppose the death penalty. But if there's one thing we know, it's that Americans love seeing people get kilt and they love feeling self-righteous, so that makes for a lethal combination. People in red states seem to love giving their governments the ultimate power over life and death.
Fortunately, there's absolutely nothing in Oklahoma, Alabama, or Mississippi that anyone here would want, so this only affects the poor folks who live there. But it does explain why they're at the bottom of almost every state ranking of quality of life.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The only legit moral issue with the death penalty is that it's imperative to be completely sure you have a guilty man; admittedly, our system is awful at this.
Death penalty or not, the system should not convict the innocent at all. I makes me sad how many people harp on death penalty while happily allowing confessions and eye witnesses to be used at trials. Those have been proven to be easily manipulated and directly responsible for imprisoning the innocent. It's as if thousands of lifetimes behind bars is better than even one execution.
There's also the issue of settlements. Those basically allow the rich and powerful to skirt the law because the state can't be bothered to fight it all the way. Meanwhile, the poor with their overworked public defenders don't have the resources to fight the long battle, and, regardless of their innocence, have to settle for a plea bargain.
There's another problem with nitrogen. It's too humane.
If the objective was to simply kill painlessly, all it would need is a couple of bullets to the head. People, though, are bastards. They may talk about 'justice,' but what they really mean is 'vengeance.' The public want a show. The family of any victim want a show. Politicians want a show. Many people will feel physically sickened if they believe the condemned died peacefully, as if the scales remain somehow unbalanced. This is why nitrogen was not introduced as a mean of execution years ago. Not many people are bold enough to openly say they want to see just a little bit of torture first, but it's a very common sentiment.
(emphasis mine)
You hit the nail on the head here. Most death penalty proponents do not want to execute criminals, they want to see what they see as Bad People(tm) suffer. They don't want execution. They want torture, the more horrible the better.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?