# A Second Execution Attempt? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 23, 2009, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208 "2009-09-23T07:09:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208/61 "2009-09-26T03:22:55Z")
> [@Critical1](#): > > nah the slow build up of co2 causes you to get sleepy then fall asleep then you simply never wake up. for some goofy reason blood will bond with c02 in preference to oxygen so you dont really realize you are suffocating. its not like getting dropped in a tank of something we cant breathe and gasping for air, you body just keeps on like nothing is going on. Uhh… Really? I think blood bonds with oxygen more easily than carbon dioxide. I’m pretty sure our whole circulatory system is based on that premise. Might you be thinking of carbon _mon_oxide? That would do what you describe, and by all accounts it’s quite a painless death- just dropping off to sleep. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208/62 "2009-09-26T05:18:40Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > It is painless. If it’s a direct headshot \*\*you feel a slight surge of pain Dude, I cannot believe that you typed these words with a straight face. Do you know that the word “painless” means “without pain”? Do you understand that feeling “a slight surge of pain” is not “painless”? WTF? ---
**Author:** ![BomTek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bomtek/32/21364_2.png) [@BomTek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BomTek)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208/63 "2009-09-26T12:52:01Z")
> [@villa](#): > > It wasn’t incomplete, it was utterly wrong. And you compound it. Hang on a second: are you telling me my opinion is wrong or just the argument I used to support it? If you’re doing the former, you’re being asinine… my opinion, being an opinion, is no more wrong than yours. But in my OP, I said the prisoner didn’t suffer an extraordinary level of pain because he only recieved a few needle sticks. I didn’t take the psychological aspect of a failed execution attempt into consideration, which is kind of the \*definition \*of incomplete: lacking a part. On the other hand, I didn’t say anything in my answer to question number 2 that was actually wrong. So if you’re saying that answer was wrong, I can only say this: The prisoner was poked by a needle, which is not painful. Aside from mishandled blood donations, I’ve also had IVs given to me by other bomb technicians in Combat Lifesaver courses. I think I have a fairly low pain tolerance, but even the worst stick I’ve ever been given wasn’t painful as much as it was inconvenient and uncomfortable. I admit that I didn’t take all kinds of pain into account in my OP. If Ohio is the only State that has the requirement for a quick and painless execution, and they are also concerned with the psychological pain involved in telling someone that they are going to kill them, they either need to abolish the death penalty or amend their constitution. > [@villa](#): > > If the constitutional standard is cruel and unusual, which it is, then your lack of concern regarding his feelings don’t come in to play as regards whether the punishment is constitutional. Can you clarify this sentence at all? I just didn’t understand it the way you worded it. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208/64 "2009-09-26T15:47:36Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Dude, I cannot believe that you typed these words with a straight face. > > Do you know that the word “painless” means “without pain”? > > Do you understand that feeling “a slight surge of pain” is not “painless”? WTF? Sorry for my self-contradiction. I should have said it’s less painful then lethal injections going wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208/65 "2009-09-26T16:56:19Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Sorry for my self-contradiction. I should have said it’s less painful then lethal injections going wrong. Well, “less painful” isn’t what the state law mandates. And even properly performed lethal injections aren’t painless. Do you know what many (if not most; can’t find #s on it) states use for lethal injections? Potassium chloride. And it’s not a painless way to go. Remember the guy I mentioned in an earlier post, Fred A Leuchter, Jr.? He for a time designed, built and sold execution machines of varying types. One of those types was a lethal injection machine. > [@](#): > > in 1985 the state of New Jersey purchased Leuchter’s proposal for a lethal injection system for $30,000. > > On October 24, 1990 The New York Times described him as “self-proclaimed execution expert and manufacturer of death machinery” who “was charged today in a Middlesex County District Court with fraudulently practicing engineering.” It quoted Dr. Edward A. Brunner, chairman of the anesthesia department at Northwestern University Medical School, as saying Leuchter’s lethal injection system would indeed paralyze a condemned criminal, **but far from being humane this paralysis would merely stop the prisoner from screaming at the “extreme pain in the form of a severe burning sensation” caused by the potassium chloride injection**. [cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Leuchter) So even when done properly, lethal injections cause pain, and Ohio state law specifically forbids an execution method which is not “quick and painless”. Not “mostly painless” or “somewhat painless” or “less painful than a lot of other ways”, but “painless”, no qualifiers. Frankly, the easiest way to fix this problem is to remove that language from Ohio state law. But who wants to stand before the citizenry and advocate a painful execution method? I certainly wouldn’t vote for anyone who wanted that, and I suspect most people would feel the same. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208/66 "2009-09-26T20:38:41Z")
Actually, I don’t think that a bullet directly to the head would cause any physiological pain at all, not even a short surge of it. A high-powered bullet travels faster than a nerve impulse, meaning that the brain would be destroyed before the pain signals from the breached skin or whatever could reach it. The reason we don’t use a bullet to the brain is not that it’s inhumane, but that it’s messy. And the fact that we choose execution methods by how messy they are, in preference to how humane they are, should give us all pause. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208/67 "2009-09-27T01:56:59Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Well, “less painful” isn’t what the state law mandates. And even properly performed lethal injections aren’t painless. Do you know what many (if not most; can’t find #s on it) states use for lethal injections? Potassium chloride. And it’s not a painless way to go. > > Remember the guy I mentioned in an earlier post, Fred A Leuchter, Jr.? He for a time designed, built and sold execution machines of varying types. One of those types was a lethal injection machine. > > [cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Leuchter) > > So even when done properly, lethal injections cause pain, and Ohio state law specifically forbids an execution method which is not “quick and painless”. Not “mostly painless” or “somewhat painless” or “less painful than a lot of other ways”, but “painless”, no qualifiers. > > Frankly, the easiest way to fix this problem is to remove that language from Ohio state law. But who wants to stand before the citizenry and advocate a painful execution method? I certainly wouldn’t vote for anyone who wanted that, and I suspect most people would feel the same. Not really, I think. Most members of the Silent Majority/the Middle Class/Hillary Clinton Democrats probably don’t care if a some guy who raped, tortured, and murdered a young girl is shot or lethally injected or quartered or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208/68 "2009-09-27T02:02:32Z")
> [@Curtis LeMay](#): > > Not really, I think. Most members of the Silent Majority/the Middle Class/Hillary Clinton Democrats probably don’t care if a some guy who raped, tortured, and murdered a young girl is shot or lethally injected or quartered or whatever. First, do you have a cite to back up that opinion with anything? I doubt it. Second, I do have a cite to back up my opinion; it’s called the 8th Amendment to the U.S Constitution, and has not been changed or repealed in over 225 years. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208/69 "2009-09-27T02:11:29Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > First, do you have a cite to back up that opinion with anything? I doubt it. > > Second, I do have a cite to back up my opinion; it’s called the 8th Amendment to the U.S Constitution, and has not been changed or repealed in over 225 years. Painful does not equal cruel and unusual punishment. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208/70 "2009-09-27T04:10:26Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > Uhh… Really? I think blood bonds with oxygen more easily than carbon dioxide. I’m pretty sure our whole circulatory system is based on that premise. Might you be thinking of carbon _mon_oxide? That would do what you describe, and by all accounts it’s quite a painless death- just dropping off to sleep. monoxide, dioxide, one of those silly oxides. yeah it would be the one that makes you sleepy and then dead. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208/71 "2009-09-27T04:42:11Z")
> [@Critical1](#): > > monoxide, dioxide, one of those silly oxides. > > yeah it would be the one that makes you sleepy and then dead. They will both kill you due to lack of oxygen. Nighty night, sleepy sleepy… dead. The diference here is the prisoner goes out peacefully versus all the fun ways everybody else experiences. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-second-execution-attempt/511208.md?page=3)