# Alabama retries failed execution with untried method (nitrogen)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [January 24, 2024, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572 "2024-01-24T01:40:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 16
### Author:  [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2024, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/301 "2024-04-12T19:29:17Z")
Do they have to be done in a vein? I believe that’s a problem a lot of the time
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### Author:  [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2024, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/302 "2024-04-12T22:13:36Z")
Wait a minute here. The body’s main desire to breath is to expel CO. Breathing in nitrogen sould not be a problem, nor cause pain.
You should just pass out and, well die in an enviornment without O2.
Or, dopers, correct me.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2024, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/303 "2024-04-12T22:30:28Z")
Workers who succumb to nitrogen in confined spaces die quietly because they are unaware. People committing suicide by nitrogen die peacefully because it’s what they want, compared to their terminal condition. Unrepentant murderers might be expected to give an entirely different performance.
I’ve done incident reports of guys who survived on the job nitrogen exposure, and done hospice care with people whose internal organs were being slowly gnawed away by cancer.
John Oliver delivered one of his patented “Holy Shit” reactions to a lawmaker’s being inspired by the BBC documentary “How to Kill a Human Being,” but didn’t show the clip of how effective and painless hypoxia is, because that would unmake his case. Why not just make the better case that the State should not be killing people no matter why or how? Maybe because that’s an argument from reason, not emotion.
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### Author:  [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2024, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/304 "2024-04-13T07:03:51Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> Why not just make the better case that the State should not be killing people no matter why or how?
Well, he did, multiple times in that very segment, in the beginning, middle and end: „What can we do about it? Stop fucking killing people!“
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### Author:  [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2024, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/305 "2024-04-13T12:03:53Z")
Or, if you are told you will be killed by a gas, you will hold your breath, because you have a basic survival instinct.
Why is this so hard to gasp.
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2024, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/306 "2024-04-13T12:21:19Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Did you know it also stops hunger and poverty
The Brits are looking [into this](https://youtu.be/s_4J4uor3JE?si=R4IhFvJfWIEkGluC).
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2024, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/307 "2024-04-13T21:24:29Z")
I thought your link was to this:
> **[Jonathan Swift. A Modest Proposal](https://extra.shu.ac.uk/emls/iemls/resour/mirrors/rbear/modest.html)**
>
> Jonathan Swift. A Modest Proposal
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2024, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/308 "2024-04-14T10:33:28Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#):
>
> Torturing someone because you cannot be bothered to organize an execution **properly** is some Kafkaesque Nazi nightmare shit.
No such thing. EVERY execution that has or ever will take place is morally wrong, and I do not exempt the three that were alleged to have been carried out on Golgotha a couple of millennia ago.
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### Author:  [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2024, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/309 "2024-04-14T10:38:23Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#):
>
> if you are told you will be killed by a gas, you will hold your breath
This is why you start with regular air, and tell him it’s regular air, then introduce the nitrogen without telling him “Breathe normally, here comes the death gas!”
Or don’t do it at all, that’s even easier.
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### Author:  [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2024, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/310 "2024-04-15T11:36:10Z")
> [@nelliebly](#):
>
> From the accounts I’ve read, Smith was conscious for several minutes. Can someone hold their breath that long, especially given the agonies he was experiencing? (I really don’t know.)
It’s painful, but yes. The buildup of CO2 in your lungs drives the compulsion to inhale fresh air, but if that discomfort (which eventually becomes agony) can be resisted, there is enough oxygen in your lungs to sustain you for a disturbingly long time.
If Smith truly was conscious for several minutes, then it’s because he was holding his breath.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2024, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/311 "2024-04-15T11:56:06Z")
> [@asterion](#):
>
> I think it’s fair to be totally against the death penalty. I think it’s fair to be generally against the death penalty with some exceptions. But I’m tired of reading arguments from people against this execution method that are lies.
I agree it’s extremely tiresome for people to approach something well known to be safe and painless and present it as the most lurid part of an MSDS sheet.
My cousin did assisted suicide in Switzerland with one of [these nitrogen pods.](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59577162). If there were the slightest chance of distress, she wouldn’t have done it and nobody would’ve permitted it. By observers accounts, she promptly and peacefully lost consciousness, and her 20-year struggle with severe intractable pain was ended.
Separately from whatever you think of execution as a category, nitrogen execution is just fine. The only monstrous people here are the ones opposing a new execution method just because they don’t want new execution methods.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2024, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/312 "2024-04-15T12:03:15Z")
Except we saw it happen, and found out it isn’t painless. The person to be killed will tend to hold their breath. And thus you still get the same build up of carbon dioxide.
We’re not talking about assisted suicide, which involves someone who is willing to die and is coached on how to do it as painlessly as possible.
You can’t have a painless execution method where the person to be killed must participate in their own death.
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### Author:  [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2024, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/313 "2024-04-15T12:11:53Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> The person to be killed will tend to hold their breath.
Honestly, when we talk about cruelty, we don’t often discuss things that 5 year olds do of their own volition when they’re told to eat their vegetables. If this guy was throwing a tantrum on the floor and guards had to wrestle him into place, would that be proof that the execution method was inhumane?
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2024, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/314 "2024-04-15T12:11:56Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> You can’t have a painless execution method where the person to be killed must participate in their own death.
This is the key and what opened my eyes on nitrogen execution. I had heard the stories about people peacefully dying because they didn’t know they were in an all nitrogen environment, but the condemned knows.
Making the condemned participate is horrific.
> [@Cheesesteak](#):
>
> If this guy was throwing a tantrum on the floor and guards had to wrestle him into place, would that be proof that the execution method was inhumane?
ETA: Just saw this. No, we expect someone to resist when they know they’re going to die. But, we shouldn’t make them breathe (or eat or whatever) the poison that will kill them. If we must have the death penalty, just lop off their heads – quick and painless.
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2024, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/315 "2024-04-15T12:15:30Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> Except we saw it happen, and found out it isn’t painless. The person to be killed will tend to hold their breath. And thus you still get the same build up of carbon dioxide.
Nitrogen inhalation caused none of his suffering whatsoever; on the contrary his suffering was relieved when he started inhaling it. He was offered a perfectly painless death and he decided he wanted to do it differently.
One thing that might help with this is, instead of telling the condemned “we’re going to gas you with nitrogen” is “we’re removing all the oxygen from the air.” Equally true, but it will be clear that there’s no resisting it by refusing to breathe the “poison” gas.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2024, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/316 "2024-04-15T12:18:19Z")
As much as I could care less if a criminal is killed during the commission of a crime or during his attempt to avoid arrest, it is a very different matter once he is already in custody and no longer a threat to society. The death penalty says, “Taking the life of another human being is such a heinous crime that our response will be to kill you.” We are intentionally taking a life when there is no longer any need or circumstance to do so. It is revenge, pure and simple.
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### Author:  [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2024, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/317 "2024-04-15T12:25:56Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#):
>
> He was offered a perfectly painless death **and he decided** he wanted to do it differently.
[bolding mine]
I think that assumes facts not in evidence.
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2024, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/318 "2024-04-15T13:00:18Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#):
>
> He was offered a perfectly painless death and he decided he wanted to do it differently.
Pretty tough talk from someone not about to breathe in some gas that will kill you. You know, condemned people are still human, right? They will struggle to stay alive, since that’s that living beings are pretty well programmed to do.
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### Author:  [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2024, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/319 "2024-04-15T13:07:53Z")
> [@RitterSport](#):
>
> If we must have the death penalty, just lop off their heads – quick and painless.
Exactly the sentiment that inspired Joseph Guillotine to invent his eponymous machine.
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### Author:  [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)
#### Post date: [April 15, 2024, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alabama-retries-failed-execution-with-untried-method-nitrogen/996572/320 "2024-04-15T13:10:50Z")
Well, he was right, wasn’t he? Quick, painless, doesn’t require any assistance or involvement from the condemned, doesn’t require a doctor or nurse to find a vein, doesn’t require chemicals that pharma companies don’t want to provide, your spiritual advisor can be right next to you, and so on and so forth.
No downside, other than the mess. Making executions seem painless, sterile, and medical just hides the brutality of it, while risking horrific pain and psychological torture of the condemned. Guillotines get the job done.
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