They’re going to be terrified regardless of what you plan to do. Would the guillotine be better if he was wailing and crying and thrashing the entire time you try to shove his head in the thing? If the condemned doesn’t want to go quietly, they won’t go quietly.
I agree. So did the French Republic, up until around 1870, IIRC. It’s unmistakably gory, but does seem like the most humane way of killing an unwilling person (insofar as such an act can be considered humane).
Yes, because you’re not asking him to stop holding his breath to essentially kill himself, you’re not asking a non-medical person to try and find a vein, you’re not asking non-medical people to try and properly administer a fatal drug cocktail.
My assumption is that a condemned person will wail and cry and thrash no matter what the method, because they’re human and will resist being killed to the very end. So, that will always be the same. Now, what happens next – do you require him to participate by not holding his breath? Do you accidentally deliver the drugs in the wrong order, so that he’s conscious when he’s paralyzed and can’t breathe? Or, do you just lop off his head, quick and easy, much less room for error?
The air I’m currently breathing (and yours as well, one presumes) is 80% by volume of this same “gas that will kill you.”
It is of course impossible to know what the condemned was thinking. But the process of breathing is automatic and involuntary; holding the breath is a conscious and voluntary act.
We can only assume that nobody told him that holding his breath results in the most suffering, and breathing normally involves least suffering. Or, if he was so advised, then he did it anyway as a final FU to the system. People do that, and it can’t be helped.
I do think people ought to be advised that breath-holding is both futile and extremely uncomfortable, while breathing normally involves the least suffering. Then they have the information they need on how to best spend their final moments.
Wow. That’s really fucking deep. Did you know that you need water to live, but if you were held under it for too long, it would kill you? It’s true!
[bolding mine]
I think that assumes facts not in evidence.
It’s very difficult to predict how people who are not well trained in facing death might behave when facing death.
I don’t need to ask him to stop holding his breath, he’ll do that all on his own. A person choosing to hold their breath as long as they can is not me inflicting cruel and inhumane punishment any more than a person choosing to thrash before his guillotining is being inhumanely treated when we have to physically strap him to a board for the execution.
If the condemned wants to make it an ugly scene, they will make it an ugly scene regardless of the method. Their choice to make it ugly doesn’t make the method inherently flawed.
There’s a reasonable question to be asked: what effect, if any, can a condemned person have on the actual ‘pathophysiology’ of their death with each of the various respective options?
I might argue that things like a guillotine or a bullet aren’t altered much by strenuous resistance. The resistance will still be present, but in what way does it alter how that person’s death actually plays out?
“We’re going to need you to breathe deeply and calmly, knowing that doing so will kill you” seems like an unrealistic request. Maybe we could ask them to drink some poison instead.
Yes, of course they’re going to resist and thrash, but the terror of knowing your next breath will actually kill you seems unnecessarily cruel to me.
What’s wrong with the guillotine? Doesn’t require any action on the condemned’s part, and will definitely get the job done quickly and painlessly.
Absolutely nothing. Besides the killing part.
But all executions require the participation of the condemned, unless you’ve neatly bundled the guy up like a burrito pre-execution. In the past you required people to stand for the firing squad or hanging, or sit while getting strapped into the electric chair, or gurney. Stay still while the tech tries to find a vein, or breathe after the cyanide gas is released. If a person accepts their fate, it goes easy, if they don’t it goes hard, for ALL of the methods.
This makes sense, I have worked with nitrogen for many years and have dangerously close to being overcome several times. It was the same every time. I started feeling a little light headed and spots or stars were flickering in my vision. Almost exactly the same feeling one might get when hiking at high altitudes without having acclimated. I cannot imagine him being conscious for very long if the concentration of nitrogen was high enough. How could he possibly remain conscious without O2? He had to be holding his breath
Puts me in mind of the science fiction short story “A Cup of Hemlock” by Lee Killough.
In which an imprisoned man is condemned to death on a specified date: a cup of hemlock is placed in his cell and he is ordered to drink it on that date. He challenges his captors, asking what will happen if he refuses to drink it; will the guards come in and force it down his throat, or execute him in another way? His captors are shocked and explain that they are a non-violent society so of course nothing of the sort would be done to him. On his execution day he sees that no one in fact is going to force him to drink the poison and by the evening he throws it at the wall in contempt. And then he realizes it’s past dinnertime and no one has brought him his usual meal, and when he tries his sink, water no longer flows from the tap…
If we’re concerned about the emotional distress experienced by the condemned as they are being executed no matter how painlessly, that distress began the moment they were arrested for a capital crime. I won’t suggest we stop the pursuit of murders until the state stops killing those convicted of it, but.
As a deterrent it never worked very well, no matter how horrible. People can be heartless killers, or worse: they can be stupid. True Crime shows are rife with husbands who expect the police to believe that serial killers roam the land, killing women in nice neighborhoods (instead of the neighborhoods where street prostitutes work).
Impulse murderers generally don’t get the death penalty. Killers who plan it out and do it relatively calmly are “the worst of the worst.” If capital punishment wasn’t a consideration during the planning, what good is it?
Of course cops, DAs, skitterish seniors, and frat bros all like it, which should make it suspicious.
DNA, forensic science, millions of cameras everywhere: these have provided better deterrence than execution. Also social improvements may explain why Dutchmen don’t kill each other as much as Texans kill each other. And isn’t that another whole can of worms (which, incidentally, was another form of execution).
Personally, I’d prefer that death only be a potential sentence in threats to the State. So treason, sedition, espionage, probably terrorism, crimes like that. Not murder, not even mass shooting (unless tied to a terrorism charge), not rape, and basically not anything that’s effectively just a crime of one person against another. Though there are definitely times I wish death could be considered for white collar crime.
I’m still having trouble reconciling the Smith execution with the peace promised (and witnessed) of suicide in the Sarco pod. Witnesses said Smith was not holding his breath.
Mr. Smith clenched his fists and his legs shook. As Mr. Smith gasped for air, his body lifted against the restraints.
[Bolding is mine.]
Rev. Jeff Hood, Smith’s spiritual advisor, said,
His chest moved up and down with gusto. He was clearly trying to breathe.
And then there’s the AVMA’s stance:
The American Veterinary Medical Association has declared that nitrogen gas is inappropriate for euthanizing most animals. Its guidelines provide, “Current evidence indicates this method is unacceptable because animals may experience distressing side effects before loss of consciousness.”
Smith was breathing, Smith was convulsing and retching, nitrogen causes distressing side effects in animals
VERSUS
The Sarco Pod is a peaceful, painless mechanism for suicide, one that may cause the occupant to feel euphoria for a short time before passing out and passing on.
How do we reconcile all this?
How nitrogen asphyxiation affects humans is different from how it affects many/most animal species.
Our sense of suffocation is mostly tied to CO2 levels in the blood rather than lack of oxygen.
It works differently for several non-human species, many of which can directly sense the lack of oxygen and for which nitrogen asphyxiation would be deeply unpleasant.
Well, for one, he wasn’t in one of those pods. They put a mask on him which supplied nitrogen.
The people who do go in the pods want to be in there. Unlike some animals, nitrogen actually can be such a peaceful way to go for humans to the extent that it is dangerous for us to be in an environment high in nitrogen - we can accidentally die without realizing we’re even in any trouble.
But he didn’t really want to go and Alabama officials probably didn’t really think much on how to implement it in a good way. Looks like they thought just masking him and having positive pressure would be enough. Quite apparently, it didn’t go quite the way they advertised.
It’s what some of us were noting in the early part of this thread - that we didn’t really trust Alabama officials to properly implement nitrogen asphyxiation.
Thank you. That was very helpful.
I guess as a PSA, this is why home carbon monoxide detectors are important - and not running gas engines in enclosed spaces like garages or other covered/enclosed structures.
Unlike carbon dioxide, we don’t notice carbon monoxide for the same reason we don’t notice nitrogen and can easily suffocate without even realizing it.
As I was out walking my dog this morning, I was thinking more about this aspect.
Along with what I said about facing death if you’re not well trained in facing death, what you said seems important to me.
People looking to voluntarily end their own lives are training. They are considering their exigent circumstances – often daily, and for years – and generally – IMHO – find significant solace in the notion that their chosen exit method … will end their suffering.
To me, it really cannot be overstated how diametrically different this would be from a prisoner who may be possessed of rebellion, anger, defiance, fear, rage … or an animal in a laboratory, biologically and primordially wired for survival … or anybody else whose mindset was survival, rather than deliverance or relief.
To me, that really is a form of training for that most unusual point in one’s life.