I think you don’t want an airtight seal. You want to deliver nitrogen at over atmospheric pressure to keep out atmospheric oxygen, and allow exhaled carbon dioxide to escape, becuse hypercapnia would be the most likely source of respiratory distress. The only way this execution method succeeds and becomes acceptable to anyone is if it’s discernable less distressing and more reliable than current methods.
Does nitrogen enter the body though pores or something? If the mask is properly fitted, and has pure nitrogen gas entering it, in a generous enough amount, the person is going to die.
Not to say it’s 100% foolproof, no method of execution is 100% foolproof. I don’t see any reason to think it’s any less reliable than other methods. Masks are a known technology, nitrogen is cheap and readily available. Prior experience with deaths from nitrogen exposure suggest that it is not obviously violent or painful.
And the unfortunate thing of being in a democracy and living under the rule of law is that other people also get a vote and in the end a judge has to approve stuff.
Hence “doing it properly”.
If it was acceptable to just toss people in a wood chipper we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
“Oh, pardon me.”
They couldn’t find a vein to inject him a year ago (that or maybe they couldn’t get it seated properly) and this is the latest attempt using a different method.
Let’s say there’s not a lot of confidence that the state of Alabama is capable of “properly” doing a lot of things.
Well, so far the people of Alabama voted in the people who passed the law authorizing this, and the courts already approved by allowing the execution proceed.
So those safeguards don’t appear to have forced anyone to do anything right.
Leaving us to point and laugh when these yokels fail.
Again.
I guess you take whatever comfort you can.
This is kind of the SharkBite of execution methods. For those times when you’re too unskilled to do the job like a pro.
And, ultimately, why this approach will be harder to fight than most. It seems to be simple and low-demand in terms of material and professional participation. If it turns out that death under this procedure isn’t more subjectively cruel* than lethal injection, it will be harder to effectively oppose.
*“Execution is always cruel” is a valid point of view, but obviously it’s not sufficient to swing the argument. There’s going to be a subjective continuum of cruelty and below a certain undefined threshold of suffering enough people are going to find it acceptable, and therefore it will be accepted. They may be bloodthirsty primitives but they vote and their opinion counts.
One fo the arguments for lethal injection being cruel and unusual is the history of staff having trouble getting a good vein. Sometimes it’s because the inmate’s veins are shot to hell from drug use; other times it is indeed incompetence. There are websites that list botched execution attempts;I will not seek them out (having read some in the past).
Simpler and cheaper to just leave these people locked up for life with no possibility of parole. It avoids a number of issues - including botched executions, inadvertent execution of innocent people, and the rather mind-jarring moral conundrum of “I’m a good person, so it’s ok to kill someone”. I don’t think I could ever FORGIVE someone who murdered a loved one, but killing the murderer does not bring the victim back. If you are happy that someone will die, you’re as messed up as they are.
I’m also pretty sure it’s illegal to experiment on humans without their express consent. The upcoming murder-by-the-state surely qualifies.
If this argument is raised in the Federal court hearing this case, we will see if the actual law agrees.
Neither does locking them up for life.
I’ve voluntarily inhaled NO2 at a variety of parties.
It is sold as a safe legal drug, and sure, it is indeed legal in most places.
It is not safe, for a number of reasons, including the intoxicated can injure themselves. Ideally it would be sold in balloons, because the alternative would be the users basically freezing their mouth and throat due to the extreme cold gas.
It is also a deleriant hallucinogen. Delerium is not fun. It is like a fever dream. Horrid experience,
I’ve had my share. Would not recommend.
Most of their ideas seem to come from bad Clint Eastwood movies.
( 'Hang ‘Em High’ (1968) )
That’s not the same as the pure nitrogen under discussion. You definitely feel NO2 (nitrous oxide); I tend to feel a brief panic, then utter relaxation, when I have it at the dentist’s office.
(rereading what you were replying to): Re substituting for pure nitrogen in the dentist’s office:hard to tell. If they got me relaxed enough with NO2, then added pure nitrogen to the mix instead of oxygen, who knows what would happen. On one occasion, I think the mix had too low a level of oxygen, and I definitely felt air hunger - I could not rouse myelf enough to raise a hand and remove the nasal mask, which in hindsight is rather frightening - but I was able to breathe through my mouth every couple of breaths. There are documented cases of people overdosing on NO2 and suffocating (one happened in my college town; another was mentioned here on the boards a while back).
Doing something like that to the prisoner might work, but is REALLY getting into experimental territory. Then again, Alabama has a history of impermissible human experimentation (to be fair, I think the Tuskeegee Experiment was federal, not state).
True - but if the choices are “pull the switch” versus “throw away the key”, I vote for door number 2. Both keep the person from re-offending.
Correct. That said, I knew a guy who died from NO2. The found him in his car with over 100 “whippit” cannisters.
Would that the DP could just be abolished somehow. Of course the DP enthusiasts would be angry, but perhaps being reminded that life is cheaper than death could ease their suffering. Surely other countries had to deal with DP proponents when they abolished it and have survived somehow.
The guillotine really is pretty humane, but it results in a hell of a show for observers.
Yeah. That’s why thia whole mess is so subjective and inconsistent. What a member of the voting public finds acceptable is all over the place.
There are undoubtedly many who think this process is too humane, for whom cruelty should be the point. An atavistic and bloodthirsty bunch that forms the extreme.