Is capital punishment by Lethal Injection becoming a future norm? I’m writing a story, and I’m curious as to whether any newer execution methods have arisen.
One would hope that the “future norm” will be the elimination of capital punishment.
For now, lethal injection seems to be the most “humane” way of killing someone. I’ve heard of a guy who advocates NO[sub]2[/sub] asphyxiation on the grounds that it is painless to the victim, and also has the advantage that the deceased’s organs can be harvested for transplant. While this may be true, I doubt anyone would condone executions by asphyxiation. It sounds too much like smothering someone with a pillow. As for the organ harvesting, I think stem cell research may provide the means to repair existing organs so that (hopefully) fewer organ transplants will be required.
So while I don’t have any hard evidence, I would suspect that lethal injection will be the method of choice for some time to come.
Well, I need capital punishment to exist for the purposes of my story (a clone who doesn’t fear Hell because you can’t clone a soul, and thus he has none). I’ll use LE, then. Thanks 
If anyone cares to read it, just ask and I’ll email you.
For story use, you could have some sort of nueral inhibitor, causing the brain to “think” it’s dead, with body systems failing after brain death.
I did a search for capital punishment options and found some really interesting sites. But, for debate only it seems. Not much on science of killing prisoners. Probably what made you post the Q here.
[hijack]
Interesting juxtaposition of your thread title with your user name.