# Condemned inmate croaks right before execution. What to do. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 2, 2014, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183 "2014-04-02T17:33:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/21 "2014-04-03T05:44:23Z")
Question – if there’s a botched execution, do they give a reprieve, or try again? On an episode of _Law & Order_, they let the guy live, when they fucked up the execution. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/22 "2014-04-03T05:52:32Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Question – if there’s a botched execution, do they give a reprieve, or try again? On an episode of _Law & Order_, they let the guy live, when they fucked up the execution. Willie Francis was unsuccessfully electrocuted in Louisiana in 1946, and after legal appeals was executed a year later by the same method. Ohio botched an execution in 2009 and the guy is still on death row. Of course it’s five years later and he’s still alive, so who knows, but the state still _intends_ to kill him eventually. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/23 "2014-04-03T09:23:35Z")
This was an episode of \*Monk. \* The guy ate his last supper, then dropped dead. So the mystery was: who the hell would poison someone just before his execution? ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/24 "2014-04-03T10:51:35Z")
Isn’t a good reason for this that there may be new evidence found proving the condemned person’s innocence right up to before they are executed, so until then you should treat them as deserving of life as you would any other person? I can imagine it would be just as awful to let a condemned-but-actually-innocent person die and decline to administer lifesaving medical treatment as it would be to execute him. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/25 "2014-04-03T11:59:48Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > But how far along does someone have to be before a DNR kicks in? Can they refuse to remove a chicken bone from his esophagus, or watch the prisoner bleed to death if he slits his wrists? Having recently reviewed my personal Advanced Directives, I can tell you that DNR refers specifically to resuscitation. Hemostasis |= resuscitation. Apendectomy |= resuscitation. Etc. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2014, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/26 "2014-04-03T17:47:29Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Question – if there’s a botched execution, do they give a reprieve, or try again? Before the UK outlawed the death penalty, it varied. There are cases of people being hanged and surviving and then being let free (e.g. Margaret Dickson in 1724), and there’s the case of the execution of John Lee in 1885 being aborted after the trap door failed three times. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/27 "2014-04-04T01:08:36Z")
Back then, a botched execution might have been taken as a message from God. Less likely nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/28 "2014-04-04T01:12:30Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > This was an episode of \*Monk. \* > > The guy ate his last supper, then dropped dead. So the mystery was: who the hell would poison someone just before his execution? And…? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/29 "2014-04-04T05:38:36Z")
Weekend at Bernie’s. Only with Barney Stimson. Prop him up, go through all the rigamarole and everybody goes home thinking it happened. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/30 "2014-04-04T06:50:09Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > If the death penalty is to exact revenge, by the state, on the condemned to assuage the damage done by their criminal acts then yeah, you have to revive them to kill them. > [@dolphinboy](#): > > It would be cruel and inhumane to let someone who has just had a heart attack die a slow agonizing death just because they are on death row when they could possibly be revived and killed humanely later on. Until society decides whether executions are intended to be painful revenge or humane eliminations, it should avoid them altogether. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/31 "2014-04-04T16:07:34Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Until society decides whether executions are intended to be painful revenge or humane eliminations, it should avoid them altogether. Humiliating example is another motive. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/32 "2014-04-04T16:49:40Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Question – if there’s a botched execution, do they give a reprieve, or try again? On an episode of _Law & Order_, they let the guy live, when they fucked up the execution. Its hanged till death, or electrocuted till dead. Legally speaking, the botching is irrelevant to the sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2014, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183/33 "2014-04-05T03:01:11Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Right up until the moment when they flip the switch, the governor could change his mind and make the phone call, or the detective could barge in with new evidence, or whatever. If an inmate has a heart attack before the time listed on the death warrant, the state will take all reasonable measures to save them, same as for any other person in their care. That’s a very good point, and answers the question, in my mind. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/condemned-inmate-croaks-right-before-execution-what-to-do/685183.md?page=1)