Can a death row inmate elect to have his body frozen after death? Assume he’s raises the funds himself and it won’t cost the state anything. What if at some point in the future he can be revived? Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of the execution? Would he still be subject to punishment in the future?
What a strange question. ??? I can’t imagine any state has passed a law on this. I would presume that upon death after execution the inmate’s body would become immediately available to next of kin. After he was decleared dead he would have served his sentence. If somehow his next of kin could revive him, the law would have no hold on him.
Gene Wolfe wrote a story based on a prisoner serving a life sentence being unfrozen to find that medical science has cured what killed him, as well as finding a cheap and easy way to stop aging. (That’s not a spoiler. It’s the opening premise.) The title is The Doctor Of Death Island. That story and others (including The Death Of Doctor Island) can be found in the book The Island Of Doctor Death And Other Stories, And Other Stories (That’s not a typing error.)
This doesn’t sound right to me; suppose it was lethal injection, there was no freezing involved and the relatives employed some kind of cuttting-edge resuscitation techniques (probably involving massive transfusion etc) - wouldn’t it be more likely the case that the judgment/declaration of death would be rendered unsound/doubtful and that the prisoner would be considered an escapee?
I think this is a lot more likely. After all, if you were legally declared dead by a doctor and then resuscitated, your heirs wouldn’t inherit and you wouldn’t be out of the system. Your original declaration of death would simply be overturned.
You can only die once.
The bodies of inmates who die in custody are turned over to the family, if they wish, for disposal by whatever means they want to use. So I suppose if they want to freeze Uncle Mad Dog they can do so.
But realistically, if the state executes you it’s going to make sure you’re dead and gone before they hand you over. They’re not going to let the family stand there waiting with a trauma team. And once you’ve been dead for an hour or so, you’re not coming back. Cryogenics is the triumph of hope (and salesmanship) over science.
I thought Cryogenics in humans was still pretty much science fiction. Aren’t the cells damaged beyond the point where they are viable?
Even if you COULD do it, I doubt you could use this. As Little Nemo said, I’m sure the state would simply wait until the body was beyond recovery. It can’t take that long for things to progress far enough that nothing is going to bring you back. Doesn’t your DNA basically start getting taken apart almost immediately after death (I seem to recall this is the case from another of these ‘bring em back from the dead’ type threads)?
-XT