Because dogs are euthanized by doctors of veterinary medicine. Condemned prisoners are executed by prison employees, not doctors or nurses.
Yes, but surely the technique can be learned. It’s not an esoteric secret passed down from father to son.
I imagine they get kind of rusty between executions. Not exactly the same frequency as pet euthanasia.
Pets are also not, as a rule, IV drug abusers who’ve already given their veins more business than they can handle.
The only problem I see with this is getting a Leonidas look-alike. I mean, sure, the facial features and bitchin’ beard would be easy enough to match, but do you have any idea how much work it’s gonna take to keep those abs looking that good?
To respond to the OP, though, I’m of the opinion that the most important consideration for a state-sponsored execution should be whether it leaves the inmate’s organs in a suitable condition for transplant. The way I understand it, donor hearts/livers/what-have-you are usually in short supply, and while not all (or maybe not even a great percentage of) organs from a group as drug- and disease-prone as longtime inmates would be suitable for transplant, anything that increases the donor pool is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
Looking at Wikipedia(because I’m a huge geek and not particularly inventive), most execution methods don’t meet this criteria. A firing squad riddles the organs with holes, lethal injection and the gas chamber make them toxic, stoning/crushing/boiling also crushes/boils the organs, and I highly suspect that electrocution renders most organs (particularly the heart) useless. Drowning would leave everything but the lungs, I think, but that still means that drowning doesn’t meet the criteria.
On the other hand, the breaking wheelsounds awesome and would leave internal organs intact. So would the guillotine and hanging. Disembowelment, though, is almost perfect for this: just remove organs and place them on ice.
In the air: single shot to the back of the head, for one. It’d probably be OK except for the potential to damage the eyes/corneas. Is there anything else in the head that can be donated? Also not sure about all the calls for nitrogen/nitrous/CO2 &c. Would a saturation level of carbon monoxide high enough to cause death also damage individual organs irreparably? I don’t know; IANAD.
But not all condemned are junkies. No, I suspect they could be dispatched in the same manner of ease, and I occasionally wonder whether the powers that be haven’t thrown a spanner in the works out of sheer meanness. You know, make them suffer a bit.
I still don’t understand the problem with lethal injection. We put people under for surgeries thousands of times every day in this country. In those cases, we have to calculate a delicate balance between what will make sure that the person is unconscious, but will not kill them.
With an execution, we don’t have to worry about the latter. Just do a Google search to see how much of a drug is needed to put a (insert weight here) pound (insert gender here) under for surgery, and then multiply that amount by 30 for the first dose.
If they can’t find a vein, or if the inmate requests it, do it with gas through a mask. Hell, give him 5mg of Xanax 1/2hour before if he requests it.
It seems to me that we can make death very, very painless and that these “concerns” are simply from people who are opposed to the death penalty anyways. Not that it isn’t a valid position, but we should stick to the facts.
No we don’t. Doctors do. There are no doctors administering the death cocktail at executions.
And that is invariably a fatal dose? Or will it merely produce brain injury and coma?
What gas?
The problem is generally that doctors and nurses often refuse to participate in executions. So often that prisons use relatively untrained people to carry out executions. And they screw it up – often.
Would not doctors and nurses be struck off from their professional bodies for participating in executions?
I’m sure that’s a possibility. I’m not sure it’s a certainty, but how many doctors want to risk their right to practice so they can kill instead? Er, outside of Texas, that is. 
So train them. Keep a small pool of trained executioners on hand who are neither doctors or nurses. How difficult can that be?
Who trains them?
After a brief period of trial and error for a few unlucky shlubs, I’m sure they can hit on a winning formula. It’s not rocket science.
But that’s what they do now, and that winning formula is still elusive.
Like the idea of only executing healthy prisoners, the concept of considering a person’s ‘human rights’ when you are about to execute them, just seems a little perverse.
I realized that the breaking wheel, which I mentioned in my other post here, might not work for the criteria I set forth. I’m not sure if the breaking of the humerus and femur would make the bone marrow in them unsuitable for transplant. Also, the “mercy blows” were usually applied to the abdomen or the chest, and a fatal blow to either of those areas would almost certainly damage one of the organs in that area. So if you could still use the marrow from a broken arm or leg and the mercy blow could be applied to the throat, maybe, then I think the breaking wheel should go back on the list of options for capital punishment.
Bone marrow for transplant doesn’t come from the arms or legs. It usually comes from the pelvis, in the iliac crest region.
You know, if your goal is to inflict as much suffering as possible, and still retain organs for transplant, why not inject them with a curare derivative to paralyze them, intubate them to maintain respiration, and harvest all their organs while they are still awake? Take the least necessary organs like corneas, liver and kidneys first, then the skin heart and lungs?
That way, you can get your revenge porn, and feel like you have done some good at the same time.
And keep the anesthetic minimal enough so there’s a slight constant trembling of the extremities and enough variation in the breathing so we know they’re conscious and aware of everything that’s happening.