Oddly enough I had a blood test a few months ago for the first time in my life. General check-up.
I waited about 15 minutes, then went in and an older lady flexed my arm and withdrew blood from the inside of the elbow, and I was out in 3 minutes, including soothing conversation.
I am scared of needles — less so than if it was the prelude to being launched into eternity — but the whole thing didn’t seem complicated. I am sure her skill would be transferable, for people who like that sort of thing.
Nobody but nobody does a find-the-vein-blood-draw better than a phlebotomist - the people who do it 8 hours a day at labs and such. Why? Because they do it full time. They get lots of practice and experience.
That’s one of the problem with the assumption the skill is easily transferable. It’s not. Some guy working in a jail is NOT going to be finding veins 8 hours a day every working day of the year. Probably not even as often as hospital nurses who, while better than the average doctor, still don’t do vein sticks all the time (just a lot). The difference in skill is notable.
If the US was willing to have actual professional executioners, and had enough executions to keep them busy full time that might be a different story but right now the culture doesn’t want professional state killers and there aren’t enough executions to keep one busy all the time. Which is why so many executions look like amateur screw-ups - because they are.
That is not merciful. That’s 10 minutes or so of choking to death.
Death by hanging is only “merciful” when it’s quick enough to snap the neck.
I disagree. When I was in the hospital, and dehydrated, every one them would throw up their hands and ask for a nurse to come do it. They would try and failed every time. Their skill set was for the simple draws, not the complicated ones.
That’s why in medieval England, before the “drop” was instituted, friends of the accused would grab his legs as he danced and try to snap his neck, as a last service to a friend.
The Balkans (if memory serves) had defenestration - throw the creep out a high window .
Made kind of a mess, but maybe a pre-installed body bag would make clean up a snap…
(they really ARE doing wonders with plastics today)
Part of the trouble in “poke-the-vein” is the fact that the “patient” is NOT helping - not flexing the elbow, not forming a fist, etc.
CA used to use the gas chamber - a metal seat over a pan of acid into which two tablets of (?) were dropped from a chute with remotely opened hatch. The result was cyanide gas.
The condemned were advised to breathe deeply.
(this was a kindness - they were going to be in the gas-filled room until dead, and they can’t hold their breath endlessly).
The traditional Chinese execution involved the Courtroom Guard taking the condemned straight form verdict to the (usually unpaved) road outside, forcing them into a kneeling pose and putting a bullet at the base of the skull (the medulla - the “brain stem” which runs the heart, lungs, digestion, etc.).
Death was instant and painless. Really hard to screw up that shot at 3’ distance.
If you simply wanted the cheapest, simplest, most efficient, and fastest, near idiot-proof method that causes the least amount of suffering I’ve never understood why the government wouldn’t choose a couple bullets in the brain over anything else, it seems the most logical choice to me.
I wonder if some death-penalty opponents specifically *want *painful or expensive or troublesome execution methods to be maintained, to make a better case against capital punishment.
They might fear that if cheap and painless and reliable methods such as nitrogen asphyxiation became the norm, that the anti-DP argument would be weakened.
Modern execution methods are designed to be easy and non-distressing on the people that have to carry them out. A bullet to the brain may be instant and painless for the victim, but hard for the people that have to clean up afterwards.
I have had the dubious privilege of being in a prison death chamber. It was in Fremantle, Australia, after the Fremantle Prison was decommissioned, and was open to tourists. I went in as part of a tour group.
Australia used hanging for capital punishment. The guide explained how the condemned was brought in, how the hood was affixed, and how the rope was adjusted (the knot was aligned with the left ear). The drop was deep, and death was instantaneous, caused by a broken neck. We all stood on the platform, looked at the trapdoor, and shuddered. Not a nice place to be, but I am glad I had the experience.
As it was explained, the drop was important. Not far enough, and the condemned would suffer by a slow suffocation. Too far, and his head might be ripped off. Just right, and the condemned would have a quick, humane, death. And weight/drop tables generally ensured a quick humane death.
I am left wondering why jurisdictions that still use capital punishment–as barbaric and abhorrent as I find it–use such things as gas chambers, electric chairs, and lethal injection. The latter might be okay, if humans could be “put to sleep” as easily as my cat can be in the veterinarian’s office. Torturing condemneds, as the OP describes the death of Mr. Smith, is unacceptable. The US, and its states, should be better than that.
THIS death penalty opponent is emphatically NOT in that camp!
If we absolutely must kill people I’d prefer it to be as quick and painless as possible. I think the current methods in the US are largely hypocritical and ridiculously complex.
Good question. I have always thought that the cheapest and most humane method of execution would be a bullet fired into the back of the head, right where the spine comes in. It would be like turning off a light switch. However, your nitrogen suggestion, I think, has merit.
For the record, I am 100% against capital punishment. But if you really have to do it, either nitrogen or do what Saddam used to do- handcuff condemned’s hands behind back, place remote-controlled plastic explosive in shirt pocket, duct tape in place. March him behind big pile of sand. Run around to other side, press button.
The reasons we have changed execution methods is not for the condemned but for those who have to do it. The gas chamber caused alot of foaming at the mouth and was hard to watch. The electric chair could cause burning and was hard to watch. The lethal injection was clinical and easy to watch, administer, and clean up after. Blowing someone up would be hard to watch and to clean up after. My guess is that as more problem are caused by lethal injection states will either go back to hanging or try to implement nitrogen death.
“Some” perhaps in the sense that any group of people will have a nut job here and there but, no, I do not think this is the case in any meaningful sense.
Even the SS Einsatzgruppen found that it was extremely stressful to kill unarmed individuals, causing what we would now recognise as PTSD.
That was one of the factors which led to the shift from shooting to gassing - it was thought to be easier on the executioners. However, even then, the state of the gassed bodies was stressful for those who had to remove them, so the SS tended to put that job onto auxiliaries or other prisoners.
The chief NKVD executioner for Stalin is reported to have become an alcoholic, gone insane, and killed himself.
Dropping blocks on the accused, shooting then in the back of the head, blowing them up with explosive charges - they’re all very messy and likely to cause stress for the executioner team.
There’s no way to make intentional killing in cold blood of a restrained person into a non-stressful event.
So just move the condemned into a “Deluxe Suite” - free everything - including hookers and blow.
One night, his booze contains either a benzo or and “X drug” sleeper, the door is sealed from the outside and silent pumps start evacuating air and replacing it with an inert gas (nitrogen gets all the press).
He/she never wakes up, and pretty corpse in a pretty room.
No nasty trauma for anyone.
And your dog really DID go to a big farm in the country where she could run and play all day!
I really don’t care how we kill the scum of the earth. Ugly is fine.
Put an opaque hood over it’s head and hang its ass. Has worked for centuries. Cheap and effective - a GOP dream combo.
I don’t know if that’s true. It would be quite simple to come up with methods whereby the executioner didn’t have to see or come near a condemned prisoner. For instance pulling a switch from miles away activating the execution by electricity, gas, whatever. In fact the executioner wouldn’t even have to know they were an executioner. They could be told that they were activating an emergency system somewhere.
And to spare any distress to those who might have to deal with the corpse the execution chamber could serve as an automatic disposal system. Once the condemned is certified dead by computers checking bodily functions those computers could autonomously open a hatch in the floor of the chamber and the body would be lowered into a blast furnace beneath.
The only human involvement would be the guards to usher the prisoner into the chamber, the unknowing executioner and technicians to monitor the computers and intervene only when necessary.
