Well, it occurs to me that if you could generate enough heat to near-instantly vapourize a person (and not destroy anything around them) as with a Star Trek hand phaser, aren’t you essentially just boiling them away? About two-third of a human’s body is water, so a 75 kilogram person contains 50 kilograms of water. If you instantly boil 50 liters of water, wouldn’t there be intense clouds of steam, especially in an enclosed space like a death chamber?
On the other end of the spectrum, why doesn’t scaphism make a comeback?
And then sentence at-risk teens from the Scared Straight program to clean it up!
I dunno, the Clean Water Act?
Helium or any gas that displaces oxygen will work.
And it would make their last words hilarious.
Argon’s cheaper than helium, although less funny, but nitrogen’s far cheaper than either.
I keep hearing about a looming helium shortage. Best not waste it on executions.
Maybe executions could be opportunities to make helium!
Or would that create too much con-fusion?
This is, indeed, the best way.
Carbon dioxide causes distress - our bodies are hard-wired to detect it. Nitrogen OTOH completely fools the body (apparently, we do not have lack-of-oxygen detectors, only presence-of-carbon-dioxide ones). Putting a victim into a nitrogen only atmosphere would kill them without any distress or fuss.
Shouldn’t the thread title be Judicial Make-You-Dead-By-Suffocation-ing?
Nitrogen is the coming thing for executions. See this recent article on Slate.
Yes. But they do have convulsions, which many people, I know not why, seem to think is a sign of pain and distress.
This in spite of the fact that all the time there are some people who are epileptic, and other people who have survived oxygen deprivation episodes, who can describe the experience.
In any case, don’t confuse the reported experience “I just drifted away without any distress”, with the external physical effects – which includes convulsions as well as loss of conciousness.
I’d be interested in a cite for that. We had a co-worker succumb to nitrogen a few years ago: he drifted off, rolled into the fresher air, then, thinking he was just hung over from the previous night’s drinking, resumed his job and fell over again, this time when someone saw him and pulled him out. We did an extensive study on nitrogen safety and learned that the victim really does drift off unaware. And, as noted in my post above, the air we breathe all day is at least 70% nitrogen.
But I’m willing to believe that in some form, the body is going to show outrage at any method to destroy its function
If what we desire in an execution is:
- instant death (because we are so, so kind-hearted), and
- no physical trauma (because that creeps us out),
then we’re in a dilemma, because we can’t have our cake and eat it too. Split-second annihilation is possible with electrocution: the current travels faster than neurotransmission, so the victim is literally dead before he knows it. But it’s stinky and the victim’s body jerks around, even when we do the second blast at lower voltage.
When we die of natural causes, as peacefully as possible, it takes hours and even days for the last sections of our central nervous system to completely flicker out.
If we want to have the power to impose an unnatural death on transgressors, we’ll never be able to overcome certain natural conditions of death: that it normally doesn’t happen instantly nor painlessly, and it’s various forms will trigger our natural revulsion.
So let’s just bung them up in the jug and wait for them to die of old age.
Spare us your euphemisms!
No gasping? I don’t believe that is true. I’ve seen mice and rats killed via CO2. They gasp. I would think the result of N2 would be the same.
If I had to be executed, I’d prefer a large caliber bullet, or six, to the head. Instant death.
Of course my method would cause a disgusting mess of brain matter, bone and blood spattered about, but as the executed, I wouldn’t worry about that.
http://www.theonion.com/video/ohio-replaces-lethal-injection-with-humane-new-hea,36077/
A tad messy, perhaps.
We have. Since the 1920’s.
For half a sec, there, I thought the warden was played by Brent Spiner.
You asked for it.