Lethal Injection

[treis]

@Fritz

Why not a single massive and deadly dose of barbituate?

We did this before: Drugs used for executions - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board

Essentially the problem is that executing people using massive doses of these drugs results in a gruesome death. Convulsions, vomiting, etc. The convict might not feel anything, but the people executing him and the witnesses are going to find it unpleasant. That’s also the reason why they don’t just put a bullet in his brain or blow him to bits with explosives.

[Lissa]

@pravnik

I asked that very question of the warden of the Walls unit, the Huntsville prison where Texas executions are performed. He ansered yes, very adamantly, and said that “all proper medical procedures are used.” I understood what he meant, but it’s an odd way of putting it.

It’s technically a correct answer, but there’s a bit more to it. Up until the point when the lethal dose of drugs is administered, he’s still a “ward of the state” and entitled to medical care. (If, for example, he had a heart attack while they were hooking him up, they would dilligently try to save him.)

There is always the remote possibilty that “the phone may ring” and a last-minute stay of execution issued. Thus, they use a clean needle and clean the injection site, not only to follow correct medical procedure, but also to ward off infection in case the execution doesn’t proceed.

[Fritz]

@treis

We did this before: Drugs used for executions - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board

Essentially the problem is that executing people using massive doses of these drugs results in a gruesome death. Convulsions, vomiting, etc. The convict might not feel anything, but the people executing him and the witnesses are going to find it unpleasant. That’s also the reason why they don’t just put a bullet in his brain or blow him to bits with explosives.

Thanks, treis. I looked for a thread like this before I posted, but I couldn’t find it.

[pkbites]

@danceswithcats

The above makes me wonder why it is considered cruel to administer a single shot of .45 Pb to the cranium.

When i was a kid watching old cowboy movies and saw them wasting hours building a gallows I always thought:
*Why not a double barrel shotgun in the mouth?? *

Yes, it would be messy. VERY messy. And gross. And it is crude.

But not cruel, as death would be more instantaneous than any other method than I can think of.

[chorpler]

I’ve talked to heroin addicts whose arms and legs were so horribly scarred that I probably wouldn’t have been able to push a needle through the scar tissue at all, much less find a vein. They all related exactly what Qadgop said: they’d find other blood vessels under the tongue, behind the knee, in the neck, in the penis (and both guys who said they injected into their penises said they ruptured the vein and never tried THAT again) … one woman told me a gruesome tale of groping around with a needle in her chest trying to inject directly into her heart. I was surprised that she didn’t lacerate her aorta or scramble her pacemaker (oh yeah, she’d had a pacemaker installed at some point) but somehow all she did was snap the needle tip off when she scraped a rib. I get chills just thinking about it.

As far as the ideas about quick and painless means of execution goes, we had a previous thread where somebody mentioned this rule of thumb: “If it’s painless, it’s not neat; if it’s neat, it’s not painless.” But I think the current lethal injection method, when it works, would come pretty close to being neat and painless. The first drug is the key: when those fast-acting barbiturates like sodium pentathol are properly administered, your consciousness disappears pretty much completely – anybody who’s had general anesthetic in surgery knows it’s like one instant you’re just counting down from 10, and the next you’re waking up in recovery. And if you’re that deeply unconscious, I can’t see how the potassium chloride (to induce cardiac arrest) and the paralytic agent (to stop breathing) can hurt.

On the other hand, if the anesthetic is administered improperly, you could still be aware when the potassium chloride gets pushed into you. And I’ve spoken with people who attempted suicide by IV potassium chloride who say that it hurts more than you can imagine – like rubbing salt in a wound, but times a hundred.

[Sapo]

Don’t they use something like a little piston (i.e. a reusable bullet) that goes into the brain or the spine to kill cows? wouldn’t something like that work for a human?

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

There’s a central irony to capital punishment in that we’re committing the ultimiate and most irreversible act of punitation, but we’re all up in arms over the agony of the last few seconds (or at most minutes) of the condemned’s life. The to-be-deceased (who is presumably in this position for having visited extreme harm upon someone else) isn’t going to know or care once the deed is done, and in any case I believe the mental anguish of knowing that one is going to die and not being able to do anything to avoid it (for months or years) far outweighs the suffering of a few moments of phyiscal pain. The whole thing underlies our schitzophrenic attitude toward the death penalty. If we’re going to execute people (a concept I am somewhat ambivilent about in the abstract, though there are particular cases where I find myself wholehartedly agreed that the best way certain people can serve the world is to leave it) then we ought to do it in the quickest, most efficient, least messy way possible, with only secondary regard for the pain endured by the condemned.

Stranger

[chorpler]

@Sapo

Don’t they use something like a little piston (i.e. a reusable bullet) that goes into the brain or the spine to kill cows? wouldn’t something like that work for a human?

Hey, a killer used just such a device to kill his victims on last week’s episode of Bones. I think they call it a “bolt stunner” or something, though that doesn’t sound quite right because why would it be called a stunner if the intent is to kill the animal? Unless that’s just the name of the version they use to stun a cow or pig or whatever before hanging it up and slitting the throat to drain it of blood. I’ll let somebody with more experience answer that for me.

[Common_Tater]

@Stranger On A Train

The whole thing underlies our schitzophrenic attitude toward the death penalty.
Stranger

I don’t think it’s “our” attitude at all, as far as the teeming masses go, but rather the official musings of virtually unaccountable robed sophists who presumably should know better. They want capital punishment to go away, and are laying the groundwork to do so. Bad cess to them.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@chorpler

Hey, a killer used just such a device to kill his victims on last week’s episode of Bones. I think they call it a “bolt stunner” or something, though that doesn’t sound quite right because why would it be called a stunner if the intent is to kill the animal? Unless that’s just the name of the version they use to stun a cow or pig or whatever before hanging it up and slitting the throat to drain it of blood. I’ll let somebody with more experience answer that for me.

It’s called a bolt stunner (or more properly, a captive bolt pistol) because that’s exactly what it does. It stuns or renders unconscious a living animal so that it can be hung in the inverted position and bled out via pulmonary action, which prevents blood from settling in the muscle tissue and decomposing, leaving the rank flavor typically found in game animals.

Mind you, this thing is intended to stun cows or pigs with very thick skulls. Used on a human being in the same position it would almost certainly punch a hole through the cranium, and the resultant impact and hemmoraging would kill or cause significant brain damage.

Stranger

[Zany_Zeolite_Zipper]

@Sapo

Don’t they use something like a little piston (i.e. a reusable bullet) that goes into the brain or the spine to kill cows? wouldn’t something like that work for a human?

Dumas describes this kind of execution in his book: “The Count of Monte Cristo”.

The two assistants had borne Andrea to the scaffold, and there, in spite of his struggles, his bites, and his cries, had forced him to his knees. During this time the executioner had raised his mace, and signed to them to get out of the way; the criminal strove to rise, but, ere he had time, the mace fell on his left temple. A dull and heavy sound was heard, and the man dropped like an ox on his face, and then turned over on his back. The executioner let fall his mace, drew his knife, and with one stroke opened his throat, and mounting on his stomach, stamped violently on it with his feet. At every stroke a jet of blood sprang from the wound.

[medstar]

Isn’t one reason that Florida is having such trouble with lethal injection, is that the prison system is having trouble finding qualified medical personnel who will actually perform the deed? I’ve read in the newspaper that most doctors will set up the accoutrements, but practically no doctor will agree to actually insert the needle and start the drugs. Is this true?

[AskNott]

Would a doctor really be necessary to administer the drugs? When my wife went in for her chemotherapy (which is pretty hazardous stuff) the IV and the drug handling was done by nurses and technicians.

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

@AskNott

Would a doctor really be necessary to administer the drugs? When my wife went in for her chemotherapy (which is pretty hazardous stuff) the IV and the drug handling was done by nurses and technicians.

In the US, it is unethical for licensed medical professionals (physicians, nurses, many technicians) to participate in executions.

[Common_Tater]

@Qadgop the Mercotan

In the US, it is unethical for licensed medical professionals (physicians, nurses, many technicians) to participate in executions.

“First thing, do no harm”?

[Mangetout]

All rights and wrongs of capital punishment aside, why isn’t asphyxiation on the menu? - put a person in a closed space and pump it full of nitrogen and he or she will be unconscious after a couple of breaths - as long as there isn’t a buildup of CO[sub]2[/sub] (as you would normally get from breathing in a closed space where the oxygen is just used up), there should be no discomfort at all.

[Captain_Carrot]

@Mangetout

All rights and wrongs of capital punishment aside, why isn’t asphyxiation on the menu? - put a person in a closed space and pump it full of nitrogen and he or she will be unconscious after a couple of breaths - as long as there isn’t a buildup of CO[sub]2[/sub] (as you would normally get from breathing in a closed space where the oxygen is just used up), there should be no discomfort at all.

I’m guessing that anything resembling a gas chamber is going to make people more than a little leery.

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

@Common Tater

“First thing, do no harm”?

Yup. Primum non nocere.

The doctor (nurse, therapist) is there for the patient, and acts in the patient’s best interest, with the consent of the patient.

[Martin_Hyde]

@Captain Carrot

I’m guessing that anything resembling a gas chamber is going to make people more than a little leery.

We’ve used poison gas to execute criminals many times post-Holocaust. The primary reasons we moved to lethal injection was a hermetically sealed chamber was filled with a poison gas to execute the condemned, this poses a significant risk to every one in the area if there’s any gas that gets out. Afterwards another toxic gas is used to “scrub” the chamber, again posing a risk to every one involved. Finally, often times the prisoner would hold their breath which prolonged their suffering. Ideally if the prisoner takes several deep breaths when the gas enters the air they go unconscious very quickly and suffer minimally.

I’m further curious about this line of execution, and it seems like of all the “uncruel” methods of execution proper death by oxygen deprivation would be the easiest to implement with the lowest chance of failure.

Personally I’m not really of the opinion that any execution can avoid being cruel and that’s a big part of why I don’t think the state should be involved in them.

However, Jack Kevorkian used an assisted suicide machine which strapped a gas mask on to his customers and then the mask was fed with carbon monoxide until the person died (the deceased were the ones to have functional control over the release of the carbon monoxide.)

I’m not sure why that couldn’t easily be rigged into some form of execution device. And from what I understand carbon monoxide poisoning is actually painless? But I certainly don’t know that for sure. . .

[ThisSpaceForRent]

central line…25 mg of Versed…followed by lethal dose of Potassium chloride…

just my 2 cents…why is this such a conundrum?

tsfr