Barbaric
If the Legislature has the votes to establish nitrogen as a death penalty, it’s got the votes to pass an exemption to the FOI Act to shield the companies which supply nitrogen for death penalty purposes.
Yes but, as has been said, Nitrogen isn’t like specially formulated pharmaceuticals. Anyone can go and buy it readily and not say why they are using it. There would be no way or knowing where it came from and the buyer wouldn’t have to say why they were buying it.
The late comedian Bill Hicks proposed a voluntary option, “death by stunt”: the condemned could choose to die performing a fatal fall/shooting/etc. for a major motion picture.
A state prison can’t just send some guy out with petty cash to buy a bottle of nitrogen. There’s going to be a purchase order, invoice and delivery paper work. There’s always a paper trail.
First thought: It’s the 21st century and we’re a nation of baboons.
Second thought: If I was facing execution, I’d want the guillotine. Sure it’s messy, but a well-built and tested (with watermelons?) guillotine would surely be efficient. Shit, I’d be willing to hold the rope and do it myself.
No, we’re really not. Baboons don’t have courts and laws. Our justice system is really fucked up, but it’s better than nothing.
From what I’ve read, it’s almost certain that there is still pain involved for some time. The head is severed, but the brain still has some oxygen to keep it going for long enough to register pain - and there would no doubt be severe pain from having the neck just lopped off and a big gaping wound in the neck.
I agree we cannot trust the courts to apply the death penalty fairly, but I oppose it because it does not offer the opportunity for redemption. Or decades of suffering. Depends on my mood.
Because a lot of companies refuse to sell them for that purpose. It forced Oklahoma, I think it was, to buy drugs illegally in Italy, and a German company sued the FDA to force them to stop the state for using the drug for off-label purposes.
Maybe it was Missouri.
My understanding is not “some time” but merely a few seconds. And let’s face it, it’s not like you would be writhing in agony (your headless body wouldn’t get the writhe signal from the brain, ha ha.) The reality would probably be more like “holy shit, what the f…”
I like the certainty of it, for myself, anyway. I would never advocate it for an state-sponsored execution method. I’ll leave that sort of policy-making to the baboons.
Come to think of it, maybe a gravity guillotine would be better. The head would be severed while the body is upright so the blood drains efficiently, instead of bouncing around while you get one last, jittery look at the world.
The brain splatter and blood gore would be a huge boon to death penalty opponents.
For an execution method to be acceptable, it’s not just enough for the execution to be painless. It has to *look *good and peaceful from the outside to pass muster.
I doubt enough people actually witness executions, or even see photos or video of them, for the method to make much of a difference in terms of influencing the public’s opinion of the death penalty.
The electric chair is a totally brutal and fucked up way of killing someone, and it still has persisted for decades.
Stranger
Those are not baboons. Baboons have tails, meaning they are monkeys, not apes. They also have longer noses and some really awesome fangs. But they do have a social structure worth studying in HS Anthropology class.
There’s No Business Like, broadcast on CBS Radio Mystery Theatre 19 January, 1976. Written by Sam Dann.
In the year 2076, crimes against society are punishable by community service – in show business. A time traveler moves forward in time and discovers a future where the business is anything but entertaining; and where stunts and special effects often lead to death.
The 45-minute episode may be played on the linked page.
Actually, they are meant to be orangutans.
Damn, I used to listen to that show every night it was on. What a throwback to a throwback.