Should Nitrogen Asphyxiation Be Used for Capital Punishment?

Great Debates
81

[QUOTE=Shodan]

The objections to lethal injection are not (in my experience) founded on an actual fear of causing pain. That’s just the latest objection raised by those for whom no method of execution is humane enough. If you could come up with some way of killing the sonofabitch with a blow job, they are not going to say, “OK, good enough - go ahead and off the bastard”. They will find something else.

[/QUOTE]

The fear of causing pain is a distinct issue from the merits of capitol punishment itself. I would prefer abolishing the death penalty entirely, but if it’s possible to make the process more humane we ought to take the most humane route.

If we can kill more cheaply (I imagine nitrogen is extremly cheap compared to drugs) and more painlessly, why not do it?

82

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]

There is evidence that acquittal rates are higher in death penalty cases than in life imprisonment cases. Jurors seem to require a higher standard of proof in cases where the defendent’s life is on the line. As a result, the death penalty may actually result in more murderers being on the streets.
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Do you have a cite for this? Unless I am mistaken the jury is the one that decides whether to sentence a person to death or not. If they were squeamish about the death penalty I think they just wouldn’t vote for it, but still convict the guy.

83

[QUOTE=Blalron]
The fear of causing pain is a distinct issue from the merits of capitol punishment itself. I would prefer abolishing the death penalty entirely, but if it’s possible to make the process more humane we ought to take the most humane route.

If we can kill more cheaply (I imagine nitrogen is extremly cheap compared to drugs) and more painlessly, why not do it?
[/QUOTE]

Right. I’m pro-death penalty myself, and I can’t say the question of how much suffering some of these creeps do or do not experience during the execution is not one that concerns me a whole lot either way. But I agree that if you CAN use a more effective drug cocktail, then why not just do so?

I would even be willing to see life mandatory for most people, the amateur killers say, and the death penalty reserved for the really extreme John Wayne Gacy types. I could go along with that. NO ONE would even remotely entertain the notion that John Wayne Gacy was innocent. You would never see his ilk walking free from a DNA test.

84

[QUOTE=Northern Piper]
So whether a person is found guilty of a crime depends, not on the facts of the case and the evidence, but whether or not the state is going to kill him?
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If the DA charges someone with, say, Voluntary Manslaughter, all he has to prove at trial is that the defendant killed the victim. You cannot be sentenced to death for VM, AFAIK.

If the DA charges that exact same someone with, say, Murder 1, merely proving that the defendant killed the victim is no longer sufficient. A variety of intangible factors must be demonstrated to justify a M1 conviction. It is a harder case to make, and justifiably so, because you can be sentenced to death for M1.

The facts of the case and the evidence might be identical, and while it will get you a conviction for manslaughter (and life in prison) it won’t get you a conviction for murder (and the death penalty). It probably has nothing to do with the sentencing ceiling for either charge.

And if you’re the DA and you have no indention of seeking the death penalty, you make the case you can win (for manslaughter) rather than going for the harder case but asking for the same sentence.

I’m not comfortable with district attorneys downgrading their charges because it makes a case easier to win… and easier to send innocent people to be locked in a hole for the rest of their lives.
EDIT: Ninja’d by OtakuLoki

[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
And while I’m not doubting your personal experience, I’m also going to say that reports of phantom pain, while not universal, remain so prevalent that I don’t think your experience is going to be necessarily predictive for anyone else.
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Are you talking about amputees, long after they’ve healed, complaining about pain in part of their missing limbs? Are you talking about recent injury victims telling a doctor they think their ankle is broken… when they’ve had their leg severed at the knee in an accident? It takes a while for that type of stuff to occur. In my experience immediately after an injury I get a few seconds to go “Oh, wow, that’s really going to hurt.” before the neurons fire up and start screaming.

In the case of a guillotine, the subject is unconscious (and probably dead) before the sensation of pain would be reported.