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Question about lethal injection

252 replies

Leafy3 · 22/05/2025 11:09

Grim subject, I know, but why is it seemingly so hard for prisons in the states to get it right? It's clearly an unpleasant way to go...Why don't they put the person under a general anaesthetic first?

We euthanise animals quickly & painlessly, why don't they (can't they?) use the same drugs on humans?

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HoppingPavlova · 23/05/2025 11:10

I believe some people do not deserve to live, I also believe that doesn't give anyone permission to kill them

I totally agree with this. However, I don’t believe we should actively protect them from harm either, which is currently the case (at least where I am located, not in UK but I presume your system would be similar?).

Taking child sex offenders and murderers as an example, (where I’m located) they are put in a protected unit together. So, they can swap stories, get off on each others stories, and commiserate with other on the injustices done to them. I’d just stick them in with the general prison population and let them take their chances with prisoners already serving life sentences. That way they are dealt with but there is no active death penalty.

justanothermanicmondayyyy · 23/05/2025 10:52

randomchap · 22/05/2025 11:59

Some states are looking at using a firing squad as an alternative to the injections due to the drugs being unavailable.

Barbaric

When it comes to child molesters and murderers, I genuinely don't understand how someone can call it barbaric.

they deserve to go. Waste of oxygen and the victims families will not feel this is barbaric.

child molesters and murderers deserve a slow and painful death.

Leafy3 · 23/05/2025 10:50

@SerendipityJane I don't believe anyone is getting remotely "misty eyed" about any form of execution

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SerendipityJane · 23/05/2025 10:35

Leafy3 · 22/05/2025 23:18

@LambriniBobInIsleworthISeesYa he wasn't wrong.
Do you have another link to that essay? The one you posted doesn't work and I'd like to read it

Pierrepoint is an unreliable narrator. His eloquently ghost-written rejection of capital punishment was used to sell his autobiography (which is still an interesting read). Then when the funds were low, he "rediscovered" his support for the death penalty. Which is slightly sullied that as an hobbyist hangman he felt aggrieved that he wasn't paid expenses for a reprieved prisoner. Let's not get all misty eyed as if execution is some sort of hallowed vocation.

I would draw the attention of the thread to the specific example he gave in his rejection to the hangings of women. Because nothing has changed.

TheignT · 23/05/2025 08:14

Loki64 · 22/05/2025 22:18

I was abused as a child, it would much rather my abuser spend his life in prison than die and not have to serve his sentence.

Also, should the executors now be given the death penalty? Seen as they have murdered people too?

I saw a detective show, fictional, the mother of the victim gave her impact statement and she said she felt sorry for the killer, for the terrible place he was going and hoped he'd have a long life. I thought that summed it up well.

Coconutter24 · 23/05/2025 07:38

CurlewKate · 23/05/2025 07:08

Yes, I probably would feel that way too. Or I might not. Should I have a choice in what happens to the perpetrator? What if the child’s father and I think differently? What if I change my mind? That’s why we have a judicial system, not summary justice. Or a lynch mob.

I understand you asking those questions but surely those should be asked to someone who said they think the death penalty should exist?

CurlewKate · 23/05/2025 07:08

Coconutter24 · 23/05/2025 06:49

🤦‍♀️ have you even read any of my comments or just this one?
Thats ok if you would rather your abuser sit in a cell only you can decide how you’d feel on that. If my child was abused I’d rather they die a painful death tbh but again I haven’t said I agree there should be a death penalty (just incase you haven’t bothered to read any further than that comment)

Yes, I probably would feel that way too. Or I might not. Should I have a choice in what happens to the perpetrator? What if the child’s father and I think differently? What if I change my mind? That’s why we have a judicial system, not summary justice. Or a lynch mob.

Coconutter24 · 23/05/2025 06:52

sashh · 23/05/2025 03:53

One of the problems I have with the death penalty as it works in the USA (the states that have it) is the number of appeals and the process of appealing gives the prisoner something to think about.

With life in prison the prisoner might just realise what they have done and the impact on the family / friends left behind.

I also think it is incredibly cruel for the family of the death row inmate.

I believe some people do not deserve to live, I also believe that doesn't give anyone permission to kill them.

With life in prison the prisoner might just realise what they have done and the impact on the family / friends left behind.
I also think it is incredibly cruel for the family of the death row inmate.

Shame their victims don’t get that second chance, it’s also incredibly cruel for the victims family having to bury an innocent loved one.

Coconutter24 · 23/05/2025 06:49

Loki64 · 22/05/2025 22:18

I was abused as a child, it would much rather my abuser spend his life in prison than die and not have to serve his sentence.

Also, should the executors now be given the death penalty? Seen as they have murdered people too?

🤦‍♀️ have you even read any of my comments or just this one?
Thats ok if you would rather your abuser sit in a cell only you can decide how you’d feel on that. If my child was abused I’d rather they die a painful death tbh but again I haven’t said I agree there should be a death penalty (just incase you haven’t bothered to read any further than that comment)

sashh · 23/05/2025 03:53

One of the problems I have with the death penalty as it works in the USA (the states that have it) is the number of appeals and the process of appealing gives the prisoner something to think about.

With life in prison the prisoner might just realise what they have done and the impact on the family / friends left behind.

I also think it is incredibly cruel for the family of the death row inmate.

I believe some people do not deserve to live, I also believe that doesn't give anyone permission to kill them.

SinnerBoy · 23/05/2025 01:08

BlackGarlicTonkotsuWith3ExtraHalfEggs · Yesterday 23:30

If you have done something awful enough to be given the death penalty then you don't deserve a quick, painless death.

What if he shot someone in the head? Shoul he be dipped in and out of a tank of boiling water, until he's finished? (A punishment for at least one poisoner, under Henry VIII).

Who would do it? Sadists, that's who.

It's like when people get exultant about some bloke going to prison, hoping he'll be rated. Who does the raping of prisoners? A state sanctioned punisher? Or you know, rapists.

KrisAkabusi · 23/05/2025 00:10

BlackGarlicTonkotsuWith3ExtraHalfEggs · 22/05/2025 23:30

If you have done something awful enough to be given the death penalty then you don't deserve a quick, painless death.

And, yet again, what if you haven't done anything? Do you think painfully murdering innocent people is just the price you have to pay for vengeance against the genuine criminals?

YouWillFindMeInTheGarden · 23/05/2025 00:00

BlackGarlicTonkotsuWith3ExtraHalfEggs · 22/05/2025 23:30

If you have done something awful enough to be given the death penalty then you don't deserve a quick, painless death.

Really? So what do you suggest? And who will do it?

Leafy3 · 22/05/2025 23:43

@LambriniBobInIsleworthISeesYa thank you, yes :)

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OneAmusedShark · 22/05/2025 23:36

Potsofpetals · 22/05/2025 19:56

How would you suggest we deal with child rapists and mass killers. Forgive and forget?

Edited

No.

Lock them up until they die in prison.

In the USA it’s called “life without parole”.

We have that in the UK where it’s called a “whole life sentence”.

BlackGarlicTonkotsuWith3ExtraHalfEggs · 22/05/2025 23:30

If you have done something awful enough to be given the death penalty then you don't deserve a quick, painless death.

LambriniBobInIsleworthISeesYa · 22/05/2025 23:22

Leafy3 · 22/05/2025 23:18

@LambriniBobInIsleworthISeesYa he wasn't wrong.
Do you have another link to that essay? The one you posted doesn't work and I'd like to read it

This one any good @leafy3?

Comment: Albert Pierrepoint: a 'haunted hangman' and the death penalty today

Fifty years ago this Sunday, Britain passed a law which brought an end to the death penalty for murder and consigned the noose to history.

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/32976

Leafy3 · 22/05/2025 23:18

@LambriniBobInIsleworthISeesYa he wasn't wrong.
Do you have another link to that essay? The one you posted doesn't work and I'd like to read it

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LambriniBobInIsleworthISeesYa · 22/05/2025 23:09

@Leafy3Pierrepoint was called “the haunted hangman” because he had reservations in his later years about his job. He also famously renounced the death penalty. Interesting essay on him here.

After his retirement this is what he said about the death penalty: “I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people ...The trouble with the death penalty has always been that nobody wanted it for everybody, but everybody differed about who should get off."

CurlewKate · 22/05/2025 22:49

OneAmusedShark · 22/05/2025 21:52

Because in the states they always botched hanging by strangling people to death so they went for electric chair, gas and injection that were just as bad.

Also hanging is associated with lynching there.

DH was once going through a phase about being interested in post-war UK social history and we watched Vera Drake and Pierrepoint back to back.

Hanging as done in the UK was very quick and instant. There was no last words or climbing steps- just a rope and a trapdoor behind a secret door next to your cell and the length of the rope was calculated according to the weight of the prisoner to break their neck causing instant death.

No ceremony. The whole thing was over in seconds.

Better than the grotesque execution shows that go on in the USA but I still wouldn’t bring it back here.

Hanging wasn’t perfect in the UK either, despite the propaganda. It didn’t always go… according to plan.

Zimunya · 22/05/2025 22:47

Greybeardy · 22/05/2025 16:43

allowing nature to take it's course when someone has an unsurvivable illness and the burden of treatment outweighs the benefit is NOT the same as executing someone. And neither are the same as physician assisted dying. HTH.

Edited

I didn’t suggest for a second that it was all the same. It is all state sanctioned though.

SinnerBoy · 22/05/2025 22:40

Nominative · 22/05/2025 14:56

When Britain had the death penalty, we had an incredibly efficient hangman, anyone know why hanging isn't used in the states?

Our last hangman ultimately didn't support the death penalty. It must be pretty hard to live with having killed people like Timothy Evens, John Bentley and Ruth Ellis. I suspect the only people who would volunteer to be hangmen now would be deeply unsuitable for the post.

Yes, just look at the Daily Mail comments section, or the occasional vox pops. Pierrepont also said he hanged people he and the prison authorities were certain were innocent; he wanted to make it as quick and painless as possible for them, even the guilty.

YouWillFindMeInTheGarden · 22/05/2025 22:32

Well I don’t think many would want to be an ‘executioner’…. It won’t be brought back in the U.K.

i also doubt many would get much further than the gatehouse of a U.K. prison.

Loki64 · 22/05/2025 22:18

Coconutter24 · 22/05/2025 14:17

I will call it karma for those that have hurt people and taken lives of others.
For those that there is definite evidence they did the crime or a confession yes the state can kill them.
Of course I wouldn’t be happy if a family member was wrongly convicted.
Would you be happy knowing your child was molested and murdered or you parter was killed and the offender just got to carry on living?

I was abused as a child, it would much rather my abuser spend his life in prison than die and not have to serve his sentence.

Also, should the executors now be given the death penalty? Seen as they have murdered people too?