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First execution using nitrogen

349 replies

Jenry · 26/01/2024 09:28

Alabama has executed a man using nitrogen flowing through a mask for the first time. Warning - distressing detail in the article.
how is this allowed to happen in this day and age? It’s inhumane.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68085513.amp

Kenneth Eugene Smith poses for a mugshot

Alabama carries out first nitrogen gas execution - BBC News

The untested method was approved after lethal injection drugs became more difficult to obtain.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68085513.amp

OP posts:
ComtesseDeSpair · 26/01/2024 12:01

ASwimADay · 26/01/2024 11:53

Absolutely abhorrent in this day and age.

As an aside, the death penalty baffles me. Killing is wrong. Punishment = killing. Hmm

Locking somebody in a room against their will for years is wrong. Punishment = being locked in a room against your will for years.

Not particularly a supporter of the death penalty or indeed prison time for most crimes, though.

Sarah2891 · 26/01/2024 12:01

I think this was barbaric. Absolutely disgusting.

cerisepanther73 · 26/01/2024 12:02

Whether there are or not capital punishment 🤔 in America

I think America is Bonkers crazy 🤪 place in some respects ...

Konfetka · 26/01/2024 12:02

Pretty sure this violates the eighth amendment, being both cruel and unusual.

Tel12 · 26/01/2024 12:02

Seems barbaric to me. Incredible how the news is that he held his breath so is responsible for his own suffering. Imagine if in the 30 years of incarnation he had reformed and could have spent his final years giving some contributions to society? Wouldn't that have been better?

Comedycook · 26/01/2024 12:03

Vinrouge4 · 26/01/2024 11:59

I guess his victim’s families felt the same revulsion.

I'm sure they did.

And what's your point

BIanc · 26/01/2024 12:03

And yes, where you choose to have the death penalty you will always execute innocent people as well.

It happens in practice too often, but this isn't true that it's inevitable.

It could easily be reserved for terrorism crimes, or the very worst of the worst. Which amounts to a very small number of crimes (maybe a dozen per year) where the perpetrator is indisputably guilty.

BassoContinuo · 26/01/2024 12:04

Would people be against armed police shooting dead a terrorist who is about to blow up innocent people?

Not if that was the only way to stop them (I’d hope they would consider a non-lethal way first, though), but the difference is that is to stop something that’s happening at the time. It’s not punishment after the fact.

Waitingfordoggo · 26/01/2024 12:05

Sometimes killing is justified. Would people be against armed police shooting dead a terrorist who is about to blow up innocent people?

This isn’t comparable. If there is an immediate threat to life like this, then sometimes the police have no choice but to shoot a terrorist (my understanding is that the intention would be to injure or incapacitate them- and they would still then be obliged to provide or seek medical assistance for the person. Am sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong).

A person on death row is not a threat to anyone as long as they are incarcerated and don’t have access to anything that can be used as a weapon.

Comedycook · 26/01/2024 12:05

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This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

Well in that situation, it would be to prevent a crime from taking place and an attempt to remove the immediate danger.

The death penalty is just about revenge.

Comedycook · 26/01/2024 12:07

Alwaysgoingforit · 26/01/2024 11:55

Just because I have a totally different mind set to you, you don't know me but it's okay to judge. I would do it and if that makes me no better so what?
I'd be able to do it because I do not have empathy with scum.
I certainly don't give a fuck what you think of me.

You sound sweet

Megifer · 26/01/2024 12:08

Walker1178 · 26/01/2024 11:53

I have two very conflicting views on this.

First off I’m against the death penalty, it doesn’t appear to be any more of a deterrent to life imprisonment and the tit for tat argument for it just doesn’t sit well with me. Two wrongs don’t make a right and all that..

I also believe that if you have no regard for humanity you can’t then turn around and complain about your own human rights. I just can’t feel bad for this guy, he knew the consequences.

So, I’ll just stay here, sitting on the fence

Thats how I feel about it. Although id go a step further and admit I'm also a total hypocrit because I don't support the death penalty generally overall, but I feel if there's no doubt of guilt, then they don't deserve to live either. And if it was a family member someone had killed I imagine id want the murderer to die in the most horrific way imaginable.

So I guess I wouldn't be arsed if capital punishment stopped, but I'm equally not arsed about it continuing either.

IceWhites · 26/01/2024 12:09

Good Riddance. To all those saying oh we can’t execute in case they’re innocent, those on death row go through years of appeals etc. in my opinion, the murderer should die the exact same way their victim has to.

If I was that woman’s parents, I’d be feeling relief today.

justanotherusername22 · 26/01/2024 12:09

@IncompleteSenten No-one has replied to you, and you're completely right. Why not helium? I know of a guy who completed suicide that way, sadly, but it bought it to my attention.

To be fair I thought nitrogen narcosis similar though........

JohnMytton · 26/01/2024 12:10

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Comedycook · 26/01/2024 12:11

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No...it's different. In that scenario, the goal is to remove the immediate threat. The goal is not necessarily to kill. That may be the means used to remove the threat though...

Waitingfordoggo · 26/01/2024 12:14

@JohnMytton but the police (in the UK at least) are not allowed to ‘shoot to kill’. They are allowed to use reasonable force to prevent a crime. Sometimes a terrorist or madman is killed in the process, presumably because shooting someone to incapacitate them is quite a tricky thing to do in an intense situation where you have very limited time to act.

cardibach · 26/01/2024 12:16

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No, they believe this work for the state to set out to kill so wine with no other purpose in mind. In your example the purpose is preventing harm to others. In the case of the death penalty there is no other purpose, the state has just decided to end someone's life.

cardibach · 26/01/2024 12:17

Or actually maybe there is a purpose - revenge. Which is not, in my view, a sufficient reason.

Teapot13 · 26/01/2024 12:18

I think hanging is more complicated than you think. In a lot of these places there’s one execution every few years and people just don’t have the expertise they used to have in the Middle Ages! !And a hanging going wrong is definitely “cruel and unusual punishment” under the Constitution.

One complication is that a doctor cannot attend an execution. They certainly cannot inject poison into someone’s veins. Even if the doctor is only there to pronounce the person dead, if things don’t go as planned, she would have an ethical duty to try to revive the person.

So lethal injection is carried out by people with no training in giving injections, with drugs that might not be the first choice because as noted above manufacturers might not want to sell them. Moreover, some of the sedatives used in surgery in the US come from Europe and it’s illegal to export drugs for executions. We had a scenario a few years back where a state was using a European drug for executions and the EU prohibited additional exports to the US, and there were shortages of the drug for normal medical use. I think they got the state (possibly TX) to back down so they could resume supplies.

The reason these new methods are coming about is that one by one the old ways are being eliminated due to extremely dedicated legal advocacy.

cardibach · 26/01/2024 12:18

And to correct they typos in the first post, wrong to...
Someone

Damnedidont · 26/01/2024 12:19

I am against the death penalty. And I feel horror and compassion for this man but I wonder how long it took his victim to die? Alone, terrified, in pain?

twnety · 26/01/2024 12:19

Tel12 · 26/01/2024 12:02

Seems barbaric to me. Incredible how the news is that he held his breath so is responsible for his own suffering. Imagine if in the 30 years of incarnation he had reformed and could have spent his final years giving some contributions to society? Wouldn't that have been better?

And what are the odds of that though?

BombaySamphire · 26/01/2024 12:23

Comedycook · 26/01/2024 09:50

So many odd people on here. You don't have to feel sorry for a murderer to think this is disgusting.

Does it not blow your mind that someone has been gassed to death in the USA? It's horrific

Someone was also beaten to death (by this man).
That seems to be forgotten. Why isn’t the victim’s gruesome end blowing people’s minds?

SoupDragon · 26/01/2024 12:25

BombaySamphire · 26/01/2024 12:23

Someone was also beaten to death (by this man).
That seems to be forgotten. Why isn’t the victim’s gruesome end blowing people’s minds?

Of course it hasn't been forgotten 🙄

That doesn't mean we have to think this was OK.

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