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Alabama Has a Horrible New Way of Killing People on Death Row
The New York Times ^ | September 18, 2023 | By Bernard E. Harcourt

Posted on 09/18/2023 9:12:00 AM PDT by aculeus

After botching a series of executions by lethal injection, the State of Alabama is planning to use nitrogen gas to put condemned prisoners to death. The first execution will amount to a human experiment, because neither Alabama nor any other state has ever tried to kill people this way.

Late last month, prison guards distributed the state’s new execution protocol to prisoners in solitary confinement on Alabama’s death row. One hundred and sixty men and five women await execution in Alabama. They would be secured to a gurney, their nose and mouth would be covered by a mask, and nitrogen would be pumped into their lungs until they suffocate.

Alabama is seeking to conduct the first such experiment on Kenneth Eugene Smith, who already survived a botched execution. Last November, Mr. Smith spent hours strapped to a lethal-injection gurney as the execution team needled around in several locations to insert two intravenous lines without success, before calling off the execution

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; US: Alabama
KEYWORDS: alabama; botchedexecution; crime; deathrow; execution; firingsquad; good; hanghim; kennetheugenesmith; killemall; nitrogen; nyslimes
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To: aculeus

This method has been suggested many times and many people consider it quick, humane and fool-proof.

Of course the Left hates it. They want horrible, botched executions so that everyone is disgusted and gives up on the idea of capital punishment.


21 posted on 09/18/2023 9:19:39 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (They say "Our Democracy" but they mean Cosa Nostra.)
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To: aculeus

Short drop; quick stop. It’s worked before.


22 posted on 09/18/2023 9:19:57 AM PDT by Carl Vehse
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To: aculeus

The death penalty keeps proving that there is no right way to do the wrong thing.


23 posted on 09/18/2023 9:20:07 AM PDT by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: AnotherUnixGeek
When my time comes, I hope for a death that easy.

Unlike the screaming passengers in my car.

24 posted on 09/18/2023 9:20:33 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: libh8er

> Why does the NYT not sympathize with the families of victims who are missing a family member each ? <

It’s a weird form of mental illness. The Pope is the same way. Those folks go on and on about the “suffering” of the convicted murderer. The innocent victim *might* get a brief mention. No description of how horribly the victim suffered.

The victim’s family doesn’t get mentioned at all.


25 posted on 09/18/2023 9:21:39 AM PDT by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: O6ret
So why is it “horrible”?

My question, too.

26 posted on 09/18/2023 9:22:26 AM PDT by TangoLimaSierra (⭐⭐To the Left, The Truth is Right Wing Violence⭐⭐)
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To: aculeus
Nitrogen is an inert gas, just displaces oxygen. Just like going to sleep. Eventually the body/brain starve from lack of oxygen. Seems humane enough, but it could take an hour or more to declare someone clinically dead. People have been revived in rare cases (like falling into freezing waters) hours after not having an oxygen supply.

Maybe after the convict falls asleep we just ...


27 posted on 09/18/2023 9:23:17 AM PDT by Magnum44 (...against all enemies, foreign and domestic... )
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To: aculeus

I do believe some horrendous criminals do “deserve” to die and I do think cpaital punishment is not unconstitutional.

But in spite of the high cost, and the extreme nature of life imprisonment without the chance of every getting parole, I do think it is the better course, leaving the horror of someone’s crimes to God’s ultimate judgement while we keep the person permantely removed from society.

This has not always been my position. Maybe I am just “getting old”.


28 posted on 09/18/2023 9:23:49 AM PDT by Wuli
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To: aculeus

Did Kenneth Eugene Smith, who already survived a botched execution, get another last meal? If so, lucky stiff.


29 posted on 09/18/2023 9:23:55 AM PDT by albie
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To: libh8er

Some of us are able to hold two different ideas at once.

I am against capital punishment, and always have been. It’s vicious and vengeful, and too final, considering the frequency of incompetence in human beings making the decision to off someone.


30 posted on 09/18/2023 9:24:19 AM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: O6ret

Agreed. The atmosphere is about 78%. The condemned will pass out then die when the oxygen is replaced with nitrogen.

Make each death row cell air tight, then the condemned can be executed in the cell during the night while they sleep, never knowing which night is their last.


31 posted on 09/18/2023 9:24:40 AM PDT by TheDon (Resist the usurpers! Remember the J6 political prisoners!)
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To: aculeus

This is the most humane way of putting people to death who deserve it under the law.


32 posted on 09/18/2023 9:25:05 AM PDT by rlmorel ("If you think tough men are dangerous, just wait until you see what weak men are capable of." JBP)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; cardinal4; ...
By contrast, NYC has a variety of different inhumane methods, carried out by killers cut loose onto the streets by thee DA.

33 posted on 09/18/2023 9:25:36 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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Curb stomping?…


34 posted on 09/18/2023 9:25:54 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: AnotherUnixGeek

I know. Perhaps they want us to go back to Old Sparky.


35 posted on 09/18/2023 9:26:03 AM PDT by rlmorel ("If you think tough men are dangerous, just wait until you see what weak men are capable of." JBP)
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To: aculeus

Alabama Has a Horrible New Way of Killing People on Death Row...neither Alabama nor any other state has ever tried to kill people this way.


But nitrogen has tried to kill people this way and has succeeded many times. Because most of the air we breathe is nitrogen, the body has no warning system in place to tell us that there is too much of it. No odor, no feeling of suffocation, no nothing. The condemned (or an accidental victim) just passes out and dies.

Now it is true, that the condemned does know that he’s about to die and the accident victim has no clue, but the condemned prisoner always has that knowledge when he approaches the ‘chair’, the chamber, the gallows or the gurney.


36 posted on 09/18/2023 9:26:11 AM PDT by hanamizu ( )
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To: ClearCase_guy

I think you nailed it with your post.


37 posted on 09/18/2023 9:26:36 AM PDT by rlmorel ("If you think tough men are dangerous, just wait until you see what weak men are capable of." JBP)
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To: aculeus

Only a Dim can find say it’s cruel to implement death by laughing gas.


38 posted on 09/18/2023 9:27:11 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: aculeus

Fentanyl milkshake is a nice way to go. $20.


39 posted on 09/18/2023 9:27:14 AM PDT by blackdog ((Z28.310) My dog Sam eats purple flowers.)
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To: aculeus
Horrible Not even. Even Smith - the condemened man in question - wants nitrogen.
40 posted on 09/18/2023 9:27:30 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (A truth that’s told with bad intent, Beats all the lies you can invent ~ Wm. Blake)
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