Alabama Has a Horrible New Way of Killing People on Death Row

The New York Times ^ | September 18, 2023 | By Bernard E. Harcourt

[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

[ClearCase_guy]

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.

[Carl Vehse]

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

[Jim W N]

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

[dfwgator]

When my time comes, I hope for a death that easy.

Unlike the screaming passengers in my car.

[Leaning Right]

> 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.

[TangoLimaSierra]

So why is it “horrible”?

My question, too.

[Magnum44]

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 ...

[Wuli]

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”.

[albie]

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

[Jamestown1630]

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.

[TheDon]

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.

[rlmorel]

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

[SunkenCiv]

By contrast, NYC has a variety of different inhumane methods, carried out by killers cut loose onto the streets by thee DA.

[EEGator]

Curb stomping?…

[rlmorel]

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

[hanamizu]

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.

[rlmorel]

I think you nailed it with your post.

[Tell It Right]

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

[blackdog]

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

[Responsibility2nd]

Horrible Not even. Even Smith - the condemened man in question - wants nitrogen.