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Alabama executes death-row prisoner with nitrogen gas
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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So he went through eight minutes at least of pain and panic? Sure sounds like cruel and unusual punishment to me. Although the idea that Alabama killed a man using a method considered too brutal to kill animals with does seem fitting.
The way they are doing it is horrifying.
No. Perhaps that they are doing it is horrifying, but the way is very humane. It is literally getting loopy and falling asleep, over a very short time period.
When done correctly, i.e. full immersion with proper removal of CO2, then it is humane. The current technique does not remove CO2 from the mask, meaning the victim chokes to death and knows they are choking the entire time.
So, this is similar to how lethal injection executions were getting botched because all the people who knew how to do it properly refused to on moral and ethical grounds, and the states decided to push ahead anyway?
Pretty much. Also down to money, the proper way requires a full chamber, plus constant monitoring and replacement of all gasses in said chamber -- it can't be done with just a mask or helmet, that means thousands of liters of nitrogen per second to do it properly.
It doesn't mean thousands of litres per second to do it properly. A mask or helmet could be considered a poor tool for the job, though, because they are easier to fight/struggle with, and the person could hurt themselves in the process of that.
You need the normal level of air replacement for any given volume with a human in it, but you need to be using nitrogen as the source of air replacement. If you want to speed the process up, you could do 1x space volume/minute for a couple minutes, then drop it down to a normal rate of replacement.
Choosing a larger volume will not make it painful, but it will make it slower unless you increase the flow. But slower is not bad, per se, except that since it's an execution, faster is possibly more merciful (depending on the person's preference) because the person has less time to sit there and contemplate the fact of their death.
The suicide pods are pretty much the ideal balance of space taken. For an execution, perhaps a small room with a chair, and a somewhat faster nitrogen replacement rate (like, 60 volumes/h for the first two minutes, then 5 volumes/h after that).
Then that's not simply killing him with nitrogen gas. But the better method is:
..that is all. If they're fucking it up, it's on them.
..that is all.
But also, even when completely unconscious, complex living things with a central nervous system (including people) tend to flop when they die.