Alabama executes a man with nitrogen gas, the first time the new method has been used

They actually did it. Sounds like it didn't go exactly as planned. Is it a viable method of execution or is it inhumane:

 

I wonder how well Elizabeth Sennett was breathing while he was stabbing here to death. She's not breathing very well now.

 

Suffocating people seems to be cruel and unusual punishment.

 

How about fentanyl? It's a proven killer and people die happy.

 

Is Alabama executing people with fentanyl? As it is an opioid, I would imagine it would be less painful than suffocation.

 

I think the logic here is that the sensation of suffocation is due to a buildup of carbon dioxide rather than a lack of oxygen. Nitrogen isn't very soluble though, so I don't know if any sort of actual gas exchange happens when you're breathing it in.

I'm generally opposed to the death penalty though. It can't be undone if it's wrong, and prison is worse anyway.

 

You dont feel suffocation with nitrogen gas. You feel drunk and then pass out. Very similar to how a scuba diver gets nitrogen toxicity and drowns.

 

I don’t think anyone is using it to execute people.

 

I am not sure then of the relevance of your comment regarding what I said.

 

You said suffocating is cruel and unusual, while I said fentanyl is a happier way to go.

 

Okay. Is Alabama using fentanyl as a method of execution?

 

I don't know, but I'm suggesting it as an alternative.

 

Given the source and the delivery route into the US, I expect its very much designed to execute the folks who unknowingly think it's a drug that isn't fentanyl. And as Joe Biden's administration seems unconcerned about it, it does seem that the current Joe Biden administration is happy that these deaths are occurring.

 

I am not the one in charge of Alabama execution methodology

 

Did Kenneth Eugene Smith suffer pain? The only way to find it, we need some volunteers...

 

Seems to me it would be cheaper and easier to simply shoot them.

 

Would carbon dioxide exit your blood stream if you're breathing in nitrogen. I honestly don't know.

 

I would imagine, depending on the mix, that most gases will be replaced with nitrogen during the process. Its the most common way to die in scuba. Users go too deep, nitrogen mix because too much at that depth, and then you are basically really drunk and dont make the correct decisions and drown.

 

Yeah. Nitrogen narcosis is a big thing in diving, but the gas is at such a high pressure which increases its solubility. I don't think that happens here.

 

Is it about them or the rest of us? Personally I'd prefer whichever method most effectively identifies the unrehahilitatable and most effectively prevents them from harming peaceful society. Their cost of incarceration is one type if harm.

Im not really decided one way or another, whether its worse to allow the state to kill people or whether its worse the rest of us pay to support them... neither seems an acceptable option, but there also is no third option. Off-world penal colonies may someday solve the problem, but not soon.

 

Fentanyl is mostly brought in via legal ports of entry.

 

Well the whole appeals process is fairly costly. It might be more expensive than warehousing them for decades.

The problem with your simplistic view is it's been shown that those in prison or on death row might in fact have never harmed peaceful society. What's the acceptable number of incorrect executions?

 

It would be nice if we could limit executions to crimes where the convicted has a 100% certainty of guilt, but that raises the question of other punishments. What I mean is- is it really that much more 'civilized' to imprison someone for life because we're not certain enough of their guilt to kill them? I wouldn't say so.

There is no 'good' solution. Penal colonies like Australia were the best solution ...until the world got so small that nowhere is isolated enough to be an effective penal colony anymore.

 

I would rather they be put to death in the same manner that they put others to death.

 

Of course it's more humane. If you put an innocent person in prison for 20 years you can at least let them out. In Texas they're entitled to money for each year they're wrongfully imprisoned. If you execute an innocent person, what do you do?