Death Penalty

[Isgrimnur]

Fun fact: France didn't abandon the guillotine until 1977.

After the release of Star Wars.

[Blackhawk]

I again suggest that there are, in fact, humane, fast, guaranteed painless ways to execute a person. They're just messy, and we'd prefer suffering to messy.

[Alefroth]

Grisly and gruesome, but more humane than a firing squad I'd say.

[ImLawBoy]

Fun fact: France didn't abandon the guillotine until 1977.

After the release of Star Wars.

Obvious cause and effect here.

[Carpet_pissr]

In true SC form, this is just a "FUCK YOU" to the "liberal" companies that won't sell them lethal injection drugs anymore.

Fucking barbarians, man. I live amongst them.

It does make me ponder how justice will be meted out by our eventual AI/algorithmic overlords.

[Jaymann]

In true SC form, this is just a "FUCK YOU" to the "liberal" companies that won't sell them lethal injection drugs anymore.

Fucking barbarians, man. I live amongst them.

It does make me ponder how justice will be meted out by our eventual AI/algorithmic overlords.

They put you in a simulation and stimulate your pleasure center to the degree that you never want to come out.

[Isgrimnur]

NPR

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey sought a pause in executions and ordered a "top-to-bottom" review of the state's capital punishment system Monday after an unprecedented third failed lethal injection.

Ivey's office issued a statement saying she had both asked Attorney General Steve Marshall to withdraw motions seeking execution dates for two inmates and requested that the Department of Corrections undertake a full review of the state's execution process.

Ivey also requested that Marshall not seek additional execution dates for any other death row inmates until the review is complete.

The move followed the uncompleted execution Thursday of Kenneth Eugene Smith, which was the state's second such instance of being unable to put an inmate to death in the past two months and its third since 2018. The state completed an execution in July, but only after a three-hour delay caused at least partly by the same problem with starting an IV line.

Denying that prison officials or law enforcement are to blame for the problems, Ivey said "legal tactics and criminals hijacking the system are at play here."

[disarm]

As an anesthesiologist, I have never understood how the prison system manages to fail at performing an execution by lethal injection. There are so many ways to accomplish this with readily available medications that it just boggles my mind. I have a multitude of medications at my disposal every day that can easily kill someone without fail, yet these morons somehow can't get it "right." Of course part of the issue is that virtually all physician groups, especially the American Society of Anesthesiologists, have adamantly refused (and rightfully so) to assist in developing protocols for lethal injection because it's an action clearly outside our oath to do no harm. The result is that you have people without adequate education or understanding developing these injection protocols, that are then administered by people who are poorly trained at placing IV access and giving meds. The whole system is a setup for failure in most states.

[Holman]

I'm opposed to the death penalty not only in principle but because it is disproportionately applied to racial minorities (who are also often exonerated by future treatments of evidence).

At the same time, where the death penalty is clearly and unambiguously warranted, what happened to putting someone completely under anesthesia and then ending their life with an overdose of morphine or similar drugs?

Is the point to erase them or to first make them suffer?

[Jaymann]

I'm opposed to the death penalty not only in principle but because it is disproportionately applied to racial minorities (who are also often exonerated by future treatments of evidence).

At the same time, where the death penalty is clearly and unambiguously warranted, what happened to putting someone completely under anesthesia and then ending their life with an overdose of morphine or similar drugs?

They tried that but the prison staff kept absconding with the morphine.

[Isgrimnur]

Missouri

A 19-year-old Missouri woman can't be a witness to her father's execution after a judge ruled Friday that a state law barring her from being present because of her age is constitutional.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit this week on behalf of Khorry Ramey asking a federal court to allow her to attend her father's planned execution Tuesday.
...
Johnson was 19 at the time of the crime — a parallel that isn't lost on his supporters.
...
Missouri law says that no person younger than 21 can witness an execution. In its emergency filing, the ACLU argued that the statute violates Ramey's constitutional rights by "singling out adults younger than 21 ... without any rational relationship to a legitimate governmental or penological interest."

U.S. District Judge Brian Wimes said in a written ruling that Ramey failed to demonstrate "unconstitutionality," and that it remains "in the public's interest to allow states to enforce their laws and administer state prisons without court intervention."
...
The Missouri Attorney General's Office had argued in a court filing that the current state law is "rational" because it is "preventing teenagers from witnessing death," while also "preserving the solemnity of the execution" and "ensuring the witnesses can give reliable accounts of the execution."

[Kurth]

I'm opposed to the death penalty not only in principle but because it is disproportionately applied to racial minorities (who are also often exonerated by future treatments of evidence).

At the same time, where the death penalty is clearly and unambiguously warranted, what happened to putting someone completely under anesthesia and then ending their life with an overdose of morphine or similar drugs?

Is the point to erase them or to first make them suffer?

I think the answer to this is in disarm’s post above. The failure and suffering is a bug, not a feature.

Honestly, I have no real issue with the death penalty in principle. It’s the whole “in practice” part — killing innocent people, disproportionately sentencing racial minorities to death, botching the actual execution — that makes it so problematic for me.

[Isgrimnur]

Alabama

Alabama plans to execute an inmate on Thursday for the 2001 beating death of a woman as the state seeks to carry out its first lethal injection after a pause in executions following a string of problems with inserting the IVs.

James Barber, 64, is scheduled to be put to death Thursday evening at a south Alabama prison. It is the first execution scheduled in the state since Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey paused executions in November to conduct an internal review.
...
Attorneys for Barber have asked federal courts to block the lethal injection, citing the state's past problems. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to halt the execution on Wednesday. Judges noted the state had conducted a review of procedures and wrote that “Barber’s claim that the same pattern would continue to occur” is “purely speculative.”

The court noted that the Alabama Department of Corrections had changed medical personnel and lengthened the timeframe for executions.

“ADOC conducted a full review of its execution processes and procedures, determined that no deficiencies existed with the protocol itself, and instituted certain changes to help ensure successful constitutional executions,” the court wrote.

[Isgrimnur]

Liberal justices blast Supreme Court majority for allowing Alabama execution

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, declined to block the execution of James Barber, who was put to death at about 2 a.m. local time.

"This court’s decision denying Barber’s request for a stay allows Alabama to experiment again with a human life," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion joined by her liberal colleagues, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
...
The Supreme Court's brief order did not explain its reasoning in allowing Barber's execution.

"Today's decision is another troubling example of this court stymying the development of Eighth Amendment law by pushing forward executions without complete information," Sotomayor wrote.
...
The Supreme Court's conservative majority generally allows executions to go ahead, with death penalty proponents critical of last-minute court filings they say are aimed purely at delaying the process. During the oral argument in a 2015 case, conservative Justice Samuel Alito referred to such tactics as “a guerrilla war against the death penalty.”

[Isgrimnur]

Justices take up bid to overturn Oklahoma death sentence

Eight years after the Supreme Court blocked his execution so that it could consider a challenge to Oklahoma’s lethal-injection protocol, the justices agreed on Monday to take up the case of Richard Glossip, who is seeking to set aside his conviction and death sentence. In an unusual twist, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond supported Glossip’s petition for review, telling the court that “justice would not be served by moving forward with a capital sentence that the State can no longer defend because of prosecutorial misconduct and cumulative error.”

[Isgrimnur]

Kenneth Eugene Smith: US inmate faces first nitrogen execution after losing last-minute appeals

Alabama has 30 hours to carry out the execution, which involves pumping nitrogen gas through a mask, from Thursday at 0600 GMT (0100 ET).
…
Alabama said in a court filing that they expect him to lose consciousness within seconds and die in a matter of minutes.

But its use has been denounced by some medical professionals, who warn it could cause a range of catastrophic mishaps, ranging from violent convulsions to survival in a vegetative state.
...
Smith's lawyers lodged a challenge with the Supreme Court, arguing that putting convicts through multiple execution attempts violates the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects against "cruel and unusual" punishment.

On Wednesday, the justices declined to hear the appeal and denied his request to halt the execution. No justice publicly dissented from the ruling.

Smith also made a separate legal challenge to the lower 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, where he contested the legality of Alabama's nitrogen gas protocol.

But that court also rejected the inmate's request for an injunction in a ruling on Wednesday evening.

[waitingtoconnect]

In true SC form, this is just a "FUCK YOU" to the "liberal" companies that won't sell them lethal injection drugs anymore.

Fucking barbarians, man. I live amongst them.

It does make me ponder how justice will be meted out by our eventual AI/algorithmic overlords.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_ ... ust_Scream

[Isgrimnur]

6:52 p.m. - The Supreme Court has denied Smith's final appeal, according to officials and media present at the execution.

[Isgrimnur]

Governor Ivey’s office confirmed Kenneth Smith has been executed by nitrogen hypoxia, time of death was 8:25.

[Blackhawk]

Via the BBC:

Witnesses observed two to four minutes of writhing and about five minutes of heavy breathing before he was pronounced dead at 20:25 local time (02:35 GMT).

[Carpet_pissr]

Via the BBC:

Witnesses observed two to four minutes of writhing and about five minutes of heavy breathing before he was pronounced dead at 20:25 local time (02:35 GMT).

That seems…long.

[disarm]

Via the BBC:

Witnesses observed two to four minutes of writhing and about five minutes of heavy breathing before he was pronounced dead at 20:25 local time (02:35 GMT).

That seems…long.

That's less time than I would have expected him to be moving, but I'm sure someone will still complain that it was inhumane. Realistically he was fully unconscious and completely unaware at that point, but someone will still argue that his movements are a sign that he suffered.

[Kraken]

Via the BBC:

Witnesses observed two to four minutes of writhing and about five minutes of heavy breathing before he was pronounced dead at 20:25 local time (02:35 GMT).

That seems…long.

Witness Reverend Jeff Hood told reporters he saw a man ‘struggling for their life’ for 22 minutes (says the Independent)

[YellowKing]

I used to be super-pro death penalty, but once I learned how many false convictions there are in this country I did a complete 180. I don't care if this guy passed away as peacefully as the family pet, I think it's a practice that no civilized country should be engaging in. Especially one with such a horrible judicial track record.

[Carpet_pissr]

I used to be super-pro death penalty, but once I learned how many false convictions there are in this country I did a complete 180. I don't care if this guy passed away as peacefully as the family pet, I think it's a practice that no civilized country should be engaging in. Especially one with such a horrible judicial track record.

This (minus the "used to be super pro-death penalty" part)

[Alefroth]

I'm also against the death penalty, but if it's going to be done, is there something wrong with the guillotine?

[Max Peck]

That's less time than I would have expected him to be moving, but I'm sure someone will still complain that it was inhumane. Realistically he was fully unconscious and completely unaware at that point

You're assuming they did it right. I've seen claims that they didn't even bother to fit-test the mask they used, so it's entirely possible that he was getting a mix of nitrogen and air, in which case who knows how long he'd remain conscious.

[Kraken]

I used to be super-pro death penalty, but once I learned how many false convictions there are in this country I did a complete 180. I don't care if this guy passed away as peacefully as the family pet, I think it's a practice that no civilized country should be engaging in. Especially one with such a horrible judicial track record.

This.

I'm uncomfortable with giving the state authority to kill citizens in cold blood under any circumstances, and glad that capital punishment is on its way out in all but a handful of states.

[Max Peck]

One of the weirder things I've read about this case today is that at his trial, the jury voted 11-1 against the death penalty, but they were overriden by the judge. Given that in the intervening years the state has done away with the ability for judges to override a jury's verdict in that manner, you'd think that the rational thing to do would have been to commute the sentence to life in prison.

[disarm]

That's less time than I would have expected him to be moving, but I'm sure someone will still complain that it was inhumane. Realistically he was fully unconscious and completely unaware at that point

You're assuming they did it right. I've seen claims that they didn't even bother to fit-test the mask they used, so it's entirely possible that he was getting a mix of nitrogen and air, in which case who knows how long he'd remain conscious.

/puts on anesthesiologist hat

That doesn't really matter though. Nitrogen is odorless, non-irritating and non-toxic. The air we breathe every day is 78% nitrogen and it does nothing. This method of execution works because the lack of sufficient oxygen eventually causes you to lose consciousness and die of hypoxic cardiac arrest. Losing consciousness due to hypoxia occurs slowly as the body uses up reserves that are in the lungs and is a painless process...feel tired, close your eyes and fall asleep. A poorly fitting mask could still allow a small amount of oxygen, slowing the process slightly, but that wouldn't cause any discomfort.

I've seen people pass away from hypoxia. It's not a bad way to go.

/removes hat

[Isgrimnur]

Nitrogen gas execution was "textbook" and will be used again, Alabama attorney general says

"What occurred last night was textbook," [Alabama's attorney general Steve] Marshall said. "As of last night, nitrogen hypoxia as a means of execution is no longer an untested method. It is a proven one."
...
Marshall said that 43 other inmates sentenced to death in Alabama have requested execution by nitrogen hypoxia. He said that he also believes other states will begin using the method.

"Alabama has done it, and now so can you," Marshall said. "We stand ready to assist you in implementing this method in your states."

[waitingtoconnect]

The main challenge with this method is that you know.

So the mind and body resist. That makes the death far from peaceful.

[disarm]

The main challenge with this method is that you know.

So the mind and body resist. That makes the death far from peaceful.

You don't resist though. You breathe through a mask until you lose consciousness and that's it. You're not aware of anything after that point. Your body may move, but you don't gasp for air or feel any pain.

[Alefroth]

One of the weirder things I've read about this case today is that at his trial, the jury voted 11-1 against the death penalty, but they were overriden by the judge. Given that in the intervening years the state has done away with the ability for judges to override a jury's verdict in that manner, you'd think that the rational thing to do would have been to commute the sentence to life in prison.

Absolutely.

[Holman]

I had a colonoscopy today. A very routine procedure put me completely unconscious for almost an hour.

Had I been sentenced to die, could there have been any more humane and logical way to end my life than to cut my throat during that time? I assume that a surgical incision wouldn't be enough to overcome the sedation.

(This is just a question about procedure. I am against the death penalty for a variety of reasons, especially its prejudiced enforcement.)

[Daehawk]

Growing up I thought the death penalty was needed. Later I didn't care one way or the other. But now days Im more against it. It doesn't seem to be helping any.

Also its starting to feel like they are experimenting with ways to kill people. making it feel more like torture or trading one murder for another. Also what about someone who really is innocent sent to death row? Then also people stay on death row for decades. Seems kinda morbid and a bit mentally torturous.

Granted some people need a swift death for stuff they do. And it saves money on feeding and housing those are are outright heinous in their crime and have no remorse or could never be changed into a good person. So what do you do?

[waitingtoconnect]

Personally I think the death penalty is only for the most heinous cases where guilt cannot be questioned and where rehabilitation is impossible.

I think the real cruelty is leaving people on death row for 30 years. To my mind that’s two sentences : a jail term equaling almost life and then a death penalty.

[LawBeefaroni]

I had a friend who killed himself via nitrogen hypoxia. I don't like this method of execution.

In addition, from what I've heard, this guy was trying not to breath to avoid the nitrogen. I think any method that can be partially defeated, even if only temporarily, by holding your breath isn't a viable method.

[Blackhawk]

I come back to what I've said before: We have painless ways to execute people. I've had enough surgeries to know that we can knock someone out without them batting an eyelash, and a hundred ways to kill someone once they're out. We also have these tools called 'guns', and it wouldn't be that hard to come up with something that was the equivalent of a shotgun in the mouth. Not pretty, but instant and painless.

And yet we choose these convoluted, questionable methods that result in fear and pain, and in most cases we can't ever confirm, because the person who experienced it is dead.

[Blackhawk]

Not that I'd advocate for any of those, by the way - I've seen too much of the justice system. There are too many cracks, too much privilege for some, while at the same time there is too much lined up against others. There are too many people in the process (cops, detectives, attorneys, judges, even witnesses) who have their own motivations besides justice, and human minds and senses are too fallible, especially in times of stress, for witnesses to ever be 100% reliable. We've made far too many mistakes. There have been too many exonerations of people for whom there was zero question of guilt, sometimes decades later.

That is not a system that needs to be determining who lives and who dies, especially when they are being killed in our names.