Lethal injection: death by slow drowning?

[MillCreek]

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/21/793177589/gasping-for-air-autopsies-reveal-troubling-effects-of-lethal-injection?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwAR1z97jb6iM99IfiySSkGyhB0fCv8VQo6yFaLZgZdSl3rXC2j01w6yfQO8Q

I know many people care less about the suffering of someone being executed, but if someone is being executed on my behalf as a citizen of the State, I want it to be done quickly and with a minimum of pain and terror.  Perhaps lethal injection does not meet that standard.

[K Frame]

Don't know why we ever got away from a bullet to the brain stem.

Instant lights out.

[cordex]

I don't think lethal injection is necessarily the best choice (as has been discussed here a number of times, massive heroin OD or nitrogen asphyxiation seem like better and cheaper methods), but I notice that the article starts out with the following:

He had received simple instructions: Interpret the levels of an anesthetic in the blood to determine whether the inmates were conscious during their execution.

So the doc is tasked by lawyers opposing the death penalty with determining if the executed prisoners were conscious during their execution, but instead goes down the path of investigating pulmonary edema?  

I don't see any additional reference to his initial analysis in the article, which leads me to believe he probably found that they were suitably sedated.  If that's the case, even if the prisoner's lungs were laboring and their body was undergoing a process that would be very painful to a conscious person they are not experiencing that suffering through the sedation.  Unless he also found that the prisoners weren't properly sedated, this shows that the drug selection was properly constructed to avoid suffering.

If we are supposed to discount the sedation, wouldn't we prosecute surgeons for torturing people?  After all, cutting people open is associated with extreme agony ...

[WLJ]

JHC
We can put people to sleep for operations so why the big problem with doing so for an execution?
I've had three operations and each time it was lights out once they did the injection

[Ben]

JHC
We can put people to sleep for operations so why the big problem with doing so for an execution?

Yeah, I don't get that. In fact people seem to be able to figure out how to painlessly suicide all the time.

To Mike's point, it's because our "civilized" society feels a clean looking death is more important than a quick death.

[MillCreek]

Further down in the article, there is much discussion about if the inmates are properly anesthetized such that they do not feel pain.  There is legitimate reason to think that in many cases, they are not.  Also, the protocol in many states is to also administer a paralytic at the same time, so even if the inmate was not sedated at all and able to feel pain, you cannot tell since the inmate cannot move, speak, or twitch.

[BobR]

I don't see why we don't treat lethal injection just like a rapid sequence intubation (RSI), a little milk of amnesia (Propofol), some succinylcholine, and then instead of intubating a big ole whopping dose of potassium. It should be over before the Propofol wears off. If the short half life of Propofol is a concern you could follow the rapid action of that with a dose of Ketamine which has a longer half life. My 2 cents worth. I think a sealed environment and replacing the O2 with N2 would still be a good way to go for putting people to sleep forever.

bob

[zxcvbob]

I don't see why we don't treat lethal injection just like a rapid sequence intubation (RSI), a little milk of amnesia (Propofol), some succinylcholine, and then instead of intubating a big ole whopping dose of potassium. It should be over before the Propofol wears off. If the short half life of Propofol is a concern you could follow the rapid action of that with a dose of Ketamine which has a longer half life. My 2 cents worth. I think a sealed environment and replacing the O2 with N2 would still be a good way to go for putting people to sleep forever.

bob

Give 'em a mild tranquilizer first if they want it.  Then a respirator mask; switch it from breathable air to N2 with a silent valve, or one that clicks every 2 seconds whether it does anything or not.  Industrial N2 or N2-Argon mix should be fine.

[cordex]

Further down in the article, there is much discussion about if the inmates are properly anesthetized such that they do not feel pain.  There is legitimate reason to think that in many cases, they are not.  Also, the protocol in many states is to also administer a paralytic at the same time, so even if the inmate was not sedated at all and able to feel pain, you cannot tell since the inmate cannot move, speak, or twitch.

You are correct, I missed that.

[grampster]

Rope is cheap and gravity if free.

[MillCreek]

Rope is cheap and gravity if free.

Back in the day, the British certainly thought they had perfected the art of hanging and the long-drop method with the drop calculated by weight and careful placement of the noose seemed to work pretty well.

[Andiron]

If we can't just bring back hanging,  why not C02 asphyxiation? It's good enough for livestock.

[Ron]

If we can't just bring back hanging,  why not C02 asphyxiation? It's good enough for livestock.

CO2 asphyxiation triggers a suffocation and panic reflex.

[Andiron]

CO2 asphyxiation triggers a suffocation and panic reflex.

I might have that wrong,  ask Charby.  I was at the Butcher last week,  and he was telling me about how they kill hogs.  It's a double elevator system, a door opens,  hogs go in,  get gassed and elevated, door next to that opens, empty. rinse and repeat all day.

[sumpnz]

With my livestock I use a scary sharp knife and cut the throat.  They lose consciousness in a few seconds, and are brain dead within a minute or two.

But that's messy, and not painless (pain is minimal but not zero).  Death hurts though, and part of our problem is a weird insistence that death not hurt.

[MechAg94]

IMO, I don't think the death needs to be painless, just that we don't use a method calculated to increase the pain.  IMO, quick is more important than painless.  That said, we have all brought up ways to do this.  It isn't that hard until the lawyers get involved. 

The problem here is a bunch of lawyers getting involved who are not interested in a painless, humane death.  They are trying to undermine and get rid of the death penalty itself.  This is just the method they are using to do it.  IMO, it is best not to indulge their crap too much. 

[makattak]

IMO, I don't think the death needs to be painless, just that we don't use a method calculated to increase the pain.  IMO, quick is more important than painless.  That said, we have all brought up ways to do this.  It isn't that hard until the lawyers get involved.  

The problem here is a bunch of lawyers getting involved who are not interested in a painless, humane death.  They are trying to undermine and get rid of the death penalty itself.  This is just the method they are using to do it.  IMO, it is best not to indulge their crap too much.  

Completely agree with all of this.

The quick and relatively painless death is because we do not wish to engage in cruelty. For our own benefit, not because we're particularly concerned about the feelings of murderers and rapists. (Who also deserve the death penalty, Supreme Court decision be damned.)

[BobR]

Rope is cheap and gravity if free.

Maybe so but then the lawyers fees become cost prohibitive, thanks #fatbastard


bob

[Angel Eyes]

Maybe so but then the lawyers fees become cost prohibitive, thanks #fatbastard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Ketchum

[BobR]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Ketchum

Well, the desired outcome was achieved. 


bob

[Pb]

Hmmm... I've wondered if an efficient means of execution wouldn't be just to handcuff the perp, weigh them down, and toss them in the ocean. 

Would that be cruel and unusual?

[Ben]

Hmmm... I've wondered if an efficient means of execution wouldn't be just to handcuff the perp, weigh them down, and toss them in the ocean. 

Would that be cruel and unusual?

As a lifelong scuba diver, drowning is way, way down my list as an easy death. No thanks.

[RoadKingLarry]

I'm a big proponent of the "big hole" method.
Once the person is duly and properly tried, convicted and sentenced and a basic review and any requisite appeals have been speedily concluded, bring in a big back hoe, dig a deep hole, toss the condemned person into the hole and fill it in. No superfluous steps like actually killing the condemned first needed but parking the backhoe over the filled in hole overnight might be a good idea.

[zxcvbob]

Well, the desired outcome was achieved. 

bob

And I really doubt it was any more traumatic for the condemned than if it had gone properly.  Perhaps less, even.  Instant loss of cerebral fluid pressure and blood pressure probably brought about unconsciousness faster than breaking the upper cervical spine.  It was traumatic for the executioner and the witnesses; that's not a bad thing.

Some things can be too efficient.  I think executions are one of those things.  But when you kill a rabid animal you don't torture it to death, you dispatch it as humanely as is practical.  I think that's a pretty good standard for executions.  The guillotine is probably really not that bad, except for the leading up to it part.  I still think asphyxiation with an inert gas (not CO2) is better, but maybe that gets back to the "too efficient" thing.

[Andiron]

Relevant John Wayne movie quote, regarding the "too efficient" thing.



Morton : You're going to shoot us, ain't you Chisum?

John Simpson Chisum : I thought about it. Then I thought about something Henry Tunstall once said. He watched a man walk to the gallows... saw him hang. He said it was ghastly. Well, I've seen men hang, and that's the word - ghastly. You two are going to hang.


I don't care what anyone says about the death penalty not being a deterrent.  It WOULD be if we still had the ghastly spectacle.  Your hardened shithead probably isn't all the worried about being put to sleep like a beloved family dog.  Nothing really scary about that.