An Alabama man facing the death penalty by nitrogen gas was spared Thursday as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to set aside a lower-court ruling that found the method is unconstitutionally cruel, issuing a brief order that came well after the hour originally planned to initiate Jeffery Lee’s execution…
…During the previous Alabama nitrogen executions, the inmates shook, pulled at the restraints and exhibited labored breathing. During the state’s last execution by nitrogen gas, 30 minutes elapsed between Anthony Boyd exhibiting signs of being impacted by the gas and state officials closing the curtain to the viewing room to signal the execution was complete.
The idea is that you breathe, but the gas you’re breathing is nitrogen, so eventually you die.
Of course this is going to suck, anyone who’s ever suffocated or had serious breathing issues knows that one of the worst feelings in the world is not being able to breathe.
There’s been a lot of this sort of thing going on: the company that used to sell drugs for execution stopped doing so, and various US states have been looking for alternatives. The prisoner in this case wants a firing squad, figuring it’s quicker and less painful.
Meanwhile up here in Canada we have legal assisted suicide. It’s a controversial program, because it seems like the government or various relatives are a little too eager about it. (After all, dead people don’t take up hospital beds and dead relatives don’t cause problems.) I think assisted suicide is often a good thing, but easily abused, however we’ll leave a moral deep dive for another article.
The thing is there’s never any criticism that it is a painful death. I looked into it. They give the patient:
- An anxiolytic and sedative drug: Midazoloam.
- They give them a drug to put them into a coma-like state with a rapid acting drug: Profofol. Then,
- They give them a drug which causes paralysis, including of the lungs. Rocuronium. The patient dies of suffocation, same as with helium (or Hemlock, which Socrates was executed with.)
But the patient doesn’t suffer, because they’re deeply unconscious.
This protocol works, it’s well known, so why not use it?
Because Alabama and other US states want the prisoner to suffer. Moaning about expense is ridiculous, however expensive it is it’s cheaper than keeping a prisoner on death row, same as it’s cheaper than keeping a patient in hospital.
Executing prisoners without causing undue suffering is a solved problem. Alabama and other states like it just want the prisoner to suffer, so they keep searching for a method that will be painful and courts will allow.
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Dan Kelly
Yep. The title says it all.
That’s why I’m thinking about the right mix of heroin. And I really shouldn’t mix it with cocaine but god that was such a wonderful feeling back in the day.
Oh, who the hell am I kidding?
You can’t even get good illicit drugs in the US anymore.
Literally everything has been crapified.
anonone
Why not fentanyl?
I am completely opposed to the death penalty, but it would seem that an OD of fentanyl would be an easy and painless death. If I was going to euthanize myself, that is what I would choose.
Troy
MAID? I recommend people read the process for accessing it and also the reports before drawing any conclusions. (https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-services-benefits/medical-assistance-dying.html).
mago
Yeah, in my darkest moments I thought about keeping a lethal dose of fentanyl around, but it’s been a long time since I thought that way. Still, I sometimes think it might not be a bad idea to have some on hand.
The death penalty arises from a toxic sense of retribution. What’s the motive? Who does it serve? Yes, as the title says, cruelty is the point.
Then there’s the assisted suicide issue which gets gussied up with a humane gloss, but as Ian points out, it’s abused to get rid of burdensome oldsters and the ill who require costly care, while those suffering from mental and physical illnesses are all to prone to say Anywhere But Here, which is a great novel by the way. Er, never mind.
We need humane treatment for all sentient beings, but who’s zooming who?
profan
a small technical correction: the lungs are not a muscle and are not “paralyzed” by rocuronium (a neuromuscular blocker). Rocuronium paralyzes skeletal muscles including the diaphragm, whose movement allows the lungs to expand and contract, ensuring movement of air. All the drugs mentioned in your article are common drugs for induction of anesthesia (fentanyl woud be good too as mentioned in the comments). When they are given for induction of anesthesia, a breathing tube is then usually inserted (or another airway device used) and the patient is ventilated by somebody else or by a machine, and your lungs still work (perform gas exchange) as before, unaffected by these drugs. Midazolam is also an amnestic (not just an anxiolitic and sedative). I guess it doesnt matter much in euthanasia cases, bit in surgery it is given so that the patient doesn’t remember the event. I guess if for some reason something goes wrong and the euthanasia does not complete (an IV fails after midazolam is given but before rocuronium, or if rocuronium comes from a bad batch) the patient will not die but will likely not remember the (failed) procedure — which is also humane.
Jan Wiklund
1. Americans are too fucking moralist. Sometimes it seems that they are more eager that the “evil ones” suffer than that things are corrected. One of the arguments against universal health insurance, for example, is that “those who have inflicted illness on themselves”, e.g. through drugs like alcohol, will have the same rights as everybody else. Better that I pay twice as much for medical treatment than that they get the same rights as me, think the moralists.
And this doesn’t apply only to the reactionaries. There are too many of those who are called liberals in the US who think that the important thing is to feel sorry for this or that group of persons, not that equal rules apply to all. Socalled identity politics.
2. In Belgium you can have eutnanasia if you have a certificate of an uncurable painful illness from two independent doctors. That is at least one insurance against abuse. Perhaps not enough, though.
spud
surprise surprise,
Bill Clinton reinstated the federal death penalty in 1988 when he signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which expanded its application. This marked a significant shift in federal policy regarding capital punishment during his presidency.
Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Bill Clinton and the Death Penalty
Reinstatement of the Federal Death Penalty
Bill Clinton reinstated the federal death penalty in 1988 by signing the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. This act expanded the application of capital punishment, marking a significant shift in federal policy.
Political Climate: The decision to reinstate the death penalty came during a time when crime was a major concern for voters. Clinton aimed to position himself as tough on crime, especially in light of the political landscape that favored stringent law enforcement measures.
Impact on Federal Policy: The reinstatement allowed for the death penalty to be applied to serious crimes such as murder and large-scale drug trafficking. This change reflected a broader trend in the U.S. towards harsher penalties for violent crimes.
Legacy of Clinton’s Decision
Clinton’s actions regarding the death penalty have been a point of contention and discussion, particularly in the context of his overall legacy and the evolving views on capital punishment in America. His administration’s policies contributed to the increased use of the death penalty at the federal level, which has continued to be a controversial issue in U.S. criminal justice.
Wikipedia Encyclopedia
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 banned certain assault weapons, expanded the federal death penalty, required states to register sex offenders, prohibited firearm sales to domestic abusers, and authorized $30.2 billion over six years for law enforcement, crime prevention, and prison expansion.
ebsco.com Wikipedia
The reinstatement of the federal death penalty in 1976 did not lead to a significant decrease in crime rates during the 1990s. Executions and death sentences remained relatively stable, and many studies indicated that capital punishment had little to no deterrent effect on crime.
bjs.ojp.gov
Arguments for the federal death penalty include its potential to deter crime, provide justice and closure for victims’ families, and serve as a moral punishment for the most heinous crimes. Conversely, arguments against it highlight that it does not effectively deter crime, is costly, and is often applied with racial bias and poor legal representation.
Encyclopedia Britannica The White House
————-
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2016/04/bill-clinton-has-always-been-this-person
Bill Clinton Has Always Been This Person
Clinton has spent his entire career inflicting harm on black people while cynically claiming to speak for their interests.
Nathan J. Robinson
“Clinton’s acidic hectoring quickly made the news. He was rapidly criticized for not having any idea what Black Lives Matter actually stands for. Michelle Goldberg of Slate said Bill Clinton had become a liability to Hillary’s campaign and should be fired. Goldberg said it was “baffling” that Bill Clinton, after previously disowning his crime bill, would go back to defending it.
This was, after all, the bill that “expanded the scope of the death penalty, enshrined “three-strikes” provisions into federal law, and allocated almost $10 billion in funding for prison construction” and “is now widely seen as contributing to the human catastrophe of mass incarceration.” So, too, with the welfare rollback, in the aftermath of which the percentage of families in extreme poverty increased by 50%. It seemed an insanity for Clinton to justify such measures as being in the interest of black lives. Indeed, Goldberg openly wondered whether he was “slipping, mentally.”
But what happened on Thursday was neither unpredictable or inscrutable, nor was it the product of some senile bewilderment. Rather, it was simply the most blatant expression of a trait that has been present in Bill Clinton’s character since his early political career: his cruel and cynical treatment of black people, and his use of progressive racial rhetoric to mask a willingness to devastatingly harm black communities in the service of self-interested political ends.
Many have criticized the lasting impact that Bill Clinton’s policies have had for black Americans. Michelle Alexander has said that Clinton escalated the War on Drugs “beyond what many conservatives had imagined possible… ultimately doing more harm to black communities than Reagan ever did.” In a comprehensive and nuanced summary of Clinton’s impact on African Americans, Christopher Brian Booker cites criticisms of Clinton’s “central role in the incarceration binge in the black community.””
—————
https://jacobin.com/2016/09/stone-mountain-kkk-white-supremacy-simmons/
Bill Clinton’s Stone Mountain Moment
By
Nathan J. Robinson
In 1992, Bill Clinton spoke from the mecca of American white supremacy to launch his “tough on crime” agenda.
…
Bob
Ugh, sorry, but I really can’t stand human beings. What the fuck is wrong with us?
different clue
@Jan Wiklund,
While ” no free health coverage to smokers and other self-abusers” may have been a throwaway secondary reason for opposing universal health care or even universal CanadaCare-type coverage, it was not the real reason.
The real reason was many Americans opposed Black Americans getting any such universal health care, and to make sure no Black Americans got any such a thing, they made sure that no other Americans got any such a thing either. Examples of this are the confederoid Southern Senators demanding that Medicaide be engineered to be proportional to a State’s own willingness to self-tax to pay for part of the Medicaide and that Federal Medicaide money would be in proportion to the State’s own self-tax-raised Medicaide money. So by paying as close to zero self-tax State money for Medicaide, the confederoid Southern States could keep Federal Medicaide money coming into their States as close to zero as possible. ( I haven’t read about whether confederoid House Members were also involved in this Medicaide restriction engineering.)
Another reason for no national health or even CanadaCare coverage here is that big Corporations all over America gave health care benefits to their workers, and didn’t want to lose the sadistic discipline-power which that gave them over their workers. Lose your job, lose your coverage. ( That has been a major deterrent to the General Strike concept here . . . . go on General Strike, lose your job, lose your coverage).
About torturous Execution methods . . . in the legacy confederoid states the cruelty is the point in this as in so many things. Any states seeking least-cruel methods are probably the legacy Union states or have a political culture therefrom derived. And of course the Conservative Family of Movements wants to extend cruelty in every area all over the US. The Conservative Conspiracy acts through many fronts and tools, among the ALEC . . . https://alec.org/
Now . . . non Conservatised states could very well create their own counter-ALEC type movement. They could call it BlueLEC for Blue Legislative Exchange Council. If that is too hard for casual readers to understand, they could get totally literal about it and call it BSLEC or BlueSLEC or something ( Blue States Legislative Exchange Council). It could do the same thing in the same way that ALEC does, only going the opposite way for opposite reasons.
But they won’t do it, because they still believe in that ” No Red States, no Blue States, only the United States” crap which Obama highlighted in that speech he made against John Edwards under cover of pretending to address other more ‘uplifting’ issues and concepts. ” No Us and Them, just We all together” and other such kumbaya cuck crap.
Until somebody starts an SBSP ( Separate Blue Survival Party) and can gain enough support in one State at first and then maybe more, there will be none of the hopeful good things I have suggested about in this comment. And of course any SBSP party-movement which got started would have to have a powerful Intelligence-CounterIntelligence division to keep Clintonite and Obamazoid infiltrators from entering and subverting such an SBSP from within. Kumbaya “no-us-no-them-just-we” cucks would be easier to keep out because ” by their stench shall ye know them” . . . sometimes from miles away.