217
Alabama calls nitrogen execution method 'painless' and 'humane,' but critics raise doubts (apnews.com)
submitted 2 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
148 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Alabama, unless stopped by the courts, intends to strap Kenneth Eugene Smith to a gurney Thursday and use a gas mask to replace breathable air with nitrogen, depriving him of oxygen, in the nation’s first execution attempt with the method.

The Alabama attorney general’s office told federal appeals court judges last week that nitrogen hypoxia is “the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.” But what exactly Smith, 58, will feel after the warden switches on the gas is unknown, some doctors and critics say.

“What effect the condemned person will feel from the nitrogen gas itself, no one knows,” Dr. Jeffrey Keller, president of the American College of Correctional Physicians, wrote in an email. “This has never been done before. It is an experimental procedure.”

Keller, who was not involved in developing the Alabama protocol, said the plan is to “eliminate all of the oxygen from the air” that Smith is breathing by replacing it with nitrogen.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] mkwt@lemmy.world 26 points 2 years ago

I want to recap the long sequence of events that has led up to this point:

  1. In the beginning of this narrative, every death penalty state was doing lethal injections with a three drug protocol.
  2. Italy and maybe some other European nations start arresting pharmaceutical executives and charging them with murder, because their drugs are being used for these lethal injections in the United States.
  3. Drug companies stop selling their drugs to state penitentiaries. States are not able to perform executions.
  4. Death penalty states start amending their protocols to switch to different drugs and sometimes a single dose barbiturate protocol.
  5. Those drugs become harder and harder to source. Pharma companies become completely unwilling to dispense the drugs at all. State legislatures start allowing corrections officials to change the protocol without amending state law, in an effort to keep up.
  6. States resort to buying drugs from shady compounding pharmacies in secret. Having prison guards write dosage protocols turns out to have been a bad idea. Because, guess what, anesthesiologists are a highly compensated medical specialty, because what they do is highly complicated. So some exit l executions are botched, which delays things even more.
  7. It's in this environment that this nitrogen idea migrates from internet boards into the state legislatures.

The big picture here is that if execution remains legal, but you take away all the options, death penalty states will go looking for alternative options.

[-] NOPper@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

This is super interesting and I'd love it if you had some sources I could follow. Trying to dig but Google is useless these days.

this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
217 points (93.6% liked)

News

36569 readers
373 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.

Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.

7. No duplicate posts.

If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.

All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world