739
Kenneth Smith ‘struggled for life’ for 22 minutes in Alabama nitrogen gas execution: Updates
(www.independent.co.uk)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2024
739 points (93.6% liked)
News
23301 readers
1004 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 right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
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.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
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 or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. 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.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
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 1 year ago
MODERATORS
First off, the date and time of the execution is scheduled ahead of time. A random time to execute is even more cruel than a set time because it means the person is just waiting for something to happen. It also fucks with any kind of support for the person dying and any tracking of the steps taken to ensure it is done properly.
No, you are suggesting making changes that would be impossible or at least harder to implement than just not executing people.
A real solution would be to administer an injection that knocks him out and then turn on the nitrogen so he would be asleep when it started. But that requires a trained medical professional, and if that was a possibility they wouldn't have fucked up trying to kill him with lethal injection in 2022.
Stop buying the state propaganda to justify executions when they keep fucking it up. You are the one promoting suffering.
I'm not talking about randomizing the date. I'm talking about randomizing the exact second when the switch is thrown. Executions aren't timed to the second. And even if they were, change that. Again, there isn't some kind of immutable law of physics at work here. The rules are all made up. If the goal is to execute someone humanely and the rules are preventing that, then change the rules.
Did you know, for example, that in Japan a prisoner who has been sentenced to death will only be informed that "today's the day" on the morning of the day the execution is to take place? And that his family and the general public aren't informed until after it has been done? As I said, these things are not laws of physics.
Really. You think it's hard to not tell a guy when you're about to turn a valve?
You know what also "knocks him out"? Anoxia.
Also, the whole reason this mess happened in the first place is because Alabama previously spent five hours trying and failing to give this guy a lethal injection. Your idea of being more humane is to go back to the method that they even more flagrantly and horrifyingly botched in the first place.
When have I ever said that an execution was justified? Go ahead and comb through my comment history on this subject, it feels like every second comment of mine has included the disclaimer that I disapprove of the death penalty and don't think it should ever be applied.
The point of this argument is to advocate for the most humane approach if you're going to execute someone anyway. If I can't stop it, then I at least want it to be done humanely.
There's a saying that I wish was more common, "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." The perfect solution to all this would be to never execute anyone. But that's apparently not going to happen in the near future, certainly not in Alabama, and so we're left hoping for the "good" outcome rather than the "perfect" one.
Exactly 100% not true.