The U.S. on Tuesday carried out its first federal execution in almost two decades, killing by lethal injection a man convicted of murdering an Arkansas family in a 1990s plot to build a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest. MORE
The last execution methods that were really adopted to save the executed from pain and suffering were the guillotine and long-drop hanging. All the changes since then were to spare those who had to witness the execution from the possibility of seeing death twitches, spouting blood, or horrific results from mistakes by the executioner. The guillotine was foolproof but _messy_. Long-drop hanging only required skill because too long a drop might tear the head off - if you cared about that, you had to estimate the convicts neck strength vs weight and calculate the length closely, but if people had been OK with a messy execution, the same _long_ drop would have worked for everyone.
So they tried electrocution, but it could become horrific if the executioner made a mistake. (Ever see the electrocution scene in "The Green Mile"?) They tried poison gas, but variations in both individuals and the gas generation process sometimes left the convict kicking and squirming for quite a while.
And finally, the simple one-drug injection used by veterinarians to euthanize animals would work as well on humans if the dose was scaled up - but the body twitches long after the higher brain functions are gone, so instead they concocted a 3-drug process to paralyze, knock-out (because the other drugs cause pain), and finally stop the breathing. So now bleeding hearts can go to court and try to block each execution on the grounds that maybe it might cause a slow, very painful death, but you can't tell because the guy was paralyzed first. And that's just because they don't want the spectators seeing the usual reactions of a dying dog or human.
Pentobarbital works. No drama. No failures. Screw those ninnies trying to claim it doesn't.
ReplyDeletePlacing the condemned in a sealed chamber with a pure nitrogen atmosphere works even better and doesn't require pharmaceuticals.
DeleteThe last execution methods that were really adopted to save the executed from pain and suffering were the guillotine and long-drop hanging. All the changes since then were to spare those who had to witness the execution from the possibility of seeing death twitches, spouting blood, or horrific results from mistakes by the executioner. The guillotine was foolproof but _messy_. Long-drop hanging only required skill because too long a drop might tear the head off - if you cared about that, you had to estimate the convicts neck strength vs weight and calculate the length closely, but if people had been OK with a messy execution, the same _long_ drop would have worked for everyone.
DeleteSo they tried electrocution, but it could become horrific if the executioner made a mistake. (Ever see the electrocution scene in "The Green Mile"?) They tried poison gas, but variations in both individuals and the gas generation process sometimes left the convict kicking and squirming for quite a while.
And finally, the simple one-drug injection used by veterinarians to euthanize animals would work as well on humans if the dose was scaled up - but the body twitches long after the higher brain functions are gone, so instead they concocted a 3-drug process to paralyze, knock-out (because the other drugs cause pain), and finally stop the breathing. So now bleeding hearts can go to court and try to block each execution on the grounds that maybe it might cause a slow, very painful death, but you can't tell because the guy was paralyzed first. And that's just because they don't want the spectators seeing the usual reactions of a dying dog or human.