Nitrogen for execution

[Allen]

Today will be a turning point I feel for all (U.S.) future executions.

Alabama will execute the first (U.S.) inmate today/tonight with nitrogen. The critics (who are against ALL executions) claim it is unproven. Yeah, the system used today can be blotched due to human error but nitrogen does kill people.

Working in industrial sites I have vast experience with N2. Since it is an inert gas it is used to clean up equipment and vessels for maintenance work and welding. It is hard piped as a handy supply just like tool air for air tools. Many workers in confined spaces mistakenly attach their air tools to N2 instead of O2. The tools exhaust the N2 and soon the air they breath is composed of too much of it. They pass out and suffocate not knowing any different. Rescue people often die under the same circumstances not knowing of the N2 content.

It is THAT undetectable, odorless, colorless, and already the most abundant element we breath @ 78%. Air under normal conditions is slightly less than 21% oxygen,

Unless there is some kind of human screwup or some lone judge ruling against it I feel after today we can say goodbye to "Ol Sparky" and injections. I think most elec chairs are already museum artifacts.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/alabama-inmate-waiting-hear-court-171433122.html

[bruce]

Sounds like it will work very well. Of course, CO2 is, IIRC, colorless, odorless, tasteless, etc. and of course universally toxic for mammals including human beings. Got to wonder just exactly why it is not used to kill convicts sentenced to execution. Simply put them to sleep, switch over to CO2 and let them go. Still think gas chamber, electric chair, hanging, etc. are not problematic. JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.

[Allen]

Sounds like it will work very well. Of course, CO2 is, IIRC, colorless, odorless, tasteless, etc. and of course universally toxic for mammals including human beings. Got to wonder just exactly why it is not used to kill convicts sentenced to execution. Simply put them to sleep, switch over to CO2 and let them go. Still think gas chamber, electric chair, hanging, etc. are not problematic. JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.

I donno. Perhaps it is because CO2 isn't available already bottled up like N2 that I know of. Still, an inmate could be put in an airtight small room or fixture and he would just breath himself to death.

A lot of work and expense goes into the comforts of the guilty, though the guilty had no concerns over the innocent victims.

[JohnMOhio]

I agree with you Allen, a lot of expense to comfort the guilty. On the other hand, when "we" sentence someone to death, considering what the victims may have gone through, are we in society seeking justice or revenge? If seeking justice we may try to be civilized. When seeking revenge the sentence of death could/should be the same method used by the guilty party. Now we have another problem. What if the convicted person is actually innocent? What if the person on trial gets a not guilty verdict and is really innocent. Where does that person get justice? A self defense shooting as an example. Just some thoughts for now.

[Allen]

I agree with you Allen, a lot of expense to comfort the guilty. On the other hand, when "we" sentence someone to death, considering what the victims may have gone through, are we in society seeking justice or revenge? If seeking justice we may try to be civilized. When seeking revenge the sentence of death could/should be the same method used by the guilty party. Now we have another problem. What if the convicted person is actually innocent? What if the person on trial gets a not guilty verdict and is really innocent. Where does that person get justice? A self defense shooting as an example. Just some thoughts for now.

Oh I agree. Is it justice or revenge?

Victims never truly get justice and revenge doesn't actually help anyone. I feel prisons should at least be as uncomfortable as I had it in grade school though. NO A/C, little heat, NO ventilation, NO window screens, NO contact with the outside world at all.

If paroles ended and time off for good behavior were ended along with school life conditions mentioned above, many people would not commit crimes or want to get caught a 2nd time. Instead the jails are overflowing with many just getting a slap on the wrist. It is a game for so many to see how much they can get away with and if arrested then no big deal, they'll get a little rest and be released to go at it again.

[Phloating Phlasher]

Its called suffocation.
Just saying.

[Allen]

It's over.

What I know about N2 is that if I had to be executed and had a choice. This is the way I would prefer.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/alabama-set-execute-inmate-nitrogen-053007615.html

[RED]

The problem is that the death penalty, electrically, hanging, shooting, or any thing else should be quick. 30 years after the crime the guilty party being is in no way or fashion is the same person that did the crime.

Think back, have you changed any in the past 25-30 years? If you are convicted of a crime, your punishment should be quick. Take the SOB and throw him out of a 30 story building within 3-5 years of the crime.

Leaving him waiting decades for punishment is torture. The victim was not tortured for decades.

[lyman]

plenty of bottled CO2, isnt that still used to carbonate beverages?

a nitro pushed Guiness is a fine thing,

[Allen]

plenty of bottled CO2, isnt that still used to carbonate beverages?

a nitro pushed Guiness is a fine thing,

Safe O2 levels fall between 19.5% to 23.5%. Anything that pushes the oxygen beyond those levels can or will kill you. It depends upon how far and how long. Maybe using CO2 has some side effects like nausea or something? I donno why it isn't considered.

[blackhawknj]

Fentanyl would work better IMHO.

[Allen]

Fentanyl would work better IMHO.

"Bang"

[JohnMOhio]

Red, I agree that a person can change after 25 to 30 years of imprisonment. However it is a controlled environment and the imprisoned person either follows the rules or not. Swift punishment of 3 to 5 years sounds right but was not a person recently released from prison after 18 years of being found to be wrongly convicted and it was not on a technicality.

As for waiting years for punishment being torture, is that not a part of our law regarding submission of new evidence that the person my not be guilty. As for it being torture to the truly guilty, they made the decision to commit the crime. If they want to end this "torture" stop the appeals and get it over with.

The process of the law may not be swift but it is supposed to be cautionary. Innocent until PROVEN GUILTY beyond a reasonable doubt. Or do we go to the law of the west, give them a fair trial and then hang them.

Consider this. A jury of our peers. Say a CCW person is charged and in his mind he was justified. He had to make a split second decision and according to the prosecutor it was the wrong one. Should the jury be made up of 12 CCW holders?
That would be a true jury of peers.

[Art]

Red, I agree that a person can change after 25 to 30 years of imprisonment. However it is a controlled environment and the imprisoned person either follows the rules or not. Swift punishment of 3 to 5 years sounds right but was not a person recently released from prison after 18 years of being found to be wrongly convicted and it was not on a technicality.

As for waiting years for punishment being torture, is that not a part of our law regarding submission of new evidence that the person my not be guilty. As for it being torture to the truly guilty, they made the decision to commit the crime. If they want to end this "torture" stop the appeals and get it over with.

The process of the law may not be swift but it is supposed to be cautionary. Innocent until PROVEN GUILTY beyond a reasonable doubt. Or do we go to the law of the west, give them a fair trial and then hang them.

Consider this. A jury of our peers. Say a CCW person is charged and in his mind he was justified. He had to make a split second decision and according to the prosecutor it was the wrong one. Should the jury be made up of 12 CCW holders?
That would be a true jury of peers.

I'll start out with John's post above. We have a system of justice broadly based on the idea that if a few guilty people have to go free to assure that no innocent people are punished that's fine with me. There have been people who have been exonerated after years on death row, mostly based on DNA evidence. My grandfather was once a juror in a capital murder case in southeast Texas in the early 1930s. The prosecution had a strong (for the time) circumstantial case aided by the fact that the accused didn't have an alibi but did have a motive. He was sentenced to life in prison. Many years later the real killer, who in this case was in fact the real killer, made a death bed confession in a prison in Mississippi. After a long stretch in prison the convicted "killer" was released. My old grandpappy then said he'd never ever again vote for conviction in a case made solely on circumstantial evidence.

Now to the issue at hand. Suffocation is suffocation. Carbon Dioxide was mentioned as a possible agent of execution. Long ago I was working in a surveillance van with another agent in the dog days of summer. The van had a Co2 dry ice air conditioner. After about an hour in the van, this particular night, I started to feel a bit short of breath, then a lot short of breath, the other guy noticed the same and we got the h*ll out. The air conditioner had developed a leak and the carbon dioxide was displacing the air in the van. Our bodies were just starting to tell us that we were about to be in real trouble. I read an account of the nitrous oxide execution, it took the old boy several minutes to lose conciousness and there was a lot of struggling up to that point. I think it was about 20 minutes before he was pronounced dead.

Another point, apparently this was the fourth attempt to kill this old boy. There comes a point where incompetence by the prison execution staff becomes cruel and unusual punishment. As far as I'm concerned after, lets say two attempts to off a murderer the sentence should be commuted to life without parole.

Lastly, the attempt to sanitize this stuff is wrong headed and counter productive. The fact that we use trappings of medicine to accomplish capital punishment doesn't change what it is. A bullet to the back of the head is quicker and less painful than just about any of the so called humane methods we've come up with. Back when the gas chamber was the way to go a warden in California was so horrified by the obvious suffering of the convict that he resigned and became an anti death penalty advocate. Shooting, the guillotine, and hanging (if done right) are all probably more humane than the current methods we use to make ourselves (as a country) feel better about it,. I remember an account of an execution in the old Soviet Union of a serial killer. The old boy was taken from his cell into a room with a drain in the floor. He was told not to turn around. He probably didn't even hear the bang from the pistol shot to the back of his head.

[Phloating Phlasher]

Why over complicate it?
To make it more humane?
Really:
The execution took about 22 minutes from the time between the opening and closing of the curtains to the viewing room. Smith appeared to remain conscious for several minutes. For at least two minutes, he appeared to shake and writhe on the gurney, sometimes pulling against the restraints. That was followed by several minutes of heavy breathing, until breathing was no longer perceptible."

Any good general anesthetic & then insulin OD.