States Turn To an Unproven Method of Execution: Nitrogen Gas (nytimes.com) 646
States are reportedly turning to nitrogen gas to carry out the death penalty. "Oklahoma, Alabama and Mississippi have authorized nitrogen for executions and are developing protocols to use it, which represents a leap into the unknown," reports The New York Times. "There is no scientific data on executing people with nitrogen, leading some experts to question whether states, in trying to solve old problems, may create new ones." Slashdot reader schwit1 shares an excerpt from a report via The New York Times: What little is known about human death by nitrogen comes from industrial and medical accidents and its use in suicide. In accidents, when people have been exposed to high levels of nitrogen and little air in an enclosed space, they have died quickly. In some cases co-workers who rushed in to rescue them also collapsed and died. Nitrogen itself is not poisonous, but someone who inhales it, with no air, will pass out quickly, probably in less than a minute, and die soon after -- from lack of oxygen. The same is true of other physiologically inert gases, including helium and argon, which kill only by replacing oxygen.
Death from nitrogen is thought to be painless. It should prevent the condition that causes feelings of suffocation: the buildup of carbon dioxide from not being able to exhale. Humans are highly sensitive to carbon dioxide -- too much brings on the panicky feeling of not being able to breathe. Somewhat surprisingly, the lack of oxygen doesn't trigger that same reflex. Someone breathing pure nitrogen can still exhale carbon dioxide and therefore should not have the sensation of smothering.
Death from nitrogen is thought to be painless. It should prevent the condition that causes feelings of suffocation: the buildup of carbon dioxide from not being able to exhale. Humans are highly sensitive to carbon dioxide -- too much brings on the panicky feeling of not being able to breathe. Somewhat surprisingly, the lack of oxygen doesn't trigger that same reflex. Someone breathing pure nitrogen can still exhale carbon dioxide and therefore should not have the sensation of smothering.
Unproven? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unproven? (Score:5, Insightful)
That word doesn't mean what they think it means.
It's unproven in the FDA sense of "not the subject of an FDA-approved trial". They claim absence of evidence all the time on this basis.
Re:Unproven? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's unproven in the FDA sense of "not the subject of an FDA-approved trial". They claim absence of evidence all the time on this basis.
There is no absence of evidence. N2 has been used for animal euthanasia for decades. What is the physiological difference between oxygen deprivation of an animal and a human? Answer: Nothing*.
* except for cetaceans and pinnipeds.
Re:Unproven? (Score:4, Funny)
FDA typically approves things that are healthy for you, so I'm not surprised that N2 isn't approved for human use. :P
Not a fan of the death penalty but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a fan of the death penalty but if you're going to check-out, be it by choice or inflicted then this is one of the nicest ways to go (& cheap/simple). Light headed & pass out. Helium balloons work too but you need a mask to keep the thing in place.
What's good for CO2 scrubbing? A simple balloon rebreather & CO2 absorber should do the job if a bit slower while the O2 converts. I guess I'm coming at this problem from the euthanasia angle rather than the "kill our citizens" one... Not speaking from experience realise... ;) [well I think we've all gone light-headed with the Helium thing]
Re:Not a fan of the death penalty but... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem comes with the name. What do you call a nitrogen gas execution chamber?
Obviously, a "gas chamber". That term has some baggage.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Not a fan of the death penalty but... (Score:5, Insightful)
(emphasis mine)
You hit the nail on the head here. Most death penalty proponents do not want to execute criminals, they want to see what they see as Bad People(tm) suffer. They don't want execution. They want torture, the more horrible the better.
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Most death penalty proponents do not want to execute criminals, they want to see what they see as Bad People(tm) suffer. They don't want execution. They want torture, the more horrible the better.
If this is true, I suppose we could always go back to burning them at the stake.
"When death does not deter, the process of death must."
- James Ist, on Why He Ordered the Butchery of Priests
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Obviously, a "gas chamber". That term has some baggage.
So does "eugenics" but some people seem really in favor of killing those that might be born disabled and fighting against laws that would ban it along with sex-selective abortions.
Re:Not a fan of the death penalty but... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The problem comes with the name. What do you call a nitrogen gas execution chamber? Obviously, a "gas chamber".
Then they should use Helium and call it a "laughs chamber".
it's an oxygen deprivation chamber (Score:2)
Re:it's an oxygen deprivation chamber (Score:5, Informative)
It's a basic principle of osmosis. Basically, osmosis means that if you have two different solutions (chemistry definition) that pass by each other with a semi-permeable membrane in between, that the parts of the solutions that can pass through the membrane will tend to equalize in concentration on both sides of the membrane.
When you breathe, there are two solutions (your blood and the air) that are separated by a semi-permeable membrane (your lungs). The air is mostly nitrogen (78%) and about about 21% oxygen in it. Your blood has oxygen and CO2 in it. The membrane in your lungs allows oxygen and CO2 to pass through it.
In the normal case, the amount of oxygen in your blood is less than the amount of oxygen in the air. The amount of CO2 in your blood is also higher than the amount of CO2 in the air. Your body takes the Oxygen out of your blood, converts it in to CO2 through metabolism, and puts the CO2 back in to your blood.
Since the concentration of oxygen in your blood is lower than the concentration of oxygen in your lungs, oxygen will move from the air in your lungs in to your blood until the two concentrations equalize. Same for CO2...The higher concentration of CO2 in your blood will move to the air in your lungs until the two concentrations equalize. Then you exhale the low-oxygen/high-CO2 air in your lungs and inhale fresh air...repeat.
In order for the above process to work, the membrane in your lungs has to be a two-way street. Oxygen needs to come in, CO2 needs to go out. The membrane is bidirectional.
The way a Nitrogen chamber works is that the gas in the nitrogen chamber is very close to 100% nitrogen. The percentage of both oxygen and CO2 in the air is nearly zero. You now breath this new solution in and osmosis works the same way. The oxygen and CO2 concentrations between the two solutions equalizes.
So you have blood returning to your lungs that has a high-concentration of CO2 and a low-concentration of Oxygen. The solution on the other side of the membrane in your lungs is pretty much 0% oxygen and 0% CO2. Since the concentrations want to equalize, this means that both CO2 AND oxygen from your blood is moving to the air in your lungs. Which you then exhale. This effectively causes oxygen to leave your body.
If the concentration of Oxygen in the blood returning to your lungs is at 16%, then when the oxygen in your blood equalizes with the 0% oxygen gas in your lungs, it causes you to now have 8% oxygen in your blood and 8% oxygen in your lungs. You now exhale causing that oxygen that was in your blood and now in your lungs to leave your body, inhaling a "fresh breath" of nearly 100% nitrogen...8% oxygen in your blood and 0% oxygen in your lungs will equalize at 4%...etc.
Holding your breath means the air in your lungs still has oxygen in it. 20% oxygen in your lungs (normal air), 16% oxygen in your blood. They will both equalize at 18%. Now when the blood comes around again, you've got 12% oxygen in your blood and 18% oxygen in your lungs...it equalizes at 15%...etc.
The rate at which the oxygen level in your blood lowers when you hold your breath is much less than the rate it lowers when you breath 100% nitrogen air.
Holding your breath does have the downside of also not exhaling the CO2 in your blood. It's the high concentrations of CO2 in your blood that cause the suffocation feeling. Holding your breath won't let the CO2 out of your lungs and blood. Breathing in Nitrogen causes the CO2 to respirate out of your body normally. This is why you don't feel like you're suffocating when you breath 100% nitrogen air. They say that your vision quickly fades, you shortly afterwards pass out, and then shortly after that die.
Re:it's an oxygen deprivation chamber (Score:5, Informative)
What this means is that the prisoner could extend their life for 1-2 minutes by holding their breath. But eventually, they'll run out of oxygen either way, and it gets quite uncomfortable to hold your breath for an extended period of time due to the buildup of CO2 and lung reflexes.
You also wouldn't want to hold your breath during explosive decompression, because your lungs would be at risk of damage or rupture. See [2]. So either way, if you're at high altitude without oxygen or a suit, you're in serious trouble. Likewise if you're strapped to a table and people are just waiting for you to finally breathe and die.
Source:
[1] https://aviation.stackexchange... [stackexchange.com]
(See the accepted answer there, although the FAA has updated their website).
[2] http://www.geoffreylandis.com/... [geoffreylandis.com]
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Obviously, a "gas chamber". That term has some baggage.
Well, they don't call the room they do lethal injected in the "Poison by injection room." I think it's just the execution room, and that can still apply here, and hopefully it's good enough to soothe your sensibilities.
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It doesn't sooth my sensibilities, since I oppose all use of the death penalty.
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What do you call a nitrogen gas execution chamber?
A surprise prison cell? No, seriously, I was wondering if there'd be an option for people to die in their sleep. The unexpectedness could prevent a lot of awkwardness.
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>Death penalty by helium makes more sense.
More than... nitrogen? Why? Nitrogen is far cheaper and easier to acquire and contain, and no less effective - it's not the gas that kills you after all, it's the lack of oxygen.
Plus, should you have any last words to impart, nitrogen lets you speak normally.
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>Death penalty by helium makes more sense.
More than... nitrogen? Why?
It's a lot funnier.
Re:Not a fan of the death penalty but... (Score:5, Informative)
If you have a nitrogen leak to other parts of the building ...
Unless it is an extremely tiny building, the leak would have no harmful effect.
If the execution chamber was 500 cubic feet, and it leaked into an adjacent broom closet the same size, the oxygen concentration in the closet would drop from 20% to 10%, which is easily survivable for hours or even days.
If we hire Nepalese Sherpas to organize and maintain the broom closet supplies, the risk would be even lower.
Nitrogen leaks are inevitable (Score:2)
As you read this, you're breathing 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, and 0.04% carbon dioxide. That's not including the roughly 1% water vapor.
So yes, there will definitely be nitrogen in other parts of the building. The air will be 78% nitrogen.
What would be dangerous would be of the nitrogen canister were in a small closet and someone went in, closed the door, and opened the nitrogen valve all the way.
Re:Nitrogen leaks are inevitable (Score:5, Funny)
Holy shit!! First I find out dihydrogen monoxide is in nearly everything I eat and drink, now you're telling me this "nitrogen" stuff is in all of the air I'm breathing?
We're all fucked!!
Dr Kevorkian (Score:5, Interesting)
used helium gas to assist his patients who wanted to commit suicide. I believe it is still used by organizations such as Dignitas for the same purpose.
Re:Dr Kevorkian (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep. As long as neutral gas comes in and CO2 goes out, everything seems hunky dory until you get light headed, pass out, and die. And likely still seems great during that process.
Long time ago I hung out with an AWACS guy who had to drill on O2 deprivation, learning how to recognize it, how long his mental faculties held up, and practicing how to get the airplane set on a course to 10,000 ft before he passed out. Said it was the #1 choice of his when it was time to go.
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Maybe someone similar was flying for Malaysian Airlines when MH370 happened.
Quite likely. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Dr Kevorkian (Score:5, Interesting)
Said it was the #1 choice of his when it was time to go.
I've actually seen it. The airline pilot has it even worse as he is deprived partially but not wholly of it. With pure N2 you have about 2-3 breaths and you're done. You don't even notice how quickly you go under because you think you're getting air all the while there's nothing in your lungs to help Oxygenate your blood. Ever hear of patients passing out during respirometries? They literally can't last 10 seconds with depleted lungs, and in those scenarios even attempting to fully breath out your lungs still actually have some air in them.
I went with a technician to fix an NIR analyser one day. We opened the door to the analyser hut. He stepped forward, not even in the hut, still in the doorway, and collapsed. He hit the ground before his gas detector was able to alert him of lack of oxygen it was that quick. I grabbed him by the foot and dragged him away. Guy survived by had horrible scratches on his face, not that he was complaining about the rescue method. Gave me a very big respect for confined spaces with gas bottles in them. Stupid thing was this hut had two doors. The other door had a flashing light above it indicating low O2 in the hut. Whoever fitted these huts only bought one beacon for each assuming they all only had one door.
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You don't even notice how quickly you go under because you think you're getting air all the while there's nothing in your lungs to help Oxygenate your blood.
It's worse than that. If your breathing gas has 0 atm ppO2 (partial pressure of O2), your lung contents ppO2 is lower than the ppO2 of your bloodstream. This means osmosis pulls O2 out of your blood in an attempt to equalize the partial pressures of the gas on each side of the semi-permeable membrane. Of course, it also pulls CO2 out, so your body doesn't get the "I'm suffocating!" signal that high ppCO2 in the bloodstream signals.
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Like breathing at high altitude w/o O2. (Score:3)
This has been experienced thousands of times in places like Air Force training. They live and talk about passing out as either sudden or quite enjoyable. So yes it works fast and painless. HOWEVER you must still question WHY KILL?
There are many fast and painless methods, a slaughter house probably could give pointers - but people aren't food animals SO WHY KILL?
Re:Like breathing at high altitude w/o O2. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because cavemen. And also lying about it, because "punishment" is something you can walk away from. This is revenge and savagery.
Re:Like breathing at high altitude w/o O2. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Like breathing at high altitude w/o O2. (Score:5, Insightful)
The only legit moral issue with the death penalty is that it's imperative to be completely sure you have a guilty man; admittedly, our system is awful at this.
Death penalty or not, the system should not convict the innocent at all. I makes me sad how many people harp on death penalty while happily allowing confessions and eye witnesses to be used at trials. Those have been proven to be easily manipulated and directly responsible for imprisoning the innocent. It's as if thousands of lifetimes behind bars is better than even one execution.
There's also the issue of settlements. Those basically allow the rich and powerful to skirt the law because the state can't be bothered to fight it all the way. Meanwhile, the poor with their overworked public defenders don't have the resources to fight the long battle, and, regardless of their innocence, have to settle for a plea bargain.
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The other problem with the death penalty is that it's applied capriciously. Someone who's an accomplice to a crime that results in murder may be the death penalty while the person who actually did the killing may get 25 years with parole possibility instead, in the same jurisdiction. The death penalty is absolutely not reserved only for the most heinous crimes. Often prosecutors seek the death penalty because it looks good around re-election time.
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As I said, "revenge". And caveman. Thanks for confirming that.
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I love it when atheists pretend they know what people's religious beliefs are, or what someone's god supposedly said.
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*-After a certain point, severity of punishment is not a deterrent. Especially with the types of crimes we execute for.
Re: Like breathing at high altitude w/o O2. (Score:4, Insightful)
We cannot guarantee that the psychopaths that we catch will never escape from their cages.
I've heard this argument before, and it's always puzzled me. "Our prisons suck at their one job" is one of the least convincing reasons to kill a person that there is.
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And yet they keep multiplying...
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Well, probably the majority of the monsters are on the other side of things. There is a lot of confirmation for that hypothesis in the comments on this story.
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Sure. In making a society more savage and ultimately destroying any civilized behavior. Well known to anybody that wants to find out. Of course, completely unknown to said cavemen (as you are one) because the capacity to see anything beyond their violent emotions is not there.
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Because some people are irredeemable: if you release them back into society, they are going to kill again; if you place them in prison, they are going to harm other inmates; if you place them in solitary confinement, that's cruel too.
What do you propose to do with them?
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Re:Like breathing at high altitude w/o O2. (Score:5, Insightful)
* It prevents the offender from hurting anyone again. Incarceration does not. [startribune.com] Incarcerated murder kill prison staff and other prisoners, as well as escape [google.com], or serve out their sentences and re-offend.
* It deters as surely as lesser punishments deter, like incarceration or fines. Charts of death penalty vs. murder rate in the US underscore this point. It's curious to assert that lesser punishments deter, but the harshest does not.
* It's the closest to justice as we can get (i.e. a commensurate cost imposed on the offender). Most think the offender should incur some cost for malicious pain inflicted on others. Codes of justice going back to Hammurabi reflect a sense of fairness that it should be commensurate.
Re:Like breathing at high altitude w/o O2. (Score:4, Insightful)
* It prevents the offender from hurting anyone again.
No, it prevents the convicted person from harming anyone again not the offender: the justice system has a pretty terrible record of executing people later found to have not been the actual offender.
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Unfortunately, it turns out our courts get the determination wrong more often than they should.
Once they're dead, it's a bit late to apologize.
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So you're good with the death penalty when there is definite proof, such as public video, of the crime as it happens?
Re:Like breathing at high altitude w/o O2. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not the OP you were responding to, but I am currently anti-death penalty.
Currently, my only two issues with the death penalty are:
1) It must be done humanely. If there is a method of execution that is fast and completely painless. I currently believe that the only method of execution that satisfies this issue is Nitrogen gas. People who have survived high-nitrogen gas environments said they didn't feel any pain. Just blacked out and woke up later...maybe had a headache after waking. I don't know of any known instances of someone saying that it was a painful experience. I may be wrong on this though...I haven't fully researched it.
2) You must have 100% concrete evidence that this person actually committed the crime that they are accused of. I consider this to be even higher than the legal standard of proof in the US called "Beyond reasonable doubt". You need another legal standard of proof that I don't believe exists. I would call it "Beyond Possible Doubt". Basically this would mean that if the defense can come up with a possible explanation of the evidence presented that suggested he didn't do the crime, then it's up to the prosecution to prove that is explanation didn't happen...If you can prove the crime "beyond a reasonable doubt" then it's life in prison...if you can prove it "beyond possible doubt" then it's the death penalty.
I think there are very few situations that would actually satisfy my 2nd requirement...you would need multiple videos of the crime, at least one of them must completely clearly show the defendant's face, multiple independent video analysis services verify that the video wasn't altered/doctored/etc., the video shows DNA evidence of the defendant being left at the scene, the video continuously shows that the evidence wasn't tampered with, full video of the chain-of-custody from collection to analysis, and that DNA evidence is matched with an exceptionally high level of certainty (multiple independent labs, and the defense is entitled to their own testing).
And then assuming you can meet both of those criteria, you then start a 10-year waiting period where all evidence must be fully preserved. When there is 1-year left in that waiting period, the defendant is essentially entitled to an almost-second trial, using new/more sophisticated techniques and knowledge to refute the evidence that was present at the trial. Burden of proof on the prosecution isn't as high...you aren't re litigating the entire trial. Just the admissibility and reliability of the evidence. If new/better DNA and video analysis techniques can suggest that the evidence wasn't as reliable/irrefutable as originally thought, then the sentence is turned to life-in-prison. If the new techniques of analyzing the evidence suggests innocence (reasonable doubt), then you're entitled to a new trial.
I understand that this is an exceptionally high prosecutorial burden. It would have to be largely reserved for the most egregious of offenders. But, as others have said...if you kill someone, you can't make them whole....you can't even try to make them whole...You can never bring them back to life. If you simply send someone to prison you can attempt to make them whole (give them triple the average salary in their state, per year for each year they were in prison...put out full-page ads in the top 2 news papers in all locations in a 200-mile radius from their home and the top news paper in the top 20 markets in the US that proclaim their innocence...and a pension that is equal to the average salary in their home state.)
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This has to be balanced with murder recidivism, and the lower murder rates which accompany periods of higher executions (i.e. deterrence).
Re:Like breathing at high altitude w/o O2. (Score:5, Informative)
Deterrence doesn't work. Name a single point in time where specific types of crime were reduced purely due to "making an example of someone".
Literally every single dictator, against their political opponents, for the crime of opposing them. Kim Jung Un's uncle is a recent example.
Then there's places like Singapore, where you get lashes for littering. The end result? There is no litter on the roads of Singapore.
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As well as chances to exonerate the innocent.
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The countries with the world's first, second and third largest economies all have the death penalty (US, China, Japan).
Some of the world's safest places (Singapore, Japan) have the death penalty. [wikipedia.org]
The places with the world's highest homicide rates (Honduras, El Salvador and many others) do not. [wikipedia.org]
Violation (Score:5, Funny)
Using an unproven means is a clear ethics violation. Where are the double-blind clinical trials?.
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Nitrogen is a dangerous gas!!! (Score:4, Funny)
This story leads me to a very humorous event at work. While working on a A/C system, I noted to an inspector that the dry nitrogen in the system (used to pressure test the pipes) needed to be released into the atmosphere. This A/C was for a temporary building in the middle of a wide open yard for a power company.
Well this idea.....releasing a gas into the atmosphere was enough to trigger multiple phone calls, and eventually a 4 week delay, since there was about 3 very important meetings about this deadly concept.
I noted to the inspector that air contains 78% Nitrogen. But, he was not convinced, and knew that his job was now question.
Finally, the mighty minds, agreed to let me take out the nitrogen, but it needed to be recovered.
This time, I kept my mouth shut, and "recovered" the nitrogen........
All was well, and the power company lives to see another day.... :)
Painless and humane eh? (Score:3)
You know what? If I was condemned to death, I'd want a pullet through the head. That's VERY quick and painless.
If a state is callous enough to consider the killing of human beings an acceptable form of punishnment, why is it so fixated on killing them by pumping them full of chemicals or gasses?
If the state officials want to sanitize the act of murdering a human being, all they have to do is stick them into a box with some kind of automated mechanism to fire a bullet through the person's head inside the box. Okay, say three bullets to be extra-sure. Then if they really, REALLY don't want to deal with the mess, they can take out the closed box whole for incineration. See? All they'd have to watch is a guy going into a box, and the guy inside the box would never suffer. No need for all that nitrogen nonsense.
Incidentally, all these talks of gassing prisoners reeks of something else we've seen in the past [wikipedia.org]. I'm surprised our powers-that-be don't try at all costs to steer clear away from the immediate parallel those of us with a memory are certain to draw...
Re:Painless and humane eh? (Score:5, Funny)
I'd never thought of using chickens for this purpose ...
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I say the jury and the prosecutor should have to draw straws to see who hacks the defendant's head off with a machete on national television.
Hypocrisy... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think the problem now is that most medical supply houses are refusing to sell the drugs normally used for an overdose lethal injection. Something about medical ethics and European companies. So they're looking for an alternative. And hey, if you're going to kill someone oxygen deprivation is about as humane as it gets.
FFS American folks... (Score:5, Funny)
1 - you're trying to come up with a way to efficiently off people
2 - you're constantly screeching about how fentanyl is instant death
Scuba Divers know (Score:2)
Many a scuba diver knows Nitrogen Narcosis and Nitrogen death.
Nothing misterious about it...
Is a well proven method. And humane at that.
If I ever make my own Kevorkian machine, this is my chosen method.
Re:Scuba Divers know (Score:5, Informative)
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Inert gas narcosis on air/nitrox doesn't become a significant concern until past 4ata / 100fsw. For air that's a PPN2 of 3.12. Breathing 100% N2 at 1 ata wouldn't even remotely induce any type of narcosis.
If you want the prisoner to enjoy his execution, you could put him in a hyperbaric chamber and pressurize it to about 6 atmospheres, then replace the gas with pure N2. PPN2 would go from 4.68 (moderate narcosis) to 6 (strong narcosis), as PPO2 went from 1.26 to 0.
As a diver, I've long said that if I'm diagnosed with a painful or debilitating terminal disease that leaves me sufficiently healthy for a while, I'd spend time with family until I got to just before the point that I didn't want to live any more
N2O (Score:2)
you could start with N2O and slowly change to pure N,
and laugh yourself to death.
Cheaper option (Score:5, Insightful)
Life in prison with no possibility of parole. That is 1/4 the cost, much more humane, and can be reversed if you realize you made a mistake such as crooked forensic scientists getting caught faking the data or police detectives forcing fake confessions. These things happen and it is much easier to say, "oops sorry" when the person is still alive.
The death penalty DOES NOT reduce crime.
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How much does a bullet cost?
How much does the near endless legal casework aronud deciding to use that bullet cost? Or are you adcovation for a more of an "eh he seems guilty, let's kill him" type approach?
Stop using the lie that capital punishment is inherently more expensive.
Well yes if you're prepared to murder people with little oversight then yes it is cheaper todo that. Back in the world where you at least maintain the pretense of a functio n justice system it gets expensive.
Re:Cheaper option (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny how you seem ok with killing everything that is good in someone's life (their freedom, access to their loved ones, etc.), yet seem concerned about when they technically die. Your "nah we can always change our mind after a lifetime thrown away" attitude is extremely disturbing.
"Oops, sorry, we made a mistake. You are now 75, jobless, penniless, and entirely without friends or family in the world. You have no idea what happened in society in the last 40 years, but good luck out there. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
Locking someone away for life should not have a lower standard than killing them.
No brainer (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the top search result for suicide on the web. The act is painless,inexpensive and generally safe. If you want to pass from this world, you should get acquainted with nitrogen masks.
Our atmosphere is 79% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 1% argon. We all breath in nitrogen with no impact. If we have too much carbon dioxide in our air our bodies try to pass the bad air and get rid of the CO2. To much CO2 in our lungs and we panic.
If we don't have oxygen, we get dizzy and pass out in a couple of breaths. Dead in 4 minutes. NO panic, rapid lose of consciousness. Death while unconscious.
I am not a fan of executions, but if the state wants to kill them, this is far more humane then lethal injection, electrocutions, hanging or firing squad.
They do need protocols. The nitrogen should be medical grade (ie not have any hydrocarbons) so once the act is finished spectators won't be impacted. The gas needs to be applied with a breathing mask, so the CO2 is removed with every breath and replaced with nitrogen to prevent any panic. The mask can be plumbed so the exhalations are removed such that they don't impact the O2 level in the room. There should be O2 level sensors in the room so any system failure would alert attending guards.
The execution can be designed such that the only the execution victim suffers oxygen deprivation. There is no need to remove oxygen from the whole room..
I am not sure anyone should be executed, but if they are going to be executed, I think this is the best way.
Nitrogen narcosis (Score:2)
Shithole States (Score:5, Insightful)
It's strange that places that have the highest distrust of government also are cool with the government executing people. Just yesterday, there was a story of a guy who was on death row for 16 years before he was completely exonerated. I would think that just one of those cases would be enough so that anyone with a moral compass would oppose the death penalty. But if there's one thing we know, it's that Americans love seeing people get kilt and they love feeling self-righteous, so that makes for a lethal combination. People in red states seem to love giving their governments the ultimate power over life and death.
Fortunately, there's absolutely nothing in Oklahoma, Alabama, or Mississippi that anyone here would want, so this only affects the poor folks who live there. But it does explain why they're at the bottom of almost every state ranking of quality of life.
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Fortunately, there's absolutely nothing in Oklahoma, Alabama, or Mississippi that anyone here would want, so this only affects the poor folks who live there. But it does explain why they're at the bottom of almost every state ranking of quality of life.
Speaking of self-righteousness...
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The problem with quoting the 8th amendment is that it ignores the Fifth.
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor
Breathhold (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem no-one wants to talk about. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's another problem with nitrogen. It's too humane.
If the objective was to simply kill painlessly, all it would need is a couple of bullets to the head. People, though, are bastards. They may talk about 'justice,' but what they really mean is 'vengeance.' The public want a show. The family of any victim want a show. Politicians want a show. Many people will feel physically sickened if they believe the condemned died peacefully, as if the scales remain somehow unbalanced. This is why nitrogen was not introduced as a mean of execution years ago. Not many people are bold enough to openly say they want to see just a little bit of torture first, but it's a very common sentiment.
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Re: Should be simple enough to try it on animals f (Score:5, Funny)
Use helium gas.
Then at least death row inmates could turn their last minutes into a comedy skit, should they wish.
Re: Should be simple enough to try it on animals f (Score:5, Funny)
I say death by snu snu
Re: Should be simple enough to try it on animals (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Should be simple enough to try it on animals f (Score:5, Informative)
A CO2 gas chamber is probably one of the worst possible ways to go. Suffocating in CO2 rings pretty much every alarm bell in an animal's head. Hypoxia by CO2 surplus is an incredibly distressing and painful way to go. I have no idea how anyone could refer to that as "humane". Of course those pigs are going crazy!
This is completely unlike Nitrogen displacement, which is found to be incredibly hazardous exactly because it triggers NO pain, panic, or flight response. Your mental capacity goes downhill steadily, imperceptibly, and painlessly, until without even realizing anything is wrong or amiss, you just lose consciousness, with zero chance of waking up before it kills you.
They wouldn't even have to tell you when its happening. You could sit down in a comfy chair, listening to your favorite music, while enjoying your last meal, with no idea when they were going to start changing the air in the room out. At some point you'd faceplant in your mashed potatoes and that'd be it. No pain, no table or chair to strap you to, no needles, it actually is a heck of a lot more humane than lethal injection or any of the other more popular methods. Even a firing squad is more humane than the electric chair or lethal injection!
Bonus: nitrogen is a heck of a lot cheaper than lethal injection drugs. (and they are getting really hard to obtain)
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Re: Should be simple enough to try it on animals f (Score:4, Funny)
I think nitrous oxide would be a better choice. They might not die quickly, but they wouldn't care.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Should be simple enough to try it on animals f (Score:5, Insightful)
[...] the idea that the 'state' has a problem figuring out how to murder those among its own citizenry whom they've decided to murder, suggests their government is being done by utter incompetent morons. Killing people, and doing so quickly and reliably, is one of the easier things there is to do...
Of course. The United States is not short of ways to deliberately murder people. It's just short of ways to do it that involve convincing themselves that they are not deliberately murdering people.
It has to feel like a clinical procedure, otherwise you may as well just be chopping off heads with a sword in the public square.
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Of course. The United States is not short of ways to deliberately murder people. It's just short of ways to do it that involve convincing themselves that they are not deliberately murdering people.
Murder means the death is immoral or unwarranted. Even bad guys might be convicted of "man slaughter" instead of "murder". We deliberately kill people found guilty of certain crimes; we don't deliberately murder them. We are short on ways to humanely end a life.
There are three ethical sticky points on capital punishment. Mistakes do happen, so any execution must take place after sufficient time has elapsed to discover such grave mistakes. Secondly, the execution must be as humane as humanly possible. We wil
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In any case, a country that concerns itself with justice would never take from one single man that which it can not return without just cause.
Unfortunately even imprisonment kind of falls in that category -- you can't return time to a person's life either.
The only thing they can return should an inmate be exonerated is their honor and standing in society.. and unfortunately we're moving away from that as well. For example, many applications and other forms that used to ask "have you ever been convicted of a crime?" now ask "have you ever been arrested?" -- so false arrests, crimes for which you were found not guilty, crimes for which you were ex
Re: Should be simple enough to try it on animals f (Score:4, Insightful)
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And we have a limited amount of Helium that we can use - and waste it on party balloons
A negligible amount of helium is used on "party balloons". Less than 5% of consumption, and it is usually low grade gas, contaminated with Argon, N2, H2, etc. that would otherwise likely be vented.
The biggest consumer of helium is cryogenics, followed by pressure testing and purging, followed by welding.
Applications of Helium [wikipedia.org]
Re: Should be simple enough to try it on animals f (Score:3, Funny)
And People... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is also the method being pushed by a number of Euthanasia proponents..
Which does kind of imply that it is not the worst method...
Of course people will mix this up with the morality of WHY the state is executing people, however
the two really are separate - trying to block executions by questioning the method is kind of stupid,
is that is the issue then address it directly.
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trying to block executions by questioning the method is kind of stupid
As an opponent of the death penalty, I am happy to throw any possible monkey wrench into the machinery of death.
Legal challenges to the method of execution contribute to endless delays, help to make the death penalty process more expensive, and add to the perception that it is a dysfunctional anachronism.
if is that is the issue then address it directly.
There is no obligation to be "fair" when fighting injustice.
Re:And People... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no obligation to be "fair" when fighting injustice.
I disagree. Do not commit injustices to prevent injustice, as you merely perpetuate injustice.
Don't be a spammer. (Score:2)
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My understanding is that we did away with firing squad out of sympathy for the executioners, not sympathy for the condemned.
Though, I recall reading that in a firing squad, one of the rifles is loaded with blanks, so that the shooters can take some solace in being not sure if they killed the person.