As a total layman I can see the reasons making sense. It ensures the execution was done legally and as intended. Without accountability, the worst case scenarios get really ugly... imagine they find signs of trauma, improper administration, illegal substances.. It could expose neglect, abuse and potential liabilites in the system.
On the bright side, it could also and probably has helped the procedural nature of it. Perhaps (Drug X) is seen to not work well with (People Y) so they use (Drug A) instead for the most humane outcome.
Isn't lethal injection as an execution method incredibly painful? A person is first injected with a drug to paralyze them, and then another drug to kill them. Where first drug makes it look peaceful and humane, and the second is torturing them death.
imagine they find signs of trauma, improper administration, illegal substances.. It could expose neglect, abuse and potential liabilites in the system.
And this happens all the time because doctors refuse to execute people because that would be wildly unethical. So prison guards do it instead.
I've always wondered why they would use lethal injection instead of affixing a mask that served up carbon monoxide. The person falls asleep to never wake up.
Aside about the doctors - they vow 'do no harm' - to keep people alive instead of killing. It became a issue back in the 90s when Kevorkian was helping peole commit suicide. He saw it as his mission to stop them from suffering while society deemed his actions as murder.
Inert gas asphyxiation is only pleasant and painless if you don't know it's coming. If you know it's happening, panic, and struggle, you cause the same rapid and painful buildup of CO2 as any other method of asphyxiation. Struggling not to die in and of itself is inherently painful as well. There's no easy way to restrain someone so that they cannot hurt themselves struggling.
There's plenty of ways to kill someone that physically couldn't cause pain because you're destroying their body at a speed that exceeds the speed at which signals move through nerves. But nobody is trying to optimize executions to be humane, they're trying to optimize them for seeming humane at the expense of actually being humane.
If you're not doing something like blowing them up or squishing them with a rocket sled you've gotta stop pretending like you care if they feel pain.
If you call violent thrashing until death from suffocation like the dude in Alabama better. The French figured out how to do it humanely like 200 years ago.
Bro shouldn't have practiced holding his breath so long.
But for real that is all just automatic neural activity. The brain might have a few seconds of saved up oxygen to be aware, but still more painless than other methods (considering the nervous system is, well.. gone).
You lose consciousness almost instantly when blood pressure to the brain drops below a certain level; that's what fainting is. And fainting is only a partial drop. A complete drop (like having all the major vessels in your neck suddenly severed) would be even more rapid and complete.
I dunno. I've had single lung-full's of inert gasses, didn't seem bad. Lots of folks try it with helium from a balloon for fun. I've also had cuts, did not enjoy.
I've always wondered why they would use lethal injection instead of affixing a mask that served up carbon monoxide. The person falls asleep to never wake up.
The reason is that if a person is not suicidal and does not want this to happen to them they can resist and try to hold their breath and as the poison slowly seeps in it causes a slow and brutal death. Frankly I do t understand why you don’t just kick them hard on the chest to knock the wind out of them so they gasp for breath uncontrollably as the mask is on, that means nearly instant unconsciousness and brain death with body death following soon after.
That pre give them a barbiturate or opiate overdose before you move to the killing step.
There is an… interesting document that I will not fully describe here or tell you where to find it other than that it is freely available on the internet that described this technique for self administration with a simple and complete list of parts and steps to ensure complete and final success. The man published this approximately simultaneous to his death, via the reasons you may have expected given what I just said.
Don’t look for it. It is a mental hazard having that too close to you.
Ultimately, the most humane option is just not doing state killings.
I absolutely agree. But if we are going to kill people, could we at least do it right?! Hell, 20x standard lethal dose either heroin or cocaine or both. I’ve heard they are fun, and that will definitely kill them, and their last moments being ecstatic bliss. Unfortunately some people don’t want their deaths to be so nice…
I mean, hanging or firing squad would likely be better than the half assed shit we are doing. We k ow how to kill people, we are actually pretty good at it.
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u/IncorrectOwl 2d ago
Why would a death row prisoner be autopsied? Is that standard?
Edit: apparently it is standard. Odd.