A federal judge who is weighing whether to allow the nation’s first execution by nitrogen hypoxia to go forward next month, urged Alabama on Thursday to change procedures so the inmate can pray and say his final words before the gas mask is placed on his face.
U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker made the suggestion in a court order setting a Dec. 29 deadline to submit information before he rules on the inmate’s request to block the execution. The judge made similar comments the day prior at the conclusion of a court hearing.
Alabama is scheduled to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith on Jan. 25 in what would be the nation’s first execution using nitrogen gas. Nitrogen hypoxia is authorized as an execution method in Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma but has never been used to put an inmate to death.
The proposed execution method would use a gas mask, placed over Smith’s nose and mouth, to replace breathable air with nitrogen, causing Smith to die from lack of oxygen.
The death penalty is not an ultimate punishment for a crime, in it’s most logical sense. It is based on a conclusion that an individual is ‘beyond saving’, evidenced by the actions they commit. Eliminating them from existence is the only guarantee they never do a similar action in the future.
There’s plenty of reasons why this reasoning falls apart , though - namely that quite often you can’t be 100% sure you have the actual culprit, or that they are actually ‘beyond saving’.
A person beyond saving could still be left in prison for life and at least treated humanly. We kill them because what they did is so bad we want them dead. People try to pretend otherwise but thats what it is. Simple as that.
And honestly I get it. I fully think some people should die for what they did. But, like you said, we run into the problem of how often our shitty legal system gets the wrong person which is why I don’t believe in the death penalty despite the fact I think some people should just die.
I agree with the first part, though not the second. I doubt most judges view the death penalty as a pointless act of spite, and view it more as a logical removable of an irredeemable agent.
My rationale on it is different. I think that if someone commits a heinous action, they either did it for a logical reason or an illogical reason. If it was logical to commit the act, then that is a failure of the system for creating perverse incentives, and change must occur to remove such incentives. If the person committed the act for illogical reasons, then there is something wrong with them, and the should be treated as someone suffering from something. If the individual is deemed truly “beyond saving” then they are suffering a mental handicap and should be sheltered such that they aren’t a danger to themselves or others.
By this logic, there is never justification for a death penalty.