Alabama, unless stopped by the courts, intends to strap Kenneth Eugene Smith to a gurney Thursday and use a gas mask to replace breathable air with nitrogen, depriving him of oxygen, in the nation’s first execution attempt with the method.
The Alabama attorney general’s office told federal appeals court judges last week that nitrogen hypoxia is “the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.” But what exactly Smith, 58, will feel after the warden switches on the gas is unknown, some doctors and critics say.
“What effect the condemned person will feel from the nitrogen gas itself, no one knows,” Dr. Jeffrey Keller, president of the American College of Correctional Physicians, wrote in an email. “This has never been done before. It is an experimental procedure.”
Keller, who was not involved in developing the Alabama protocol, said the plan is to “eliminate all of the oxygen from the air” that Smith is breathing by replacing it with nitrogen.
Sure but that’s because of execution itself rather than the method of execution. This is physically painless even though obviously the emotional impact is bound to be intense.
Not really - not being able to breathe is pretty unique here. It’s very slow, and even if you don’t feel pain directly, you can feel oxygen deprivation indirectly - if you’ve ever gone way up in altitude you’d know the feeling
At this point, why not just give them an elephant’s dose of fentanyl?
That’s not what the science says. It turns out humans can’t detect oxygen deprivation, they can only detect either increased CO2 concentration or reduced pressure. (Interestingly isn’t necessarily true for other mammals, such as rats, who can detect oxygen deprivation directly.)
Since this is inert gas asphyxiation (nitrogen), it does not trigger the same suffocation response. Additionally, at volumes of O2 less than 6%, it only takes one or two breaths to cause unconsciousness, making it quite different than the effect you’d feel at altitude.
Not the “I can’t breathe” feeling, the dreamy, detached state your mind goes into. The heaviness of your body.
Now imagine yourself slipping away like that, where it rapidly comes on.
Not a good way to go.
It’s easy enough to miss that people can die without noticing they’re in a cloud of nitrogen, but if you know it’s coming?
Also, are you sure the DIY system they’re building, without any help from experts, is going to be that fast
I strongly disagree, the brief, euphoric confusion of hypoxia is likely one of the most ideal ways to go.
The supposed “DIY” nature of the system in question is another matter entirely that sidesteps the only point I’ve argued here - is inert gas hypoxia a painless, quick death? Science still says yes.
The emotional response leads to a physical response…
I mean, its the same response knowing you are going to be executed. No method of execution is going to prevent what you propose is a problem with the new method. Same thing when you set up the lethal injection and then slowly go through the stages of the cocktail.
Finding out in court has a different response than being strapped down to a table while they start the process.
The whole thing is just a big torture process and we should stop doing it.
This wasn’t the discussion about whether or not we should perform executions. But whether using this gas is better if its going to be done. And it is obviously if compared to what is used now. And the argument that executing people with this gas would be traumatic is a moot point when you know what the alternative is.