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.
The distraction is the point. By making the execution look less grotesque, they believe it will make it more palatable to their mouth-breathing constituents. They want the delusion of the condemned drifting off to sleep to slake their bloodlust without their pesky consciences feeling the guilt.
Er…I suspect that part of the point is that their previous method of execution was lethal injection, and there was a pretty well-documented shortage of the drugs for that. They got really expensive. I suspect that’s around the point where someone looked into alternatives and came up with this.
I think you’re probably right that the method seeming maybe more humane to some critics was part of the appeal of this particular method, but I think the main goal was probably cost reduction and ensuring that supply chain issues couldn’t interrupt their murdering any more.
The mouth-breathers would rather have public torture killings.
You see the same thing when carnists try to justify killing animals for food when they don’t need to.
Of all the hot takes I’ve ever read, this is certainly among them. But like, on the cooler end.
isn’t a cool/cold take one that’s obvious or commonly believed?