Alabama condemned for nitrogen gas execution: ‘They intended to torture him’
theguardian.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/14097254
Smith’s execution by “nitrogen hypoxia” took around 22 minutes, according to media witnesses, who were led into a viewing room at the William C Holman correctional facility in Atmore shortly before 8 pm local time.
After the nitrogen gas began flowing, Smith convulsed on the gurney for several minutes. The state had previously said the nitrogen gas would cause Smith to lose consciousness in seconds and die within minutes, according to the Associated Press.
“I’ve been to four previous executions and I’ve never seen a condemned inmate thrash in the way that Kenneth Smith reacted to the nitrogen gas,” Lee Hedgepeth, a journalist who witnessed the execution, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.
It would have been quicker and more merciful just to shoot him, Jesus Christ.
Yeah. I don't agree we should have a death penalty at all. It seems pretty telling that over the years we seem to have been progressively getting more painful and extreme in the methods used, all while touting the new method as obviously safer or more humane.
And, I was in favor of nitrogen as a genuinely painless method of killing someone until I heard the details of how they went about it. It really does seem like cruelty to the prisoner is being designed into the process.
First, all executions should be illegal. But if you do execute someone, nitrogen is the most humane way to do it if done correctly.
If he was thrashing it means that he was rebreathing the same air he exhaled, and the CO2 buildup caused him to thrash and die in agony. How incompetent people must be, this is simple.
The cruelty is the point.
I really really hope this is incompetence, because if this is intentional, the person(s) responsible should be criminally liable for it. I'm no lawyer, but this should be a criminal offense to intentionally cause someone physical suffering.
Why on earth is nitrogen being treated as worse than the gas chamber, electric chair, or lethal injection? All of those are way more painful, akin to torture. Nitrogen suffocation is literally the method that was selected for suicide pods because it doesn't involve any discomfort (aside from, obviously, the knowledge that you're going to die.)
It turns out there is discomfort involved when the mechanism for delivery doesn't account for the CO2 being exhaled. Nitrogen isn't the problem, but the way they did it was completely asinine.
I mean, they're prison officials in Alabama. I wouldn't expect them to do anything at all in a humane or intelligent way.
Oh shit. Yeah, that's a real problem. And yeah, if that's true that's totally asinine; they eliminated the one obvious advantage that this method has over all others when it would have been trivial to make sure it was a non-issue.
Maybe deliberately inflicting suffering was a design goal they just couldn't let go of. 😥
Edit: After looking over some of the reasons people are saying he was suffering, I don't see much reason to think so or think CO2 was recirculating. I'm sure it was horrible knowing that he was going to die. I'm against the death penalty in general, and I think a lot of people are opposed to this just because it's horrible to execute someone however you do it. But I'm pretty convinced that there's no real reason to think he suffered physically while he was dying.
Well that explains why he lived so long. He was living off the air HR started with in his lungs and as he slowly used the oxygen he started with he suffocated over 20 minutes
Do you have a source for this? I want to know more about it and I wasn't able to find a place that was saying it.
Based on the manufacturer and the descriptions of the mask used, I believe this is the design: https://www.allegrosafety.com/product/half-mask-supplied-air-respirator/
The fact that it took him over 20 minutes to die indicates something was done incorrectly. He held his breath, which certainly contributed to his discomfort, but that can't account for 20 minutes. He had to have been rebreathing his own exhaled oxygen and/or the seal allowed for fresh oxygen to enter the mask.
I'm not aware of the exactly design being publicly available so people are speculating based on what is known - primary that it was botched and he was in agony for 20 minutes, and working backward from there to figure out what they must've done wrong to create that outcome. But I'm still looking.
I amended my top-level comment to ask for more information and indicate some uncertainty, because I've been hearing conflicting things about the basic facts of the execution. Most news sources are saying he was dead by 15 minutes in. And you seem to have modified "convulsing" and generally struggling against his straps for some number of minutes, which at least a few minutes' worth everyone's in agreement about, into "in agony for 20 minutes," which I have no idea how you would know that. Wouldn't it be possible that he's struggling because he's going to die, not because he's in pain?
Can you send me a source or two on your complete picture of how it happened including the 22 minutes?
I sent you a source for 22 minutes. I also appear to have been mis-quoting "agonal breathing" when I said "in agony." It was either an honest error or I read it that way in another article (which also might or might not have been misquoting agonal breathing).
I'll quote this section of that article:
"Smith, who was on a gurney, appeared conscious for “several minutes into the execution,” and “shook and writhed” for about two minutes after that, media witnesses said in a joint report.
That was followed by several minutes of deep breathing before his breath began slowing “until it was no longer perceptible for media witnesses,” the media witnesses said."
Two minutes of shaking and writing is quite a bit different than what other articles were saying. It's two minutes longer than I'd've expected for a painless death, but I'm not an expert.
Yeah, that all lines up with what I thought. I'm sure it's horrible knowing you're going to die as it's actually happening. But a few minutes of consciousness followed by convulsions and death, that sounds like what I'd expect from suffocating on nitrogen and I see no reason to think from that that in itself means it's painful.
The 22 minutes seems like it came from his "religious advisor" and doesn't line up with what other people said. Also, there's this:
I'm certainly not out to demonize it or present a false narrative, but it can be easy to get a bunch of things jumbled together when you're trying to put it all together. I appreciate you pushing for facts and getting me to re-read a bit closer.
I mean, I get it. I don't think we should be killing people either. I think that's the inherent horror that's making people look for reasons why this is wrong. But I think they're unintentionally opposing a method that's less painful, with the possible result of continuing the torture that we currently put people through when they're condemned to die.
So what you're saying is they didn't scrub the CO2 that he expelled and so he basically rebreathed that, triggering the brainstem signal of hypercapnia?
Wouldn't this be resolved by having a tube with a slight negative pressure (like reverse cpap) linked to his nose for exhalation while the nitrogen was pumped via the mouth upon inhalation?
That's what I'm gathering from the articles. And yes, there are several ways it might've been done without causing suffering.
The problem seems to be (based on all the articles I read leading up to this) that they were treating Nitrogen like a poison and they were afraid of all the ways Nitrogen might leak out, harming other folks such as the clergy attending him. It's hard to tell whether that stupidity came from the journalists, lawyer, or prison officials.
But basically you are right, there are ways this can be done far more humanely (if you absolutely must execute someone, which is an argument for another day), but this wasn't it.
According to this article: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/26/us/alabama-execution-nitrogen-what-we-know/index.html
They started at 7:53. 22 minutes later they closed the curtain. 10 minutes later they pronounced him dead. I'm thinking that 22 minutes is the source of the 20+ minute claim.
People also don't consider the people carrying out the execution are individuals that flunked out of college and the military. As no actual person that knows what they are doing. This will be botched every time.
Because if people actually cared about painless ways just go back to beheadings.
Glad they are being condemned for it.
Shame that Alabama Christian Republican state leadership and members are proud of it.
Sanctioned state murder
Well that's terrible enough, but I thought this method of execution was the prisoner's own choice? Wasn't he the one campaigning to be executed by nitrogen gas in the first place? I know they tried to execute him once before by lethal injection and spent four hours trying unsuccessfully to get the needle into his veins.
So maybe 22 minutes isn't so inhumane compared to 4 hours of being stabbed with a needle. Not that any death is ever a pleasant experience.