Alabama seeks to carry out second execution using controversial nitrogen gas method
Alabama seeks to carry out second execution using controversial nitrogen gas method
Alabama is seeking to put a second inmate to death using nitrogen gas. The move comes a month after the state carried out the first execution using the controversial new method.
Alabama is seeking to put a second inmate to death using nitrogen gas, a move that comes a month after the state carried out the first execution using the controversial new method.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office asked the state Supreme Court on Wednesday to set an execution date for Alan Eugene Miller. The state said Miller’s execution would be carried out using nitrogen. Miller, now 59, was convicted of killing three people during a pair of 1999 workplace shootings in suburban Birmingham.
“The State of Alabama is prepared to carry out the execution of Miller’s sentence by means of nitrogen hypoxia,” the attorney general’s office wrote, adding that Miller has been on death row since 2000 and that it is time to carry out his sentence.
Alabama this week:
"All life is sacred in the eyes of God!!!"
"Gas that motherfucker til his eyes bleed!!"
But not in a chamber or anything, we’re gonna fuck it up with a mask and bottles of nitrogen and shit
I'm an opponent of the death penalty in general, but I've always felt that if a state is going to execute someone anyway and I can't stop that then at least they should be using inert gas asphyxiation. Because only a drooling moron could possibly mess that up and cause the process to be painful somehow.
Alabama once again manages to impress.
I hope nobody in charge watches Deadpool and sees how he got his powers.
Nitrogen Asphyxiation in the workplace is insanely dangerous specifically because humans (and most animals) don't have a way to detect nitrogen displacement...
The body detects hypoxia by build up of CO2, or more accurately carbonic acid, not loss of O2 - it doesn't expect for nitrogen to be the thing to displace all the oxygen, so you literally don't notice it. There's countless stories of people fainting and dying due to not realising the situation they were in.
So how in fuck's name did Alabama manage to botch it so badly that the first guy had an agonising death via seizure?? It takes a special kind of neglect to make that happen.
They put him in a mask instead of a sealed room. The mask filled with CO2, and may have not had a perfect seal due to thrashing as he struggled to breathe.
There are ways the masks could have worked but really to do this kind of thing humanly you need a sealed chamber with enough volume for CO2 to diffuse into or some kind of scrubber at the bottom pulling air out and displaced with pure N2 at the top.
It's difficult to tell if they are using the setup they are because of incompetence trying to seek out the cheapest solution, or malice and using the cheapest solution that will cause the maximum agony and suffering. It's pretty bad when bringing back hanging would be a more humane way of executing people than this travesty.
Why don't they apply anesthesia first? If I can get conked out so bad that I can't remember getting my wisdom teeth removed wouldn't that totally knock you out before being gassed?
Pharmaceutical companies will not supply those kinds of drugs for executions, because they understandably don't want their products associated with killing people.
Done properly, the nitrogen is basically an anesthesiac. It knocks you out real good.
I think it just didn't end up working as well as scientists thought it would. Maybe there's more to painless nitrogen execution besides just filling a container with nitrogen. It's not like they can just test a nitrogen death chamber before rolling it out. We'll see if the next execution goes the same way or not.
Alabama did not listen to scientists. Medical science understands the roles of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen quite well, and predicted that filling a mask with nitrogen would be a horrible application of the technology. The mask did not ventilate his own breathe, so the high concentrations of nitrogen did not displace the oxygen and carbon dioxide fast enough to avoid the gasping asphyxiation reflex.
There were specific recommendations made by scientists. Either use a mask with a one-way valve that exhausts exhalation, or fill a chamber of sufficient volume that will render the concentrations of his own exhalation insignificant. Alabama did neither, and it was a disaster.
I think the problem was that they didn't actually use a chamber and instead tried to use a mask, IIRC
I think there's a few contextual factors...
If someone doesn't know they're being asphyxiated with nitrogen they might just pass out.
If someone wants to euthanise themselves by nitrogen asphyxiation they might just drift off peacefully.
... but if someone doesn't want to die and knows they're being asphyxiated it's probably not going to be so peaceful.
I feel like Alabama has been making some high profile bad decisions lately
I mean, we could, maybe not be killing people, but that failing, if they do it right the victim just euphorically slumbers away into death. It's not that hard you just give them nitrogen to breathe. How the f*** can they screw this up?
I always thought suicide bags with nitrogen or helium were the way to go. I didn't read why the last guy had such a miserable death, but I did read it wasn't pretty.
I feel like they could put someone under some anesthesia and finish the job with the gas. Or even better, don't kill people, like you said.
Not-so-sweet home Alabama
It all starts with conservatism and attacks on education
LATELY?!
They're trying to sneak in as much cruelty and obscenity as possible before the next generation gets into power and tries making everything fair and compassionate.
I was thinking a very similar thought just yesterday. So many of our major problems feel so much like old people being unable to die gracefully. "Well, fine, then I'll do as much damage as I can on the way out!" rather than, "I'd like this place to be better for my kids and grandkids when I'm gone."
I think part of it is their brain shutting down, inhibiting reasoning as they get older and as they come to terms with the fact they really are on the way out, they become more conservative and selfish while they still can.
Reverting into baby mode where they think their wants and needs supercede those of others.
Which Southern state is going to be the first one to livestream executions?
100 bits to add another 10 volts to the chair
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They would get more money if they had an option to vote. 100 bits to vote whether it adds or reduces volts. People are gonna fight on whether they want the person to die quickly fried or slowly and painfully with a lower voltage.
1000 merits = 1 second
as if they didn't fuck up the first one enough, they're gonna do it AGAIN?? At this point I think we should follow in the footsteps of the Brazen Bull.
Stories allege after finishing construction on the execution device, Perilaus said to Phalaris: "His screams will come to you through the pipes as the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings." Perilaus believed he would receive a reward for his invention. Instead, Phalaris, who was disgusted by these words, ordered its horn sound system to be tested by Perilaus himself, tricking him into getting in the bull. When Perilaus entered, he was immediately locked in and the fire was set, so that Phalaris could hear the sound of his screams. Before Perilaus could die, Phalaris opened the door and took him away. After freeing him from the bull, Phalaris is then said to have taken Perilaus to the top of a hill and thrown him off, killing him.
They fucked it up, yes. Should they do the same procedure, no. Should they still use nitrogen executions, one of the least painful ways to die, yes, assuming you support executions at all.
Meanwhile I'm still waiting for America to drop capital punishment
Nah. You need it after a Civil War. Not using it the last time to hang the Confederate officers really fucked us over in the long run.
Looks like Alabama is run by non-intelligent life forms. Because one key feature of intelligence is to be able to learn from past mistakes.
Nitrogen Asphyxiation in the workplace is insanely dangerous specifically because humans (and most animals) don't have a way to detect nitrogen displacement...
The body detects hypoxia by build up of CO2, or more accurately carbonic acid, not loss of O2 - it doesn't expect for nitrogen to be the thing to displace all the oxygen, so you literally don't notice it. There's countless stories of people fainting and dying due to not realising the situation they were in.
So how in fuck's name did Alabama manage to botch it so badly that the first guy had an agonising death via seizure?? It takes a special kind of neglect to make that happen.
This man will never drop an embryo again.
Disappointing to see from Alabama.