A new method of capital punishment?

perseus

perseus

Active member
For those who believe in capital punishment, but accept that we should have a more humane method of executing prisoners, why hasn't nitrogen asphyxiation been used? Perhaps this may be considered after the recent botched execution in Ohio.

Administering pure nitrogen, rather than merely blocking off the air supply, would avoid carbon dioxide build up. It is the carbon dioxide which causes the suffocating experiencg, therefore, breathing pure nitrogen should be relatively painless and untraumatic in physical terms. It seems very obvious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_asphyxiation

Of course this wouldn't avoid the mental trauma of the execution. One alternative option would be to offer the prisoner the option of a suicide cell. Here they are placed in a cell by themselves in which they can place a mask over their face, the prisoner simply asphyxiates themselves by turning on the nitrogen stream. If they don't have the guts they have the option of leaving it for another day.

This might be not much use for the vigilante squad, but it would be a compromise between those who support and reject the death penalty by offering humane treatment and reducing the cost of keeping prisoners in jail for life.
 
Zastava-Arms said:
What happened to the firing squads? That would be better than this in my opinion.
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That's what I think. And cheaper too.

The minute their sentence is handed out we should take them outside and put a bullet in their head. Keeping them around for 12 years before we execute them isn't helping any of us.

p.s. And I don't mean to sound cold-hearted but I believe most people who get the death penalty DESERVE it and have done horrible things to earn it. So who cares if it hurts them a bit.
 
Unless evidence subsequently finds them not guilty? I expect the suffering is greater on death row anyway.

Shooting, very messy, all that cleaning up.
 
Seems funny that people would consider punishing someone with death, as "cruel and unusual"

You only need to read or watch the news on a daily basis to realize it is not unusual.

Seems to me, people spend way to much time worrying about how we dispose of the trash.
I guess it is because of recycling?:???:

If the criminals scheduled for execution had worried at all about "cruel and unusual" they might not have done the crime.
 
Assuming we have to put them to death painlessly to appease those 'criminal loving liberals' ;) does anyone know a better way than nitrogen? Not very costly a gas bottle and mask.

What about the cases were someone takes an OD of oral drugs of some type, suppose even a liquid would not be as quick and simple?

Shooting through the head is supposed to be painless since the brain is targeted. Unfortunately I doubt if it is as simple as this, I have heard of guys who have lost half their brains and have not only lived but still have most of their mental faculties.
 
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I think the issue most people have with the death penalty is the remote chance that you have convicted an innocent person, at least in the case of life imprisonment you can let them walk free, personally I fall somewhere in between and think that once someone has been convicted without a shadow of doubt of a crime that will see them locked away for life (and I mean any crime not just murder etc.) then the sentence should become a death sentence automatically.

I find it absolutely crazy that society thinks forking out $50k a year to keep someone locked up for the next 20-50 years is a better investment than the $1.50 in electricity it would take to sort the issue out permanently.
 
MontyB said:
that once someone has been convicted without a shadow of doubt of a crime that will see them locked away for life (and I mean any crime not just murder etc.) then the sentence should become a death sentence automatically.
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+1, my stand also.

And I still favor the bullet too.
 
Oddly enough I am against shooting and any form of execution that is "hands on" (hanging, shooting, beheading etc.) because it has a fairly detrimental affect on those tasked to carry out executions.

If you read the biographies of executioners from the hangman to firing squad crews and even German squads of WW1 and WW2 a lot of them just went nuts, so any method of execution has to be a detached method to maintain sanity of the guys charged with carrying it.
 
MontyB said:
--snip--- so any method of execution has to be a detached method to maintain sanity of the guys charged with carrying it.
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Albert Pierrepoint seemed to have it down fairly well, although I can't imagine how. His autobiography makes really interesting reading.

Usually able to lead the prisoner onto the gallows with a minimum of fuss, his best time being seven and a half seconds from the time the prisoner was led from his cell until he was hung.

I'm not impartial enough, there would be some I could do very gladly, but I'm sure I would have doubts about others. Especially with what I know about how selective the administration of the law is, and also the number of executed persons since found to be most probably innocent. Personally I feel that some times there should be a selection of methods. Some deserve no better than to be put into a slow feeding wood chipper feet first, others perhaps executed in a more humane manner.
 
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perseus said:
Assuming we have to put them to death painlessly to appease those 'criminal loving liberals' ;) does anyone know a better way than nitrogen? Not very costly a gas bottle and mask.

What about the cases were someone takes an OD of oral drugs of some type, suppose even a liquid would not be as quick and simple?

Shooting through the head is supposed to be painless since the brain is targeted. Unfortunately I doubt if it is as simple as this, I have heard of guys who have lost half their brains and have not only lived but still have most of their mental faculties.
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Hanging them. Not the one where you suffocate them, but when you drop them from a bit of a height and their necks snap. Quick, painless, no blood.

But I think a firing squad would be better. Its more of a detterent, if you know what I mean.

You could just go Nazi style and make them work so hard and for so long they die from exhaustion.
 
Now that we have DNA evidence there shouldn't be any "most."
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DNA isn't be holy grail of crime detection, it only proves you have been in the vicinity of the crime scene at some point in the past, not necessarily committed an offence there (and that assuming the lab procedures have been rigorously adhered to).
 
pixiedustboo said:
The minute their sentence is handed out we should take them outside and put a bullet in their head. Keeping them around for 12 years before we execute them isn't helping any of us.

p.s. And I don't mean to sound cold-hearted but I believe most people who get the death penalty DESERVE it and have done horrible things to earn it. So who cares if it hurts them a bit.
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Sounds very Soviet. Right after the prisoner is condemned he/she is taken out and shot. I have a hard time understanding that so many of you are ready to sacrifice one innocent in order to shoot then convicts. I think that the death sentence is is a punishment for the people lacking the fantasy for something more humane and lacking will to look at other options.

Zastava-Arms said:
But I think a firing squad would be better. Its more of a detterent, if you know what I mean.
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Wake up friend, if the death penalty was so deterring it wouldn't be necessary anymore. The fact that we are having this discussion means only one thing: it doens't work!
 
The point of this thread was not to discuss the merits of capital punishment, but to establish a cheap, humane and reliable means of death perhaps for prisoner's who prefer that sentence. Indeed for others who have good reasons to commit suicide such as incurable chronic pain.

Surely it isn't rocket science to kill someone painlessly, why all the difficulty finding veins and such nonsense? Why does there need to be three injections administered automatically? It seems like a sledge hammer to crack a nut if you forgive the inference!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8291373.stm
 
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