Alabama to allow first execution using nitrogen hypoxia

Source | Archive

On Wednesday, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in favor of a motion to allow the state to execute Kenneth Smith with nitrogen hypoxia.

The use of nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method has never been tested. The gas has a history of being extremely deadly and could pose a threat to the staff and spiritual advisers present in the execution chamber.

Attorney General Steve Marshall posted a statement on X, formerly Twitter, after the court granted his motion to allow Alabama to use nitrogen hypoxia on Smith.

Alison Mollman, interim legal director of the ACLU of Alabama, made a statement denouncing the use of nitrogen hypoxia. Mollman stated that Marshall and Governor Kay Ivey could be putting the lives of staff, spiritual advisers, media, and victims at risk if they do not stop Smith’s execution.

Alabama previously tried to execute Smith last year but failed due to a botched lethal injection. Now, they are trying again, only with a method never tested before and could harm or kill others.

Update on Page 8, post #148.​

 

[Big Brutus]

"Hi, we're out on our "range" today..."

View attachment 5480076

"I have our live meat target set up and we're going to try out the Federal 9×19mm HST 147-grain ammunition first. I'll be shooting it out of this P365 with a 3.1-inch barrel. Let's see how it does."

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I'm against it solely because people on death row does not deserve an easy way out

 

[Ancient Pioneer]

beheading via guillotine is near instant as well, and absolutely foolproof, there's basically no way the executioner can mess it up.

There is instances of it fucking up in France during the terror. The wood warped because of water damage from rain or some such, letting it inpinge upon the blade as it was falling, it never got enough momentum as it kept binding on the way down. The executioners yanked the victim out, chiseled the damaged wood out of the channel which let the blade drop freely and then put the guy back in, the entire time the guy was sitting on the stage as the crew fucked with the machine. Crazy primary source material I wish I could find again.

 

[mofu mofo]

Hows that now? By that logic using the gas chamber would put everyones lives at risk as well. Especially considering the gas involved is hydrogen cyanide. The ACLU is acting like the DOC doesn't know how to operate a gas chamber properly. The only thing really changing here is the specific gas being used

That said, it should be interesting to see how this type of execution goes. Assuming he ever actually ends up being executed.

Slightly different. When you're gassing somebody with a toxin you just need the concentration in the room to get high enough to kill them, they you vent the room into a chimney or scrubber or whatever so that the gas doesn't seep out and kill everybody else in the building. The nitrogen hypoxia method requires displacing the majority of the air in the gas chamber with nitrogen so it's slower but you don't need to worry about gassing everybody else in the building. If it's a small gas chamber and the room(s) it opens into are large enough, emptying a gas chamber's worth of nitrogen into them wouldn't displace enough oxygen to be dangerous. tl;dr this is much safer for everybody else.

Inert gasses have been experimented with for slaughtering livestock, you can see how that looks here:

Hypoxic people usually just get very confused and then pass out.

A big advantage for the prison is that nitrogen can be made on site with a nitrogen generator that concentrates it straight out of the air.

 

[CowPox]

Just wrap their heads in duct tape and throw them into a hole.

 

[Echo_Ender]

There is instances of it fucking up in France during the terror. The wood warped because of water damage from rain or some such, letting it inpinge upon the blade as it was falling, it never got enough momentum as it kept binding on the way down. The executioners yanked the victim out, chiseled the damaged wood out of the channel which let the blade drop freely and then put the guy back in, the entire time the guy was sitting on the stage as the crew fucked with the machine. Crazy primary source material I wish I could find again.

IIRC, it led to the common practice of actually testing it on stuff beforehand.

 

[Big Brutus]

The nitrogen hypoxia method requires displacing the majority of the air in the gas chamber with nitrogen so it's slower but you don't need to worry about gassing everybody else in the building. If it's a small gas chamber and the room(s) it opens into are large enough, emptying a gas chamber's worth of nitrogen into them wouldn't displace enough oxygen to be dangerous. tl;dr this is much safer for everybody else.

Alabama isn't going to be filling a room with nitrogen gas. They'll be strapping a mask to the condemned's face and pumping nitrogen into the mask through a tube.

Inert gasses have been experimented with for slaughtering livestock, you can see how that looks here:

Interesting video. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Otis Mallebrok]

The gas has a history of being extremely deadly and could pose a threat to the staff and spiritual advisers present in the execution chamber.

Said gas makes up 78% of the atmosphere. We all inhale liters of it with every bloody breath.

That said, I think this is silly. Hemp rope is a cheap and well-proven method.

 

[Big Brutus]

Said gas makes up 78% of the atmosphere. We all inhale liters of it with every bloody breath.

Yup. And the lawyers are ignoring the fact that Alabama is planning on using safety equipment that measures oxygen levels in the execution chamber. I'm sure there'll be other safeguards in place.

 

[The Gene Genie]

"Humane" executions, in the modern parlance, is all just bullshit to make the observers feel better about themselves. I don't see why we can't just bring back the short drop and sudden stop. There's nothing wrong with it, and is just as "humane" as the other options if done correctly.

 

[Snekposter]

"Humane" executions, in the modern parlance, is all just bullshit to make the observers feel better about themselves. I don't see why we can't just bring back the short drop and sudden stop. There's nothing wrong with it, and is just as "humane" as the other options if done correctly.

Its actually the most humane method out there aside from nitrogen hypoxia. Done right (slipping the knot right behind the ear so you get a bend and a twist in the neck at the same time) the neck snaps like a twig, unconsciousness happens instantly, and the person dangles completely motionless for a little bit as the noose chokes off their supply of blood and air. Its going to take all of five minutes, tops once the lever is pulled for it all to be done and over with.

 

[DumbDude43]

A big advantage for the prison is that nitrogen can be made on site with a nitrogen generator that concentrates it straight out of the air.

to do that you need to hypercool compressed air down to very low temperatures and then do a fractional distillation of the liquified air. it requires some pretty high tech industrial equipment and personnel trained in operating it.

 

[Chickin BBQ]

A pity that they aren't using dihydrogen monoxide.

 

[Cheeseknife]

Just throw them in with convicted murderers and tell all the innmates that it's a child predator. Everybody wins.

 

[dustbuster]

Pardon me, but I don't want depraved killers or child rapists to die "humanely".
Bring back the breaking wheel, and follow it up with being fed slowly into a dogfood grinder, feet first.

 

[TowinKarz]

There is instances of it fucking up in France during the terror. The wood warped because of water damage from rain or some such, letting it inpinge upon the blade as it was falling, it never got enough momentum as it kept binding on the way down. The executioners yanked the victim out, chiseled the damaged wood out of the channel which let the blade drop freely and then put the guy back in, the entire time the guy was sitting on the stage as the crew fucked with the machine. Crazy primary source material I wish I could find again.

There's also some anecdotal evidence that you are conscious for a few seconds after beheading until your brain uses up the last bit of stored oxygen, we're talking only 10-15 seconds or some such here., but still. Death by guillotine is probably not instantaneous, pretty darn quick, but not guaranteed insta-death like the electric chair or taking a whiff of cyanide gas.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Why don't they just use the guillotine? No need to worry about expiration dates or shortages.

 

[Matt Damon]

Death by guillotine is probably not instantaneous, pretty darn quick, but not guaranteed insta-death like the electric chair or taking a whiff of cyanide gas.

Cyanide disrupts cellular respiration, so wouldn't suddenly cutting off oxygen/blood supply to the brain via big knife blade take roughly the same amount of time to kill?

 

[Point 707]

Execution via nitrogen/helium/carbon monoxide inhalation is painless and humane. I've always thought it was bullshit that the state had to invent some kind of 'lethal injection' when we've had a perfectly good way to execute someone for forever now.

Just shoot someone up with a load of morphine and make them breathe in the inert gas, and they're guaranteed to be dead within 10 minutes. It's impossible to fuck up unless you somehow don't use the correct gas.

 

[Ancient Pioneer]

Death by guillotine is probably not instantaneous, pretty darn quick, but not guaranteed insta-death like the electric chair or taking a whiff of cyanide gas.

When I was a Senior in Highschool back in the Dark Ages I had to argue Furman v Georgia as part of my civics class, arguing against the death penalty is an easy as hell task because people survive the executions and describe the experience. The electric chair method of execution is probably the most painful of any we devised because the electric current contracts every muscle in the body far beyond its normal tolerances, and contrary to common belief, its not instant knock-out or death, you're effectively roasting the person from the inside out with the goal of inducing a termination of cardiac functions, its the inverse goal of shock paddles which are trying to restart the heart. In a more romantic society you would have had your death sentence immediately revoked if you survived the execution, usually by hanging. But in the 20th century that kind of restraint was lost and executions would be run over and over until completion, definitely crossing over into the legal definition of torture. This is some 20 years after I read the account but there was a black guy in the south during the 1910s or 1920s that survived 3 rounds in the electric chair, he later died in "the hospital" after the third attempt, with his skin sweating blood and most of his muscles ripped from the tension, I believe the root cause of the failures was the mercury-arc rectifier used by the prison being damaged in some manner.