That plus what Dogmush said above. I was also pretty much "fry the guy" in my younger years, but with all the DNA exonerations, not anymore.
My general rule is that I'd withdraw the death penalty from all cases without at least 3 murders and/or deliberate serious torture in addition to the murder. And no, rape isn't quite enough.
a confession (even an attention confession, because if you're that stupid, you deserve to die),
I would modify this with "an
uncoerced confession". I've read far too much about how cops from the 70s-90s were able to extract confessions, not perhaps from us, but from those at the 30-40th intelligence percentile(IE they're smarter than 30% of the population, IE slow or dumb), including hanging their cold cases on them. As sad as picking on the disabled are, you have the other factor in that by hanging a crime on a random schmuck, you have the real perpetrator still out there, often repeating their crime.
Just to be clear, the police are capable of extracting a false confession for something out of ~30% of the population with less than 12 hours of questioning. Even if there's utterly no possibility the person actually did it. Even without anything called "torture", with which and additional time the ability to extract a confession approaches 100% of the population.
Then if that's the case, as much as I may talk "eye for an eye" from the armchair for some of the sicker killings out there, the murderer should be quickly and efficiently executed. No big fanfare, just an efficient and clinical death to pay the penalty and then drive on.
I agree. It's why I like N2 executions:
1. You don't even need to tie the prisoner down if you use a booth or even just a sealed room.
2. It's sure-fire. Assuming you have sufficient N2 and the room is sufficiently sealed, they WILL die
3. Relatively clean. You're not splattering out potentially infectious blood and gore.
4. Painless. At this point, you've determined that they're an animal that needs to be put down. You don't torture a dog for getting rabies. Don't torture a human.
5. I don't see the sources being restricted when any welding shop can provide the supplies, for the equipment and the materials needed to make the chamber even.
That's a problem with execution drugs when Europe refuses to sell them to us. Worst case you can buy devices that will filter out N2 from the atmosphere.
6. Relatively simple. As stated, you turn a switch. You're not trying to get unskilled(because medical professionals won't touch it) people to run IV lines and inject drugs. It's nearly as easy(and can be as easy), as throwing an electrical switch for old sparky.
7. Non-toxic. You'd want some O2 monitors, but unlike old gas chambers, you can open up the chamber and those around won't be harmed. At worst you might need to introduce some more O2, and just blowing through outside air(IE well ventilated) would be enough. So safer for others.
