Execution by Nitrogen = Torture

[WLJ]

The daily mail sometimes has articles just to piss off its readers and get viewers... I'm pretty sure this is one of them.

I've seen them run an article that will PO the left and right underneath one will PO the right.

[Hawkmoon]

The curtains opened. The death warrant was read. Then the most violent execution I've ever seen began: The thrashing... the retching.... the last gasp - my view from the witness gallery of the world's first nitrogen suffocation that will haunt me forever
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13010885/Kenneth-Eugene-Smith-Alabama-nitrogen-gas-execution-witness-view.html

The anti-execution crowd is going to milk this like crazy

Hmmm ...

From the Daily Mail story:

Smith was already strapped to a 'Stryker' gurney, the gasmask fitted and covering his entire face from forehead to chin. A brand name on the mask had been covered with tape.

Smith lay prone, his arms outstretched at his sides, restrained by black buckles.

A silver cross hung around his neck. He was wearing his prison-issue clothing – a dark-tan colored shirt and slacks, stamped 'Alabama Department of Corrections'.

He looked over to the viewing window and smiled.

If his entire face was covered, how did the reporter see him smile?

[WLJ]

Hmmm ...

From the Daily Mail story:

If his entire face was covered, how did the reporter see him smile?

Clark Kent

[230RN]

I just wonder if anyone who's witnessed a pet euthanization with Nitrogen has seen any struggling or other discomfort. Any comments from knowledgeable people?

What I "hear" is that they just fall asleep, and obviously they don't know what's going on. 

Maybe that's just propaganda from the opposite direction?

Terry, 230RN 

[Pb]

Maybe he just panicked.  Or was putting on a show.

[Blakenzy]

Well there is no such thing as a dignified death for a conscious individual. Death is fear and panic and desperation and suffering. An exception would be those Buddhist monks during the Vietnam war, but in their case while technically conscious their minds were not in their bodies by the time the flames got sparked.

[MechAg94]

Hmmm ...

From the Daily Mail story:

If his entire face was covered, how did the reporter see him smile?

Perhaps a full face respirator with a clear face cover.  Still not easy to see someone's face through those.

[MechAg94]

I recall a Robert Heinlein book where a reality had literal eye-for-an-eye punishment.  You got what you dished out.  So there this guy would be executed by getting stabbed to death. 

[230RN]

I suspect he was trying to hold his breath as long as possible and that resulted in any gasping or writhing.   And it strikes me that LN2 is just about the least complicated and least icky method possible.  I think that writer was telling the agenda instead of the facts --something which should be permanently removed from journalistic society... as it were.

Terry, 230RN

[Northwoods]

I suspect he was trying to hold his breath as long as possible and that resulted in any gasping or writhing.   And it strikes me that LN2 is just about the least complicated and least icky method possible.  I think that writer was telling the agenda instead of the facts --something which should be permanently removed from journalistic society... as it were.

Terry, 230RN

LN2 is most useful for Terminators chasing you through a steel yard.  Regular gaseous N2 is what they used for this execution.

[WLJ]

LN2 is most useful for Terminators chasing you through a steel yard.  Regular gaseous N2 is what they used for this execution.

LN2 would work 

[230RN]

LN2 is most useful for Terminators chasing you through a steel yard.  Regular gaseous N2 is what they used for this execution.

Correct.  Sorry, LN2 in those big laboratory tanks came to mind out of habit.  But of course there are regular gaseous bottles of N2 available.

Let that be my worst mistake of the week.

[MechAg94]

I was picturing a small LN2 tank as well.  However, I guess that would assume a lot of regular use.  One N2 cylinder is more than enough.

[BobR]

LN2 would work 

That it would. I can see sedating, intubating and pouring a quart or so LN2 down the tube. That should be sufficient. Or just dunk them in a large vat, kind of like we did to rats when we were in the shipyard.


bob

[dogmush]

I don't know. I think people don't want to accept what the nitty gritty of death and more specifically an execution is and are trying to dress it up into something more palatable with contrived elaborate procedures and methods. Which is putting lipstick on a pig.

I agree here.  If you are going to let the government kill people (a different side of the discussion) you don't want that death to be needlessly cruel.  But there's no need to think it will be Pain-free or pleasant.  It's still a death. 

This fetish the US seems to have for making executions 100% pain free and 100% clean is leading the whole thing down a garden path.  There's any number of easy, cheap, and quick ways to kill someone.  Humans have been doing it for millennia.  Don't overcomplicate things.