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homesweethomeMrL ,

And here I thought South Carolina was an intelligent, enlightehhahahaha! Ahh! Can’t do it.

DevCat ,
@DevCat@lemmy.world avatar

All five justices agreed with at least part of the ruling. But two of the justices said they felt the firing squad was not a legal way to kill an inmate and one of them felt the electric chair is a cruel and unusual punishment.

Lethal injection has serious downsides. It turns out the drugs simply keep you from moving about as you slowly asphyxiate.

The electric chair it truly cruel. Yes, it fries your system, but it does it relatively slowly.

The firing squad has the issue of the marksman’s aim. If it’s off, you die slowly. Even if it’s dead on, pun intended, you realize what’s happening.

I’ve always wondered if, perhaps, the fastest method would be the guillotine.

Many years ago, in OMNI magazine, there was a story about a future where it was deemed inhumane to even let someone know they were going to be executed. They were kept in a small apartment awaiting the verdict. When the verdict was announced, no matter what it was, they were told they were free to go. Upon grabbing the doorknob, a neurotoxin was injected into the guilty with almost instantaneous effect.

As to discussions of the death penalty itself, I feel if someone was in their right mind, understood the consequences of their actions, and, if placed in the same situation, would commit the crime again, yes, they need to be removed from society permanently. Those who are deemed mentally fit, but bent like serial killers, should lose all their freedom and be placed at the disposal of mental health professionals to study.

What are your thoughts on ways of killing that would be humane?

nickhammes ,

I say the death penalty is itself inhumane, focusing on the technical problem misses the point. Killing people you have a high degree of confidence committed murder means on a long enough time span, you’re virtually guaranteed to kill innocents. The process required to minimize these false positive killings makes the death penalty more expensive than life in prison, on average. As far as I can tell, there’s no upside to the death penalty, unless you’re firmly convinced that the criminal justice system needs to focus on retribution.

The only humane option I see is to let them live out their lives in a context where they won’t reoffend.

shalafi ,

Most of us agree, but the discussion is about methods vs. morality.

nickhammes ,

But that’s kind of my point, the only humane method is not to kill people. Asking “but how do we do it” is like asking how to square a circle; there may be a couple of interesting things to learn along the way, but you won’t find any satisfying answers to the question.

ArbitraryValue ,

on a long enough time span, you’re virtually guaranteed to kill innocents

On a long enough time span, you’re also virtually guaranteed to lock innocents in prison for the rest of their natural lives. (My guess is that this happens more often than killing innocents because death-penalty cases attract much more attention.) Is killing people so much worse than putting them up in a cage and never letting them out that one is inhumane and the other isn’t?

shalafi ,

Nitrogen gas, hands down. Plenty of others gases, except CO2, would work but NO2 is cheap. We don’t have “low O2” sensors, we have “high CO2” sensors. I remember a teen couple making love in a helium filled store balloon/display. They died clueless.

The reason for the very publicized failure last time it was tried was using a mask. Simply put the condemned in a small room and flood it, just like astronaut’s hypoxia trainings. Going out silly and stoned would be about as nice as it gets. And having said that, I have no idea why we don’t OD prisoners on opiates. Seems like a no-brainer.

As to the firing squad, I feel that’s fairly “humane”, would be my third choice if it was me. The condemned just slump and die. Hollywood doesn’t do the nature of gunshot wounds justice. People mostly just drop, strings cut. The lack of drama is far more horrifying than getting knocked through a window. Unfortunately, I saw a video of Mexican police shotgunning a protesting student at 1-2’. The victim looked a little stunned and fell like a sack potatoes. Original cowboy movies showed death like that, but audiences didn’t feel it was realistic.

Rifle rounds setup a shock wave that rearranges your chest cavity. And they’re not using some wimpy bullet such as an AR-15 chambers. Something like a 30.06 or .308 is a monster round. Add up 4-5 hits like that, you won’t know what hit you.

ArbitraryValue ,

As to the firing squad, I feel that’s fairly “humane”, would be my third choice if it was me.

It seems like our modern execution methods are concerned more about the comfort of the executioner (and onlookers) than the comfort of the condemned. Shooting someone feels more like killing than the bloodless alternatives (putting them in a machine or carrying out a medical procedure) do. It’s why one shooter in the firing squad is given a blank cartridge.

Or am I making things up? I wonder if there has been any research into this.

Revan343 ,

Pure nitrogen, assuming they don’t fuck it up like one of the states did recently

yesman ,

I oppose the death penalty, but not because I think it’s wrong to kill some criminals. I am perfectly fine with ending people like Tim McVeigh or Susan Smith. My problem is that I don’t have confidence courts can reliably tell who deserves and who doesn’t.

They always say the death penalty is for the “worst of the worst”, but many arbitrary factors can make the difference. The race /social class of the criminal/ victim. The ambition of the prosecutor. The location of the crime.

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