10mo ago

2nd-ever nitrogen gas execution in US set to take place in Alabama

abcnews.go.com

Alabama is set to perform the second-ever nitrogen gas execution in the United States on Thursday.

Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was sentenced to death for the 1999 murders of his then-coworkers Lee Holdbrooks and Christoper Scott Yancy, and his former supervisor Terry Lee Jarvis.

Miller was to be executed in September 2022 via lethal injection, but it was called off after officials had trouble inserting an intravenous line to administer the fatal drugs and were concerned they would not be able to do so before the death warrant expired.

100 comments

Would love it if we just stopped the government sanctioned murders.
- That's why governments exist - for societal sanctioned killing. And you will never get away from that.
  
  The rest of the modern world enters the chat.
- Human beings are literally animals.
  Innocent animals deserve to live; murderers don’t.
  Let’s eat murderers instead of animals.
  Human animals who murder other animals for food get to keep doing it —> murderers get to die for a good cause. Everyone’s happy!
  
  mmmm prions
  
  You remind me of the time I was marching to protest the Iraq war in Los Angeles and, as the procession of thousands walked by, there was a guy on the sidelines with a bullhorn yelling, "HOW CAN YOU BE AGAINST WAR IF YOU'RE OKAY EATING ANIMALS?"
  I'm guessing the number of people he converted to veganism after that was similar to the, I am guessing, zero people you converted to veganism with your comment.
  Read the room, buddy.
  
  First time I've heard veganism used to justify the death penalty.
  
  I can be against more than one thing.
  I think I can add government sanctioned prion disease to that list.
  Are you okay?
  
  80 billion land animals and 200 trillion sea animals
Per the John Oliver episode on the death penalty, there's substantial evidence that murder by nitrogen suffocation is extremely painful.
Edit: the episode and timestamp in question. Nitrogen hypoxia (edit: at least as it's being performed by these ass-backward hicks) is not painless as some commenters are suggesting. Section lasts from about 23:00 to 24:45. An excerpt from the Wikipedia article properly sourced to the Associated Press, BBC News, and the Montgomery Advertiser (local Alabama newspaper):
Though the State Attorney General said afterward that Smith's execution showed that nitrogen hypoxia was an "effective and humane method of execution", several people watching the execution reported that Smith "thrashed violently on the gurney" for several minutes, with his death reportedly occurring 10 minutes after the nitrogen was administered to the chamber. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the use.
And to be clear, the only reason these sick fucks are using nitrogen is because it's becoming increasingly difficult to source ~~potassium chloride~~ the barbituate and paralytic for lethal injections because the optics for companies supplying them is abysmal.
- If done properly it should be completely painless and almost unnoticeable. I have a feeling they're fucking these up on purpose.
  
  Never attribute to malice what can be explained by plain old dumbfuckery. These podunk inbreds may do it for kicks (some of them are definitely malicious enough), but I think it's pretty likely that they got someone named Cooter to do the final installation.
  This information is brought to you by a drunk that looks like he could be named Cooter. Or possibly Cletus.
- I guess it depends on the implementation of proper removal of oxygen and maintaining low level of CO² as its the method used for the sarco pod.
- Is there? I've always heard that inert gas asphyxiation is basically unnoticeable, which is why it's so deadly in accidents, especially when people try to rescue someone and fall victim themselves.
  The human body doesn't have a "low oxygen" sense, only a "high CO2" sense, so nitrogen and other gases shouldn't trigger the feeling of suffocation.
  
  You are correct
  But these chuckle fucks want to save money.
  They don’t flood a whole room with nitrogen, they just use an oxygen mask that’s flowing a lot if nitrogen.
  The person is still breathing in a lot of what they exhale, which makes it very painful for them
- CO2 buildup is the part that cause pain, panic, and visceral reaction. There’s a reason they purge CO2 from the assisted suicide pods that also completely surround the body in an air-tight enclosure.
  The violent reaction can be explained by a buildup of CO2 which is partially how the body signals the brain to breathe more and heavier. This is not usually observed with inert gas deaths which is why industrial inert gas accidents often have people passing out and dying without even noticing.
- Nitrogen Hypoxia will render you unconscious in under a minute when its almost pure n2 and exhaust is accounted for to remove co2. The last execution was done on such a sloppily manner you seriously have to question if the procedure was done in such a way that to ensure maximum suffering. The mask used didn't allow co2 to be vented away, their method of execution was only one step up from wrapping a bag around his head.
  A proper way to do it, probably not done because cost and some stupid unnecessary procedure, would be to construct a booth around a chair with exhaust fans near the base and a supply of pure n2 coming from the top. If the o2 and co2 can be removed quickly enough the body can't tell its not getting enough to breath and loss of consciousness can happen quickly with death following in minutes. Smarter Every Day has a video on Hypoxia where Dusten, the content creator, is an altitude simulator where they are lowering the air pressure to simulate high altitude and by extension just a few short steps from a death chamber. The host goes through several stages of hypoxia and had to be told point blank to put his oxygen mask back on several times before he risks passing out. At no point does he show signs of pain or distress and if anything acting almost like hes high.
  Building a chamber like this for executions would have been far more humane but they didn't want to put more thought or money into it than strangling a guy so instead you get that botch job Alabama used.
  
  "Hey, should we use any of the ready to go setups the right-to-die people have put considerable thought in to?"
  "No, let's just wing it with shit we already have. What could go wrong?"
  
  Also because at that point you’ve let Alabama have a dedicated gas chamber which is obviously a bad idea
- Isn't nitrogen suffocation how the Swiss death pod works?
  
  The difference is the intent of the person, and the way the nitrogen is applied.
  In the case of the pod, you have someone who has likely been in pain or some kind of suffering for a long time who is keen for death to release them from their suffering.
  In the case of an execution you have someone desperate not to die, by any means possible.
  The guy they executed held his breath for a long time, then thrashed around trying to dislodge the mask, managed to get some free air through the improperly sealed mask, and then maybe had a seizure from the lack of oxygen and desperation. The whole thing is just fucked basically.
  There's some reason why they don't want to use a pod or chamber type set up, although I don't recall what that reason is.
- This is simply not true. Nitrogen is not the issue, CO2 is. If you breathe too much CO2, your body panicks.
  So do it properly and the worst you get is a slight headache. But since you are „high“, you don’t care anymore.
- potassium chloride is just sodium-free salt, I can get it at my supermarket, the issue is getting the other 2 drugs for the cocktail
- Inventors of the "Sarco" capsule would seem to disagree with you.
  
  Yeah, I would tentatively agree that nitrogen hypoxia when performed correctly is in fact painless (although we're also talking about the same Sarco that just got several people arrested by running afoul of Switzerland's product safety and chemical laws on the first ever test of their capsule). Of course here, whatever method Alabama is using is not painless and caused its first victim intense, prolonged suffering.
The US death penalty is so bizarre.
"We desperately want to kill these probably-guilty people, we want it to appear humane while simultaneously lacking any humanity, and no one wants to be involved in any way because we acknowledge that it's pretty much murder which is the crime we're punishing these poor bastards for"
Other countries still doing this, which I don't condone, at least own it. "We think these guys are scum and we're going to end them by chopping their heads off. No you may not watch."
- And the Bible being a justification for state executions is such a horrible excuse.
  We could justify all sorts of other wacky things with a messy collection of ancient tales.
  
  And the Bible being a justification for state executions is such a horrible excuse.
  Which part of the Bible allow that? Is it this "an eye for an eye" thing? And if yes, do those people referring to it also honor the other verses in Leviticus (i.e. not eat shrimp)?
  
  The key story for Christians is that a man was unjustly executed by religious authorities and the state even though he was without sin. This unjust sacrifice atones for all of humanities sin. So kinda hard to justify execution from a Christian perspective if you actually believe that stuff.
- Or execution vans in China
- Hell if someone who kills someone I love is sentenced to death....I'll own that shit. Give me the axe, I'll chop off the head myself.
  
  Would that bring your loved one back?
If they must kill people I don't understand why they don't knock people out first. I've been under anesthesia for surgery; If they had killed me while under, things would've just stayed dark, but I never would have known.
- Anesthesiologists won't do it. That's why they had so much trouble executing the guy in the first place: its not a doctor doing it, just a prison guard.
  
  First… uhhhhhh… do harm I guess
  
  They take their Hippocratic Oat seriously thankfully.
- Doctors wont do it which makes dosing tricky. More importantly drug companies won't sell them the drugs because they don't want their product to be associated with people being killed.
  
  How does it make dosing tricky? Just give everybody a mega dose... what's the worst that can happen, they die before you kill them?
- That's what lethal injection is for. But they can't get legitimate doctors to perform an execution, so they have to just wing it with hacks, which is why they often get fucked up.
  At least a firing squad is full of people who know how to shoot.
- That's what they used to do. Now they can't obtain the drugs as no pharmaceutical company or pharmacy wants to be associated with murder...
  
  Only it often didn't work properly because no medically trained person will participate. Nor should they because they must "do no harm". So most of the time, the guards have no idea how to tell if someone is reacting to pain and don't understand the actual effects of the drugs.
- So the lethal injection was supposed to be that, three injections: an anesthetic, a paralytic, then a chemical to kill. Firstly, anesthesia is hard to dose with a doctor much less when it’s understood that serving as an executioner is a violation of professional ethics among doctors. But also even then the person is awake when receiving the anesthesia, they know what’s happening as they’re strapped down against their will and have the IV that will kill them placed. It’s fundamentally cruel to do that.
- I'm sorry, that's too humane.
“ Pro-Life my ass
- Pro-Life _{until birth}
"Miller was to be executed in September 2022 via lethal injection, but it was called off after officials had trouble inserting an intravenous line to administer the fatal drugs and were concerned they would not be able to do so before the death warrant expired."
Shouldn't this be considered "cruel and unusual punishment?"
"We're killing you now. This is the end for you. Here comes the needle. Actually wait, nevermind, go back to your cell and wait another few years."
I guess they would argue that it wasn't intentional?
- I mean, killing prisoners is cruel and unusual in a civilised society.
  
  Cruel yes, unusual not by definition. It's precedented and quite usual.
  
  Indeed. We're definitely a fucked up bunch of vindictive asshats here...
  Our whole system of judgment and punishment is purely punitive, the pain is the point. There's nothing "corrective" about our "correction facilities" (jails/prisons)
Hooray. Are they going to totally fuck it up again like last time?
You know CO (carbon monoxide) is treated just like oxygen by the body but the brain doesn’t realize it’s not getting the oxygen you just pass out. It’s the reason why people die by accident, the body just breaths like normal.
- Same thing for nitrogen, or any gas besides CO2. The human body has no way to detect oxygen. It can only detect CO2.
- Stop bringing logic to their murdering.
  It ruins it.
  
  “Murder” is an illegal killing. This is not an illegal killing. It’s also not an immoral killing, but that’s a separate conversation.
Ah yes - the world's moral compass - the pinnacle of western civilisation killing people they have securely locked up where they can't be a danger to the public... for what - revenge?
Look at the money being spent to satiate this thirst for blood compared to keeping them locked up - or shudder making any attempt to rehabilitate people to be a productive member of society.
After the other one, I’d be very afraid.
Look at you Alabama! What a progressive state! We're proud of you ya little innovator!
We have those MAID pods in Canada, why not just buy a few of them? Not cruel enough?
Jarvis? So this guy is Ultron?

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