Alabama inmate opposes being ‘test subject’ for new nitrogen execution method
Alabama inmate opposes being ‘test subject’ for new nitrogen execution method
Attorneys for an inmate are asking the Alabama Supreme Court to reject the state's request to set an execution date for him using the new execution method of nitrogen hypoxia.
An Alabama inmate would be the test subject for the “experimental” execution method of nitrogen hypoxia, his lawyers argued, as they asked judges to deny the state’s request to carry out his death sentence using the new method.
In a Friday court filing, attorneys for Kenneth Eugene Smith asked the Alabama Supreme Court to reject the state attorney general’s request to set an execution date for Smith using the proposed new execution method. Nitrogen gas is authorized as an execution method in three states but it has never been used to put an inmate to death.
Smith’s attorneys argued the state has disclosed little information about how nitrogen executions would work, releasing only a redacted copy of the proposed protocol.
America is so fucking stuck in stone age, it's schocking at times!
This is interesting, and I personally feel he is fighting it only because it buys him more time. In a different article (linked in this one), where they announce Alabama's plan to use nitrogen it says:
Smith, in seeking to block the state’s second attempt to execute him by lethal injection, had argued that nitrogen should be available.
So he literally asked to use nitrogen, they said "ok" and now's he's saying "how dare you try to use me as a guinea pig"
I support giving convicts with death sentences the right to choose the means (within reason). Nitrogen hypoxia is probably more humane than most of the methods we've tried, although I personally prefer bringing back the guillotine. If we're willing to kill a man for justice, we ought be willing to reject childish euphemisms (putting him to sleep) and make a bloody mess of it.
My position: no government should be given the power to kill its citizens under any other circumstances than to protect other people from imminent violence, i.e. the same circumstances that would qualify as self-defence by a private individual.
For the sake of argument: if you really wanted a painless and humane death what could be better than a carefully modulated dose of opioids?
I'm guessing the answer is if they get high on the way out then it isn't justice because only fear and suffering will assuage those with a vengeance boner.