Alabama calls nitrogen execution method 'painless' and 'humane,' but critics raise doubts
Alabama calls nitrogen execution method 'painless' and 'humane,' but critics raise doubts

Alabama calls nitrogen execution method painless and humane, but critics are raising doubts

Alabama, unless stopped by the courts, intends to strap Kenneth Eugene Smith to a gurney Thursday and use a gas mask to replace breathable air with nitrogen, depriving him of oxygen, in the nation’s first execution attempt with the method.
The Alabama attorney general’s office told federal appeals court judges last week that nitrogen hypoxia is “the most painless and humane method of execution known to man.” But what exactly Smith, 58, will feel after the warden switches on the gas is unknown, some doctors and critics say.
“What effect the condemned person will feel from the nitrogen gas itself, no one knows,” Dr. Jeffrey Keller, president of the American College of Correctional Physicians, wrote in an email. “This has never been done before. It is an experimental procedure.”
Keller, who was not involved in developing the Alabama protocol, said the plan is to “eliminate all of the oxygen from the air” that Smith is breathing by replacing it with nitrogen.
How about stop murdering people
I don't know why this is still a controversial concept. Just don't kill prisoners. Horrific crimes are not assuaged by more death. It's never worked in history and it doesn't work now.
It’s arguably controversial because the human brain has a cognitive bias toward vengeance. There are lot of really interesting psych studies on this topic. It feels right to take an eye for an eye, and we often try to justify that urge, even if we don’t benefit from it.
It’s pretty arbitrary, too. A guy in a town I lived in killed his wife with a knife in front of their kids, and was sentenced to 40 years. This guy helped kill someone, served 35 years, and they still want execute him on top of it.