Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen.
The Alabama attorney general’s office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58. The court filing indicated Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in three states but has never been used.
Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to die. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless when inhaled with oxygen. While proponents of the new method have theorized it would be painless, opponents have likened it to human experimentation.
Let him rot in prison.
ABOLISH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
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The justice system isn’t perfect and you can’t roll back dying
Also I feel like a goverment that is allowed to kill their citizens is a government with too much power.
Sure sure, but the comment above wanted the person to rot in jail for the rest of their existence. Which is why I mentioned a very specified a situation where the crime is clear.
You’re arguing for cases where an innocent person may be found guilty - which is a very valid argument. I’m trying to figure out this crowd that wants people to suffer forever while they won’t even think of that person again in their life, besides maybe pay taxes to keep them alive.
Because later on, if they were found to be actually innocent - the person rotting in jail can be released and compensated (to whatever extent false imprisonment can be compensated).
If they were executed, it’s over. The injustice can’t be remediated in any way.
That’s the part where it falls to bits for me.
Although you could allow people to choose euthanasia. Although even there it should be carried out privately rather than some ghoulish ceremony.
Bring back the gladiator fights! I want sand, blood, and tigers!
Capital punishment is government sanctioned killing. Outside of war, the government should not have the power to kill anyone.
For these people, death is also the easy way out. Prison time is harder.
Not to mention cost. The complexity, finality, and litigation drive cost through the roof and make it much more expensive than life in prison.
All you have to do is look at the times the government has got it wrong on convictions of people who turned out innocent to realize maybe the government shouldn’t make the decision to kill people.
Look up the innocence project.
That’s how it should be. But as with most things, it comes down to money. It’s cheaper to execute.
It’s really not cheaper in practice, the legal hurdles for the death penalty are more expensive to overcome than just keeping someone locked up for life.
It might get cheaper if you’re executing in volume, like thousands of people, but then we’d be looking at a whole other sort of problems (like “how did we turn into China?”)
It’s not cheaper to execute. It’s financially and morally very expensive.