Politics

10187 readers

128 users here now

In-depth political discussion from around the world; if it's a political happening, you can post it here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

Socialism

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

alyaza@beehaw.org

TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org

circularfish@beehaw.org

knokelmaat@beehaw.org

remington@beehaw.org

Alabama condemned for nitrogen gas execution: ‘They intended to torture him’ (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 9 months ago by CaractacusPotts@lemmy.ca to c/politics@beehaw.org

49 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Smith’s execution by “nitrogen hypoxia” took around 22 minutes, according to media witnesses, who were led into a viewing room at the William C Holman correctional facility in Atmore shortly before 8 pm local time.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

How'd they manage to screw it up??

Ways that come to mind:

Guy held his breath for as long as possible, while fighting the restraints
Leaky mask that let in ambient air with oxygen, prolonging the agony
Cheap welding nitrogen laced with CO2, increasing the sensation of suffocation

Just like with suicide, there are plenty of tiny ways to botch an execution.

The article also mentions seizures, but that part is to be expected with any form of extensive brain damage leading to death... it can only be masked with some muscle relaxants, not avoided.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The article also mentions seizures, but that part is to be expected with any form of extensive brain damage leading to death..

Is this precisely because it wasn't pure nitrogen?

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Nah, as the brain dies, it gets "damaged", and that can lead to seizures or whatever. It doesn't really matter why it's dying; as long as it stays more or less together, there will be "abnormal activity" until it runs out of energy and the neurons finally depolarize. During "natural death", the whole body is usually too weak, or too sedated, to show any sign of that, but in otherwise able-bodied individuals... death ain't pretty.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Then the question is whether the seizures would wake one from a nitrogen knockout. ie would one be aware of the seizures?

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 1 points 9 months ago

Based on my limited experience with seizures, the oncoming of one can wake one up, but after that they seem to knock one out... so if one was already knocked out in advance, I don't think they would wake them up?