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I'm an opponent of the death penalty in general, but I've always felt that if a state is going to execute someone anyway and I can't stop that then at least they should be using inert gas asphyxiation. Because only a drooling moron could possibly mess that up and cause the process to be painful somehow.

Alabama once again manages to impress.

There are ways the masks could have worked but really to do this kind of thing humanly you need a sealed chamber with enough volume for CO2 to diffuse into or some kind of scrubber at the bottom pulling air out and displaced with pure N2 at the top.

It's difficult to tell if they are using the setup they are because of incompetence trying to seek out the cheapest solution, or malice and using the cheapest solution that will cause the maximum agony and suffering. It's pretty bad when bringing back hanging would be a more humane way of executing people than this travesty.

Well that makes sense - without any exhaust, the volume of nitrogen available wouldn't properly displace the air from his lungs before he put the mask in...

So he could've essentially just died from regular asphyxiation, which is quite painful, with a side of nitrogen.

Pharmaceutical companies will not supply those kinds of drugs for executions, because they understandably don't want their products associated with killing people.

You need a medic to administer the anesthesia and no medic is going to participate on that.

Done properly, the nitrogen is basically an anesthesiac. It knocks you out real good.

If they can't properly enact what should've been a painless execution, how do you expect them to properly anesthetise someone?

Alabama did not listen to scientists. Medical science understands the roles of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen quite well, and predicted that filling a mask with nitrogen would be a horrible application of the technology. The mask did not ventilate his own breathe, so the high concentrations of nitrogen did not displace the oxygen and carbon dioxide fast enough to avoid the gasping asphyxiation reflex.

There were specific recommendations made by scientists. Either use a mask with a one-way valve that exhausts exhalation, or fill a chamber of sufficient volume that will render the concentrations of his own exhalation insignificant. Alabama did neither, and it was a disaster.

I think the problem was that they didn't actually use a chamber and instead tried to use a mask, IIRC

I always thought suicide bags with nitrogen or helium were the way to go. I didn't read why the last guy had such a miserable death, but I did read it wasn't pretty.

I feel like they could put someone under some anesthesia and finish the job with the gas. Or even better, don't kill people, like you said.

I think part of it is their brain shutting down, inhibiting reasoning as they get older and as they come to terms with the fact they really are on the way out, they become more conservative and selfish while they still can.

Reverting into baby mode where they think their wants and needs supercede those of others.

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They would get more money if they had an option to vote. 100 bits to vote whether it adds or reduces volts. People are gonna fight on whether they want the person to die quickly fried or slowly and painfully with a lower voltage.