Nine months after Kenneth Smithās botched lethal injection, state attorney general has asked for approval to kill him with nitrogen
Nine months after Kenneth Smithās botched lethal injection, state attorney general has asked for approval to kill him with nitrogen
If we didnāt study it for this purpose in human subjects before him, itās experimentation. Reproducing something that has occurred organically in a new context is absolutely experimentation. I donāt know how I can make this simpler.
Itās hardly an experiment if you know the results.
But by that definition, every method was āexperimentalā at some point. Lethal injection, firing squad, electric chair, gas chamber, hanging, the guillotine, the breaking wheel, being drawn and quartered, scaphism, whatever method had to be done for the first time once. And I would take nitrogen asphyxiation over any of those. Hell, when I start suffering, I sincerely hope that option is available to me so I can go out on my own terms.
Yes. Itās true that every technology was once experimental. But how experiments are done is important. And I certainly hope weāve moved forward morally since we started executing people. Weāre supposed to learn from our mistakes, not use them to justify future ones.
The prisoner volunteered. Iām not sure what better circumstances we could get.
I really think death penalty opponents just donāt want to break the seal. Right now the idea that itās āexperimentalā is the only argument against it. Prove it works, and it will quickly become the go-to method.
Opposition got their biggest victory when they got drug companies to stop providing the traditional 3 drug cocktail that has worked for decades. Now they argue every other method is either cruel and unusual (new drugs or older methods) our too experimental (inert gas asphyxiation or opioid overdose) when those latter methods are likely far more humane and much harder to stop up the supply.
Death penalty opponents oppose death penaltyā¦more at 11
Then oppose it rather than make disingenuous arguments.