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

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

It appeared Smith held his breath for as long as he could, and struggled against his restraints

Hypoxia with an inert gas (and CO2 evacuation), is a peaceful way of dying when you don't fight it: it starts with euphoria, followed by loss of consciousness, followed by brain damage and finally death after several minutes more.

If you struggle and try not to die for as long as possible... well, it's not going to be pretty. That's why the hypoxia euthanasia solutions always have an emergency out, in case the person changes their mind.

If like you say they cheaped out on the mask, that's going to be even less pretty.

Another possibility is the nitrogen source: nitrogen used for welding, comes mixed with some CO2 precisely so people don't go and kill themselves with it (accidentally or not). If they also cheaped out on the nitrogen and used one of those, that's torture.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It seems a smidge absurd to me that some people apparently expect that death row convicts won't fight it, I must admit. Of course he fought it. He was terrified.

A method doomed to be painful because the convict inevitably fights it is still painful, and it can't be deemed "okay" by blaming the convict for it as if he had any choice in the matter when fight-or-flight kicked in. It's yet another failure in a long string of similar execution failures.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

It's fucked up that I read a comment the other day making the argument that this would not be painless if he were able to fight it. And that comment got downvoted to shit. And here we are.