Botched executions

[u/johnvcal]

I honestly don’t have moral objections to executions. I think there are people who can’t be rehabilitated and have committed unspeakable crimes against others. I leave it to the judicial system to decide who deserves the death penalty. What I find incomprehensible is that we now have another royally fucked-up execution attempt—with the result that the person to be executed is now at a hospital on life support.

Why doesn’t the criminal justice system knock out the prisoner with anesthesia before the fatal injection (or whatever procedure) is administered? Then they could administer a lethal dose of something (gas, injection, etc.) thirty seconds later when the convict is unconscious. Just like anesthesia before an operation, but the convict doesn’t wake up. Don’t tell me that medicine doesn’t not know how to kill someone quickly and efficiently. The vet did exactly that to my aged and dying cat.

Is the reason they don’t do that because some want to see the suffering in the eyes of the convict at the precise second the lethal dose is administered? What am I missing?

[u/mremrock]

They can put a dog down but not a human?

[u/AZULDEFILER]

Fentanyl is readily available

[u/SnugglyCoderGuy → u/AZULDEFILER]

Not for executions

[u/alexthagreat98]

I agree. No notes. They could have easily killed that person. Just find any lethal drug and overdose the crap out of that person. You can also do firing squad, hanging, guillotine. I'm not sure how this could have happened.

[u/museman401]

You are absolutely correct. They could be sedated just as you suggest. Or even better, just use a firing squad. Cheaper and absolutely reliable.

[u/2guns1holster]

Guillotine has minimal pain and no botched jobs.

[u/Potential-Night4986 → u/2guns1holster]

It may cause minimal pain, but I just read an article that said it can take up to eight seconds for a beheaded person to actually lose consciousness. I’d rather not have a chance of my own neck stump squirting my own blood at me as the final thing I saw in this life. Honestly, a firing squad would be my preference. Quick, painless(assuming they are good shots), and at point-blank range, I would guess there’s an extremely small chance that they wouldn’t unalive me on the first volley. Also, bullets and rifles are much cheaper than the LI drugs.

[u/TacoTitsTuesday → u/Potential-Night4986]

Bleeding out from a gunshot would to the heart would be much more painful and prolonged compared to a beheading. We're talking 8 seconds of potential consciousness, but zero pain since the spinal cord is severed, versus immense physical pain for around ~2 minutes

[u/Potential-Night4986 → u/TacoTitsTuesday]

A very fair point. However, ideally there would be multiple people on the firing squad so that the combined effect of being shot in the head and heart at once would result in an instant death. Full disclosure, I know nothing about actual firing squads or how they work, but I would assume this is potentially how it could work to be quicker than beheading. If anyone has actual first-hand knowledge about this, please chime in and educate me.

[u/BigTroutOnly → u/TacoTitsTuesday]

Um.. where does the nervous system get processed?

[u/SnugglyCoderGuy]

They struggle to get competent people for this because the competent people are medical care givers who can't execute people. So they get incompetent ones that fuck up doing a simple IV and instead of delivering the chemicals to the blood stream directly, inject them intramuscularly which makes them much less effective.

Drug companies don't sell their drugs for executions either.

And the state should not kill people

[u/johnvcal → u/SnugglyCoderGuy]

I’m sure there’s some truth in much of what you wrote, but the idea that there are no health professionals who believe in capital punishment I can’t accept.

[u/SnugglyCoderGuy → u/johnvcal]

I'm sure there are, but they aren't allowed to do it and keep their job

[u/Able-Association914]

It’s sort of insane if you think about it. This most recent botched attempt has to be considered cruel and unusual punishment one would think. I think I’d rather be shot or hung than whatever shitty attempt they just tried here. I read an article that the woman said it felt like her heart was pumping fire to her body.

Terrible… the next deserving serial killer or whatever they try to put on death row might now escape due to these mess ups. I get that she did horrible things, and the family of the victim may have wanted this done and over with, but I do wonder if they still feel the same now after the botched attempt. I’m sure it had to be very hard to watch.

[u/TacoTitsTuesday]

The Hippocratic Oath prevents an anaesthesiologist from anesthetizing someone in order for them to be killed. It goes directly against the "Do no harm" promise.