Alabama inmate opposes being 'test subject' for new nitrogen execution method
apnews.com
Attorneys for an inmate are asking the Alabama Supreme Court to reject the state's request to set an execution date for him using the new execution method of nitrogen hypoxia.

An Alabama inmate would be the test subject for the “experimental” execution method of nitrogen hypoxia, his lawyers argued, as they asked judges to deny the state’s request to carry out his death sentence using the new method.

In a Friday court filing, attorneys for Kenneth Eugene Smith asked the Alabama Supreme Court to reject the state attorney general’s request to set an execution date for Smith using the proposed new execution method. Nitrogen gas is authorized as an execution method in three states but it has never been used to put an inmate to death.

Smith’s attorneys argued the state has disclosed little information about how nitrogen executions would work, releasing only a redacted copy of the proposed protocol.

  • Spendrill@lemm.ee
    141·
    1 year ago

    My position: no government should be given the power to kill its citizens under any other circumstances than to protect other people from imminent violence, i.e. the same circumstances that would qualify as self-defence by a private individual.

    For the sake of argument: if you really wanted a painless and humane death what could be better than a carefully modulated dose of opioids?

    I’m guessing the answer is if they get high on the way out then it isn’t justice because only fear and suffering will assuage those with a vengeance boner.

    • StorminNorman@lemmy.world
      41·
      1 year ago

      No, it’s because opioids aren’t 100% effective at a painless death either. At this stage, no death we know of is truly “painless”. Well, that we can prove anyway. They’ve had patients hooked to brain monitors when they’ve died in their sleep, the brain goes through severe stress at the moment of death. Drowning is meant to be okay, but for obvious reasons, we can’t prove that.