Title is what the news story said, but it is not accurate and it's sensationalized.
They are not using poison gas (a la Zyklon B, which is the parallel I suspect they want you to draw). They are using nitrogen gas, effectively displacing oxygen and asphyxiating the patient. This is massively important because of how inhumane poisonous gases tend to be, and how humane death by inert gas is.
Your body calculated whether you are asphyxiating by measuring your bodies ability to expel CO2, not it's ability to intake oxygen. As long as you can expel CO2, your body thinks everything is fine, even if there is no oxygen to breathe. As such, sufferers tend to not even realize that they are dying.
I'm not a big proponent of the death penalty, but if we are going to enforce it, I see no reason to make it any more gruesome or unpleasant than it has to be. Then again, I strongly suspect that the suffering of the convict is a big part of the reason we do things the way we do. A 12 gauge buckshot shell to the back of the head seems far more humane than the electric chair, and has existed for longer (well, maybe not 12 gauges specifically, but shotguns in general). The only reason I can think that we keep inventing these overly complicated and yet still gruesome ways to kill people is to ensure that the convict suffers, while being just humane enough that people can palate it.
> They are not using poison gas (a la Zyklon B, which is the parallel I suspect they want you to draw). They are using nitrogen gas, effectively displacing oxygen and asphyxiating the patient. This is massively important because of how inhumane poisonous gases tend to be, and how humane death by inert gas is.
While it's listed in the article as an example, no-one has ever actually been executed via nitrogen asphyxiation (though it is used in slaughterhouses in some countries). The only sort of executions by gas which have actually been performed in the US used hydrogen cyanide; no such executions have happened since the 90s, but it's still on the books in a few states. Hydrogen cyanide is indeed the active ingredient in Zyklon B. This rule would appear to allow the federal death penalty to use hydrogen cyanide in certain states where it's still legal (though it's hard to imagine that they actually would; _horrible_ optics, and it's extremely inhumane).
Inert gas asphyxiation seems, to me, like the ideal option for capital punishment. Probably nitrogen gas. It requires no medical training to administer, is commonly available, causes loss of consciousness and death quickly, and does not cause unduly distressing physiological symptoms.
I remember hearing somewhere that a reason this isn't done is because it doesn't provide closure to victims and their families–which is supposedly something that the death penalty is supposed to achieve. You just see them go to sleep and die.
By the way, I'd think that using something like Nitrogen is probably a better choice, being as it is inert and nontoxic, but just as good as an asphyxiant.
Not a fan of the death penalty in general, for multiple reasons, but anesthesia administered by gas, as before surgery, seems way more certain than searching for a vein. After that, no method of execution is going to be cruel, assuming the criminal doesn't wake up.
tjpnz called it "cruel and unusual punishment." Nitrogen asphyxia is unusual, but the fact is that it's not inherently cruel except in a purely-psychological sense, which would be true of any execution method.
Those who claim it is painful are either mistaken or actively lying. We know that because it occasionally happens in industrial accidents, and survivors have consistently described the experience as painless. So it doesn't meet the standard for cruel and unusual punishment as far as the legal system is concerned.
That has nothing to do with whether it's just. No form of capital punishment based on the blatantly-subjective standard of "guilt beyond reasonable doubt" can be just, but that's not what's being discussed here.
The implementation of the death penalty itself is vengeful and barbaric.
Accidents in enclosed spaces lacking oxygen provide plenty of prior art for killing a human without panic nor suffering. I believe certain drugs such as morphine in high enough doses would also induce death with minimal pain.
Yet the state-sponsored murderers still use barbaric methods. Even in states where the "gas chamber" is a thing, cyanide is used instead of inert gases such as nitrogen, despite the latter surely being cheaper, easier to procure and safer to handle for the murderers and the rest of prison staff.
I often wonder what is causing us to have such a hard time killing people without pain or distress or the perception of cruelty (as much as that's possible when killing a person). Why aren't prisoners put to sleep with gas and then killed as cheaply (and non-gruesomely) as possible thereafter?
Well, CO2 asphyxiation is so far the most humane approach to butchering.
I remember a YouTube of a journalist looking for the most humane technique to administer capital punishment and it turned out that during co2 asphyxia the victim goes light-headed, even laughingly before passing out and away without even realizing. When told about this, Death Sentence advocates were disappointed that the victims wouldn't suffer while the sentence was carried out. (surprising eh!)
I agree with the point you're making, but there are far more humane methods than firing squad. Firing squad causes trauma issues for those doing the firing, and could easily be botched as well.
Asphyxiation by another gas such as helium is generally considered to be "better" as far as I understand – it creates a feeling of euphoria for the subject.
This is not an endorsement of any method of execution, I'm strongly against the entire idea.
It is meant to be a bit painful in all circumstances. It isn't a pleasant way to die, but it doesn't look all that bad to watch, which is why it is used. Pain and trauma free measures like nitrogen asphyxiation aren't used for that reason; pro-death penalty advocates want to keep it painful.
There's increasing consensus that capital punishment methods, at least in the US, are not appropriate!
Given that we allow the state to execute people -- a dubious proposition in the first place -- i don't understand why we don't just push a shitton of phenobarb and xanax or whatever. "an anaesthetic overdose" is pretty darn humane if we're willing to accept the premise that anaesthetic "work" by "decoupling consciousness". Scare quotes intentional here, because we genuinely don't know how anaesthetic work but we broadly agree that when you've taken a lot of them you don't feel any pain.
BBC's Horizon covered this back in 2008 with an episode titled "How to kill a human being"[1] where the show aimed to find the most humane form of death penalty. When supporters of the death penalty were asked if they would consider using hypoxia they dismissed it, saying words to the effect of "so what if the condemned are in a bit of pain?"
The gallows has too many variables. Too short a rope, and you spend a few minutes asphyxiating. Too long a rope, and your head pops off. If the executioner makes a mistake, it's not humane anymore. If the executioner doesn't like you, he might intentionally "make a mistake".
It's theoretically more humane, and harder to screw up, to OD you on happy drugs. (It also looks more peaceful when one of those drugs is a paralytic.)
Oklahoma a few months ago introduced nitrogen asphyxiation as their backup plan. We know it's painless because a few people have accidentally entered nitrogen-heavy areas and didn't notice anything was wrong until they dropped unconscious (and were recovered before dying).
I'm somewhat uncomfortable with the lack of details around how the execution is performed - is the mask snug enough to ensure a fairly pure N2 environment, how long will the condemned be left to asphyxiate, etc. But, compared to most other means of execution, this should be fairly painless; certainly, it'll be better than electrocution, lethal injection, or HCN gas.
They are not using poison gas (a la Zyklon B, which is the parallel I suspect they want you to draw). They are using nitrogen gas, effectively displacing oxygen and asphyxiating the patient. This is massively important because of how inhumane poisonous gases tend to be, and how humane death by inert gas is.
Your body calculated whether you are asphyxiating by measuring your bodies ability to expel CO2, not it's ability to intake oxygen. As long as you can expel CO2, your body thinks everything is fine, even if there is no oxygen to breathe. As such, sufferers tend to not even realize that they are dying.
I'm not a big proponent of the death penalty, but if we are going to enforce it, I see no reason to make it any more gruesome or unpleasant than it has to be. Then again, I strongly suspect that the suffering of the convict is a big part of the reason we do things the way we do. A 12 gauge buckshot shell to the back of the head seems far more humane than the electric chair, and has existed for longer (well, maybe not 12 gauges specifically, but shotguns in general). The only reason I can think that we keep inventing these overly complicated and yet still gruesome ways to kill people is to ensure that the convict suffers, while being just humane enough that people can palate it.
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