The lone woman on Tennessee’s death row was still alive after she was administered two lethal injections, her lawyer said in a motion seeking to halt her execution Wednesday night, a stunning development after the Supreme Court had stepped in to allow the state to put her to death.
At 8:26 p.m. local time, witnesses said “executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals” and Christa Pike was “still alive and snoring,” her lawyers said in a federal court filing.
They said Pike “has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat” and that curtains to the death chamber “have gone down twice.”
I mean is it really more humane than a guillotine or are we just doing lethal injections to make those witnessing it feel more comfortable?
As long as it’s built properly a guillotine is pretty effective the first go around.
It’s absolutely for the sake of the audience, and I don’t know anyone that reasonably argues otherwise.
Yeah the audience wants to not be confronted with their bloodlust. They want it clean and painless, just a quick “no more bad guy” rather than the viceral reality we’re primed to experience when a life is ended
Wow. You just said “guillotine” and you are aren’t going to be banned for it. Welcome to the fediverse!
It’s easier to argue in court since tha paralytic part of the three injections hides any possible reactions. That’s why they’ve had recent trouble doing lethal injections; the reactions start to show and give away the game when you don’t paralyze fully.
It’s also interesting there have been problems with nitrogen as well. It tells me they haven’t set it up so they purge co2 properly. Likely deliberately.
i assume the agonizing part for nitrogen is gasping for air, is not like going to sleep and never waking up. so its not really humane
You don’t gasp for air. I’ve seen controlled experiments with people on pure nitrogen and they don’t even notice what’s happening. They just get a little loopy and stop being able to function more and more.
It’s possible the people executed in this manner so far were all trying to hold their breath and hurting themselves, but it seems just as likely to me that they either were not using pure nitrogen or were sealing the face mask so none of the exhalations escaped.
Biologically we detect co2 not o2. The agonizing part of nitrogen is that they don’t want to die and know that inhaling will kill them so they’re holding their breath. It’s natural human instinct on their part.
I also dislike gas for executions because it makes it too easy, clean, and scalable for the state. Governments can’t make a room that just suddenly hangs everyone in it when a button is pressed. If we must have executions (and I oppose them in general) it should be hanging or guillotine.
Yeah…there is also some historical precedent you usually don’t want to be associated with…
I think an explosion box would be the best. (I am anti death penalty)
Like a bomb calorimeter? We could find out how many calories in each person as they go!