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.
deleted by creator
You literally slip into happy fun time
Is it really ‘happy fun time’ if you know you’re going to die?
Listen to audio recordings of pilots with hypoxia, they understand something is very wrong with the plane, but they also think it’s just fine because they’re having a great day.
I always think about Destin from Smarter Everyday when I think about hypoxia. He does such a great job at articulating what he experienced and how difficult it was to know what to do in that moment.
I always think of thatt moment when they’re like “it’s time to put your mask back on or you’re going to die destin!” and he just looks at them with a terrified half smile and was barely capable of saying “I don’t know what to do…”
Which video was that? Would greatly appreciate a link if you can find it, thank you!
Edit: I believe it was this one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfF2MTnqAw
Edit2: Just finsihed that video, holy crap that’s a must watch for people. tl;dw, when a plane is cruising at 35,000 feet and the cabin loses oxygen, you have at best 15-30 seconds before you pass out, so when the airlines says mask up first before helping others, it will literally save your life.
Yeah that’s the one, I figured with those key words people could easily find it.
delivered
Weirdly enough, it might be. There are videos of people deliberately testing hypoxia. I’ve seen one where the person controlling the test told the participant “you know you are dying right now, right?” and the participant responded “Oh” with a big smile. Now maybe the participant was more chill because they knew beforehand that they weren’t actually going to die. But they were still completely non-phased watching their brain shut down in real time.
I’m opposed to the death penalty. But if I had to choose my own way out of this world? Hypoxia is probably top of the list.
I got a bit hypoxic on top of a mountain. It was 29°F with the wind you’d expect at 14000ft, and I’m just standing there in a t-shirt because I was just so nice and warm, also I was so loopy I could not stop laughing.
Did you die?
Yes, but they got better after.
Phew
Might be trying to delay the execution itself since there is a shortage of the “regular” injection they use because of embargoes?
Completely ignoring that execution is wrong for a number of reasons
deleted by creator
Why would you even bring up hunger when human trafficking exists in the world? Shame on you.
Guys, I think I found a solution to both. Hear me out.
What if we feed the trafficked humans to the hungry humans.
Win win. No more trafficked humans and no more hungry humans.
deleted by creator
The issue is with the specific protocol being used. It’s not made public or documented. It’s almost all though they’re interested in torturing him instead of humanely executing him.
When the original news broke about Alabama using nitrogen, my wife woke me up by hitting my arm to tell me - because I’ve been saying that is the most humane possible method for the last 16 years.
I think the death penalty is stupid to begin with, and am kinda over talking about its merits after years of debate team in high school and college. But trying all of these seat-of-pants cocktails of midazolam and pentobarbital etc, and then inventing all of these ridiculous devices that require two people to push buttons at the same time so no one ever really knows whose button actually killed the person… it’s just needlessly complicated and dumb. Not to mention the fact that the legal costs involved in defending appeals and housing someone on death row are much higher than the cost of a life sentence anyway. And that’s leaving aside the statistically significant number of wrongful convictions…
I mean, we shouldn’t have the death penalty. But if we’re going to, it should be by nitrogen hypoxia.
If done right. You know that people qualified to do it right don’t participate in executions, right?
That’s why they fuck up giving someone injections on a regular basis.
How does one fuck up flooding a room with nitrogen gas?
So you see no difference in lethal injection and filling a room with nitrogen? If not, there’s no point discussing it with you. But I’ll give you a hint! Worst case, there’s not enough NO2 to cause death, so the subject gets stoned as balls and they introduce more.
This ain’t rocket science.
I see no difference in an incompetent person trying something they are not qualified to do and then trying to do another thing they are unqualified to do. I expect them to fail at both.
You also don’t appear to understand how the NO2 process works. It isn’t that they just need to add more N02, they also need to remove the oxygen AND CO2 at the same time. That is actually fairly complicated and requires knowledge on air movement in a restricted space. If they can’t properly dose someone with needles, good luck on them doing it right with airflow.
You’ve experienced this?
We should not be executing anyone. Hypoxia is well documented so he would not exactly be a test subject.
Note: if I were to commit medically induced suicide it would be by nitrogen hypoxia. By alla counts it is the best way to go.
1000% and I hope to have the right to die via this method some day.
Do we not have the right to kill ourselves?
What about n2o hypoxia?
And alla is seldom wrong about these things
The test is not of the efficacy of hypoxia, but of the state’s competency.
Going to guess it is significantly easier to be competent enough to kill someone with hypoxia rather than a cocktail of multiple constantly changing drugs administered by someone who had little training.
You know you live in a third world country if you have discussions about how to kill your citizens. There is no need for the death penalty but a twisted and false sense of justice.
I understand you POV, but I disagree.
There are people that are beyond rehabilitation, and life in prison is just a waste of time and resources.
What we should do is try to understand what is making people commit crimes and avoid it before it happens.
People on death row are more expensive than on life sentence. You could have them work without making it slave like but talking about the U.S. prison system in general just makes me want to throw up. Its no wonder that people would argue for killing if they dont view inmates a human beings. I guess there is a special flavor of “humanism” in the U.S. I can tell you the european countries are doing quite well without enslaving and killing their inmates.
European countries dont have shooters or rapists like in the US.
Apparently it’s a hot take: there are people who exist that we would all absolutely be better off were they dead.
This guy was someone who was paid to kill another person for a thousand dollars. This is not just “a citizen” unless you’re saying it makes sense to keep people around in society that will fucking murder someone for less than a months pay.
Counterpoint: Given the number of people in government who said government should murder me because of the rainbow pin on my lapel, I don’t want government to have the power to murder anyone even if we all agree they deserve it. What makes you think that this is the one thing the government is competent at?
But bro, it doesn’t affect me now so why should I worry bro man bro dude?
Dude bro man guy?!?
/s
I never said this is a person that society needs to keep around.
I do not believe that living is a right that can be earned or unearned. It is a right everyone has. If a person is unfit for society they need to be seperated from society. If that means having them in prison for live than that is what we should do. Killing them is done for one purpose mainly: Because it gives some people a sense of justice. This sense of justice however is false as the only justice would be to undo what was done.
Congratulations, the laws of reality disagree with you. When authoritarians are knocking down your door to tear your life apart, remember: you decided to let them live.
It’s like you didn’t even read what he wrote.
When the authoritarians are knocking down your door you’ll think “I wish I had given the government more power to kill people. Only when the government can legally kill people are we safe from tyranny.”
Nice. If someone disagrees with you they are diasgreeing with reality? Sure makes sense. And nobody told me i personally can decide who is going to live. Damn man, now i feel bad about all those executions i could have stopped.
Nobody serving a life sentence is going to be anywhere near my door.
Don’t delude yourself – revolution isn’t a lawful action, regarless of one’s intentions.
That’s what they say, even keeping him locked up for life would be cheaper. Also how do you decide what’s gruesome enough to justify killing people, what about wrongfully convicted people they do exist and they got murdered. There are so many good arguments against and do few if any for the death penalty it’s mind-blowing to me how any more or less democratic society doesn’t abolish it.
TL;DR: No, there are plenty of good reasons why the death penalty should exist. The problem isn’t the penalty, it’s the people pointing it at innocents because it’s harder to prove guilt beyond a shadow of doubt. THAT is what needs reform, not the penalty. Otherwise you’re successfully putting more people into slavery when they just shouldn’t be consuming resources anymore, period.
This person isn’t wrongfully convicted, he’s been fighting his death penalty for years. He quite literally confessed, and his confession drove the man responsible for the hiring (it was through a third party) to kill himself.
Yes yes yes, “but what ifs” are very nice for people that don’t actually want to make hard decisions. The bottom line is bad people exist and should be killed. This man doesn’t deserve rights beyond those afforded to people who are sentenced to death.
The expense of the death penalty is related to the trials that are held, almost always in opposition of the ruling. If you were to compare the actual cost of the penalty itself to the cost of keeping someone in slavery, you would find that the numbers don’t support you.
The reality is you don’t have a problem with the death penalty, you have a problem with the people proposing the death penalty because not enough preparation goes into it. Which is perfectly rational, because if they are not proven beyond a shadow of doubt to be guilty then the death penalty should simply not be on the table.
The problem isn’t the sentence, the problem is people not treating human lives with enough respect when giving the sentence. Both things can be true. Literally point to any fascist/ authoritarian and suddenly the death penality doesn’t seem so bad. No one cried for Bin Laden being obliterated, no one would cry for a convicted hitman being killed.
Three counter points:
- Where state sanctioned killing is introduced violent crime and homicide typically rise afterwards. Potentially because society is saying its ok to kill someone if they really deserve it and your sure.
- It is near impossible to be 100% certain of someone’s guilt. Even with confessions. They could be protecting someone or simply not of right mind. If the state makes a mistake it is permanent and is murder in my opinion.
- Pricing has to take into account the legal costs a a printed with being as sure as possible etc. Even then there are cases of wrongful execution.
Those are some wild statements you make. Yes I have a problem with the penalty bc I think it’s wrong, simple as that. But I live in a country where punishment is fundamentally based on the idea of rehabilitation. And that often even applies for murderers. So I think that’s part of why I’m so opposed to the death penalty.
I doubt we can convince each other from our standpoints. So all I can say is have a great day.
I have a problem with your ridiculously vague statement of
The bottom line is bad people exist and should be killed
What makes a bad person? That they committed a crime (which crime, how bad is bad), that they show no remorse, that they are incapable of change (were they born evil or a victim of circumstance)?
You only have to look at how quickly decisions of law are changing (roe v wade for better or worse, definitely worse) to realise deciding on life ending ‘justice’ based on a human court of due process (where even confessing can be flawed) is fundamentally flawed.
How does it impact your day to day if we choose to incarcerate them instead?
But also, a little extra compassion in life would do you zero harm.
deleted by creator
Even if you’re right, that doesn’t mean we should actually kill them. People are people, they should be treated as such. We can throw them in jail far easier, and to the rest of us, it’s equivalent to them being dead.
Here’s the thing though.
I agree 100% that the world is probably better off without this asshole in it.
But I don’t think we should be doing that. For every one of these guys, you’ll have another guy who got railroaded by a crooked prosecutor, or who will later be proven innocent with better DNA testing. There’s just no way to be sure every one is ‘good’, and I’d rather let bad people live than accidentally kill good people.government shouldn’t be allowed to kill its own people
America is so fucking stuck in stone age, it’s schocking at times!
It’s way better than an electric chair.
Moat likely, but since qualified people don’t participate in executions it will probably end up being done wrong and he will suffocate to death with carbon dioxide and suffer horribly in a different way.
Unlikely, unless the nitrogen flow rate is way too low. Even then, it would take a considerable amount of time.
They keep fucking up injections, do you think they are going to get airflow stuff right?
Should just be opening a valve. There’s no mixture to get right like with the injection. Just 100% nitrogen.
You would think so, but the people who are fucking up injections are making even more basic mistakes than the amount of chemicals. They are extremely likely to mess up the seals, the equipment that has the valve, and a ton of other steps that would make the process work successfully.
One third of executions in 2022 were botched. Why would a new method have a higher success rate?
Why would you assume a new method would have the exact same success rate as different methods?
Because I assume the same incompetent people will be trying something new and therefore more likely to fuck it up.
Because it’s extremely simple.
You can still think executions are wrong without making up nonsense to justify it.
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
No, he’s right. Qualified medical professionals don’t do executions.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
This is interesting, and I personally feel he is fighting it only because it buys him more time. In a different article (linked in this one), where they announce Alabama’s plan to use nitrogen it says:
Smith, in seeking to block the state’s second attempt to execute him by lethal injection, had argued that nitrogen should be available.
So he literally asked to use nitrogen, they said “ok” and now’s he’s saying “how dare you try to use me as a guinea pig”
Shocking news: man on death row does not want to die.
More at 11.
“I think something should be available” is not the same as “I volunteer to test it out”.
For example, I think ejection seats should be available on all fighter jets.
The correct analogy would be you refusing to get out of a fighter jet except via ejection seats, them refusing to be ejected lol. This guy apparently wasn’t saying it should be available in general but that it should be an option for him.
That said, I am in principle against executions.
This guy is apparently saying that he wants to know how they are planning to use nitrogen gas, and the state is refusing to tell him.
So the correct analogy would be you refusing to get out of a fighter jet except via ejection seats. Then someone says, “Okay you can get out via ‘ejection seats’, happy now?”. Then you say, “Hey what’s up with the air quotes around ‘ejection seats’? What exactly are you planning anyway? How does this ejection seat work?”. Then they say, “Don’t you worry about the details buddy. You’ll be ‘ejected’ from your ‘seat’, LOL! Now shut up and get in the plane”.
Fair point!
A glib reply would be “What’s the worst that could happen?, they’d die?” but a far worse outcome is that they remain conscious but in constant pain for an unnecessarily long time. I’m personally against execution of any form but if it’s going to be done let’s make sure it’s humane.
well what you describe is how Normal executions go. Doctors won’t do it so it’s done by prison guards with no medical training and is often so disgusting the witnesses need counseling
deleted by creator
My brother in christ, public executions were a thing in a time when the majority was religious.
deleted by creator
(Jacob Geller’s The False Evolution of Execution Methods)
It’s different than you might imagine. There’s a certain unmistakable mix of institutional power, mandate, callousness, and incompetence that makes state execution’s uniquely awful.
I am against capital or even corporal punishment.
But if I were to pick my way of dying, nitrogen hypoxia is the way I would like to go
Nitrogen is the most common thing you breath, almost 80% of air being nitrogen.
You don’t feel like you are being choked, because that feeling does not come from less oxygen, but when other gasses like carbon dioxide is at a too high level. Foreign liquid, or even being unable to expand your lungs. There is no too low oxygen sensor in your body that is used to send pain signals.
You gradually lose your cognitive faculties, including feeling pain or self preservation.
I am against captial or even corporal punishment, even for heinous crimes.
If you are thinking about ending your life, seek help with health care professionals, everyone deserves a chance to have a better life.
All that said, I think nitrogen hypoxia is the most humane way of ending a life. I would even wish that my chicken nuggets got the least painful end to their lives
Alabama really shows itself to be one of the most savage states when it comes to their treatment of prisoners. Fucking monsters.
And may the head worthless POS of there burn in hell with abott and the other worthless shiteheads
Removed by mod
You can’t unexecute someone if you got it wrong, and the system has gotten these cases wrong more than once.
You’re literally the most cringe psuedo intellectual on this platform.
Go removed and moan about blue haired people or something and leave the adult conversations to everyone else.
Removed by mod
I’ll take it if he doesn’t want it.
I was gonna say they could test on me, but I don’t want to support the death penalty.
Right? Why aren’t suicide booths a thing yet?
The capitalist owners could make more profit off it, and that’s literally all human civilization values. And bonus, the people the Capitalists and their doting peasant sycophants consider “lazy, socialist commies” would largely opt out, leaving them to count their shillings in peace, unopposed.
Is it about needing a homeless population that can’t (easily) opt out to scare the other peasants into continuing to show up for their purposeless jobs? Or just the last thin fig leaf of the capitalists deluding themselves into believing themselves less than monstrous?
Because being trapped in this labor camp of a civilization isn’t mercy. It’s the opposite of mercy. Not legalizing escape isn’t the same thing as valuing life, and we clearly don’t. It’s the same thing as an anti-abortionist claiming to value human life while opposing social programs to help the newborn and mother.
Capitalists make portable suicide booths called guns! They love them
Last time a new method of execution was made, lethal injection, it was developed by a veterinarian who vaguely described how it might work and then it was administered by non-physicians because no doctor would ever touch this. I wonder who developed this new method.
Actually it’s pretty well understood.
The human body reacts to CO2 buildup with a ‘gasping for air’ sensation. Nitrogen however, not at all. The air we breathe is 80% nitrogen 20% oxygen, so we aren’t sensitive to nitrogen at all. Breathing air with little oxygen is something well understood as it can happen to pilots of unpressurized aircraft. Here’s a funny example of what happens when pressurization fails. Once ATC figures out he has hypoxia, they order him to descend to 11,000’ (which is usually the point hypoxia starts to kick in) and he’s fine. But while he’s hypoxic, he happily admits he has no control over his airplane and is totally unbothered by that fact.
There’s a thing called a hypoxia chamber- the oxygen % of the air is reduced (not eliminated) to simulate what it’s like being at high altitude without pressurization. Always funny videos there, grown men with oxygen-starved brains playing with a children’s puzzle trying to put the square block in the round hole.Execution by 100% nitrogen is the most humane death I can think of. The gas is odorless, and as it takes effect the prisoner would experience a euphoric feeling before just falling asleep and dying a few minutes later.
That said, I’m sure they’ll fuck this up somehow- most civilized people have concluded that execution is barbaric and unnecessary, so whoever builds the nitrogen gadget is probably not going to be the sharpest tool in the shed.
And that’s what a botched execution would look like- if you shut off the nitrogen too soon or don’t ensure a high enough nitrogen concentration, the prisoner will be left with brain damage but not dead.
I saw a video, I think on YouTube shorts, explaining how our bodies response when suffocating is from an abundance of CO2 rather than a lack of O2.
Maybe whoever suggested this method saw the same video?
deleted by creator
i could never live with myself if i put anyone to death, regardless of how horrific an act they committed.
That’s why apparently the execution squads are told that at least one of them has blank bullets. And why two doctors do the lethal injection procedure simultaneously, but one of them is injecting saline. This way everyone can legitimately think “maybe it wasn’t me who killed them”. I think I read in in “Behave” by Robert M. Sapolsky.
Removed by mod
It’s not like there hasn’t been a mistrial ever in history and executed an innocent person. Right? Right?
Removed by mod
Well certainly you will be saying that when you are sentenced to death.
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.
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.
There’s no way drowning is the way to do it… There’s a reason waterboarding is an “effective” means of torture.
Waterboarding isn’t drowning. It’s like mega drowning. Here’s one of many studies done on drowning that shows many people found it kind of calm as they neared death.
deleted by creator
I offered proof that drowning is calm. You’ve claimed the opposite but haven’t proven it. So, prove it.
deleted by creator
I live within walking distance of a beach, I swim.in the ocean plenty. Got any more dumb insults, or are you actually going to surprise me and attempt to prove your point?
What an idiot, he’s just turned down the most humane and painless way to go. You don’t notice nitrogen suffocation, because your body ignores nitrogen in the air and determines you’re suffocating by a build up in CO2. Instead, you pass out in blissful hypoxia.
I’m against the death penalty as a rule of thumb, but if you have to do it then it should only be done via nitrogen suffocation. Anything else is just a refelction of the vindictiveness of the people administering or pushing for the punishment - it doesn’t achieve anything, it doesn’t deter future crime, it’s just you getting your own back and trying to say it’s ok to harm others in this instance. If the goal is to remove them from society such that they don’t harm or cost society anymore, then this should be done without the kind of harmful intent that the criminal themselves demonstrated.
Tbh though I imagine this is just the guy’s lawyer trying to do anything he can to delay the execution. There’s some small chance that the state could do something wrong during the hearings that leads to some benefit for the prisoner. However I can only imagine the regret the prisoner might feel as he’s on the receiving ends of one of the other methods.
Yeah the difference is this method is actually promoted by the scientific community, rather than commercial interests. Nitrogen suffocation is used for assisted suicide.
I just wish we’d use it for pork. However because it’s so hazardous to humans (boiling nitrogen releases gas that expands very quickly and expells all the oxygen in the room) we just stick with CO2, which is very easy because it’s heavier than air so you just have walkways to protect the people. With nitrogen, they’d require much more expensive safety measures to protect people working nearby. Also, CO2 causes a feeling of suffocation, leading to the pig lashing about and suffering, and possibly spoiling the meat somewhat.
Electrocution is perhaps the worst. They actually limit the current, meaning it kills you a little more slowly or maybe not at all, because if they went full power they would literally cook the person and that would smell unpleasant for everyone else. Lethal injections aren’t much better, typically they paralyse the person first so they can feel themselves dying but not move to show any sign of it.
I’m certainly keen to learn of any further downsides to nitrogen, but as far as I’m aware it’s the best thing going (out of a horrible bunch of ways to kill). Like I said before, I’m against the death penalty as a rule, but if you’re going to do it then it should be as painless as possible.
Nitrogen Execution?
They’re gonna freeze him and
striketap him with abaseball bathammer?Then deploy a bunch of Roombas to clean up the human icicle shards?
That would be the liquid nitrogen execution.
Jokes on them when the shards melt, and begin to reform, to continue his inexorable pursuit of John Connor
They’re going to freeze him, and then John Spartan will summarily execute him in a politically correct fascist regime in the future lol
That’s liquid nitrogen, bro. This is nitrogen gas which in a confined space will consume all of the available oxygen and thus induce asphyxiation (suffocation).
Some might even consider this a kink 👀👀
It doesn’t consume oxygen. Gaseous nitrogen is very stable.
However, if there is a higher concentration of nitrogen than there should be, then you take in proportionally less oxygen in each breath.
Why people are so obsessed with finding more and more intricate ways to execute? Hanging or shooting in the head works just fine.
Those are not painless methods and they hearken to a sense of vengeance, not justice. If someone is truly so irredeemable that we cannot re-educate them to learn to be good citizens or at least non-offending citizens, then we should remove them from the ability to cause further harm. But we are not in the business of causing suffering, at least not on paper we’re not. So we should give the person a civilized death with no pain, as causing pain is not justice, it’s vengeance.
Why execute them then? We clearly have no issue incarcerating people for life.
I mean, I only believe in execution for people who are genuinely beyond help, extreme psychological damage or deficiencies, and that’s because I don’t believe in life incarceration either.
If someone can be reformed, reform them. If they can’t, caging them like animals for the last of their days is almost worse than the death penalty for me too. A man who is sentenced to die in prison for his crimes due to the years he’s sentenced, he should be able to opt out and go for the painless death. No forcing, no incentive, no coercion, death with dignity.
Honestly, with some prison reform I don’t think we’d need 40-50 year life sentences as often because people could actually change. For those that can’t, or who are too old to be able to change before their time served, the right to end it peacefully is something I think we all owe each other.
Personally If there’s no chance someone will ever be released, I find that almost more cruel then a painless execution. As long as it’s 100% without a doubt guilty I support this method of execution.
People would choose life in prison because deaths scares them, but spending 25-50 years in a box sounds worse to me than death does. Not only that, they have 25+ years to likely just wait to develop cancer and spend another 1-5 years dying slowly and painfully.
The death penalty is already about vengeance and not justice. Removing them from society completely is justice for harming society.
Removing them painlessly if they’re not able to be rehabilitated, definitely what I would call justice.
Hanging, shooting, whichever other painful or ‘old world justice’ method, I’m hesitant to call that justice because it causes pain and suffering needlessly. Criminals treat people less than people. People must treat criminals like people, or we’re all criminals.
Why would killing them be more justice than simple removal? Either way they’re out of society.
Plus, if we accept that laws are not 100% fairly and correctly applied, we get the added benefits of not killing the innocent.
Removal being life in prison? I think that’s whay you meant, so let me know if i misread thay.
That’s not what I think justice is because prison is about reform and not punishment. If you’re punishing them, okay, then that’s a whole other topic. But if your intent is to reform, and they’re too old to serve the sentence designed for reform or they’re deemed mentally unfit to be capable of reforming (usually in the case of extremely violent but low intelligent individuals), then the existing prison system we have in the US would be cruel to just cage someone who can’t change. The conditions US prisoners endure, especially when it comes to inmates on death row, is abysmal. Giving them the opportunity to take their own life without pain or suffering is my main “preference”, allowing death row inmates to just sit and rot in those conditions sounds worse than death. Of course, I’d leave that opinion up to the inmates though.
I’m in full agreement that laws are not 100% fairly and correctly applied, so my preference would be to allow painless suicide as “time served” for death row. Stay as long as you think you’re innocent, and hopefully we fix the conditions so they don’t want to take their life regardless of innocence due to the psychological damage they might receive.
But I’m all in agreement when it comes to reducing the cost. I don’t love the death penalty, I think it should be reserved for absolutely impossible cases, but it should be cheaper.
This isn’t more intricate, it’s significantly more efficient and foolproof. There are so many ways that hanging someone or shooting them can go wrong, it’s unnecessarily complicated.
