I’ve asked this question before, but don’t recall if it was ever resolved. Just before the Shuttle flight one pad rat was killed and others injured from hypoxia when they entered an area with a nitrogen purge:
When the workers stepped into the compartment, they would not have smelled anything peculiar or have had any other warning that they were entering a deadly area. All five men were reported to have passed out almost immediately, and soon afterward they were evacuated from the compartment. Dies Aboard Helicopter
John Bjornstad, a 50-year-old senior chemical technician, died aboard a helicopter that was carrying him to a hospital in nearby Titusville. The medical authorities explained that the nitrogen itself was not poisonous – it makes up nearly 80 percent of ordinary air – but such an exposure deprives a person of all oxygen. He dies of what is known as hypoxia, which is lack of oxygen.
Seems like a pretty painless way to go to me. Why not just a gas chamber and run nitrogen through it until brain death?
I’ve also wondered about pure carbon monoxide.
It’s taken up like oxygen, then derails the process.
But the answer is easy: The people wringing their hands have no interest in actually executing anyone for anything. And the people that are in favor of the death penalty don’t give a darn about making the process less painful for the executioner and the bureaucrats. Defenestration still has the best name of the methods of which I’m aware.
And we’re getting close to the point where “Space ‘im” might even be doable.
Pure nitrogen is ideal for painless executions, as long as you make sure the body is kept away from oxygen long enough – you don’t want a brain-damaged convict ‘recovering’ half an hour after the execution. It’s also cheap, environmentally friendly, and pretty safe in the event of an accident – just have some people with oxygen masks standing by, Also, it leaves the body completely intact, in the event that an open-casket funeral is wanted. The only major flaw is if you plan on harvesting organs from the convict – extended hypoxia would surely damage the otherwise useful organs.
Carbon monoxide is a quicker way of insuring death, but that makes it much more dangerous in the event of an accident – you don’t want a minor glitch at the execution resulting in the death of a dozen innocents.
Or just a nitrogen mask? Like commander Data it would seem we too have an off switch.
So perhaps for the same reason we avoid the subject? Nitrogen would be useful to murderers.
It’s amazingly quick and undetectable to the victim, only a few seconds.
Adopting it for execution or euthanasia requires thinking outside the square.
I agree with Al. The anti-death-penalty folks would accept no method. They simply want to stop it. Their efforts have been successful on many fronts, from banning several forms of execution, to finding ways to set convicted murderers free, or turn them into celebrities.
I ask myself: if their goal were to set wolves among the sheep, would they have gone about it any differently?
Not only that, it’s the only method that can be demonstrated on a skeptic. Ask any pilot who’s gone through hypoxia testing. (Many had it done multiple times.)
That’s a hell of a headline at the New York TImes. Stay classy, guys.
Anyway, here is a more detailed article about the accident.
It is pretty despicable and not really sure how they get away writing that considering how it makes the first black President look. Oh Obama wasn’t even President at the time? What is the world coming to.
Bad things happen to good people all the time, usually caused by bad people. Bad things also happen to bad people, sometimes caused by good people.
I don’t have a difficult time choosing which people to be concerned about, both good and bad.
I’ve been through hypoxia training, and it would definitely be my choice for the way I’d like to go. It’s very pleasant, which is why they have people with oxygen masks in the chamber. One guy always just goes with it, and they allow him to do so as a demonstration, remasking him just before he loses consciousness.
I ran across a reference to nitrogen asphyxiation on the Internet a few years ago that indicated that it was the most reliable and painless possible method of suicide. I’ve heard of many lab accidents with liquid nitrogen, and even people opening NOS bottles of nitrous oxide in a closed car to get “high,” and instead wind up six feet under. But evidently temporarily clever people have used a plastic bag, some tubing, and a nitrogen tank to end it all.
No need to come up with something new. Potassium injections do the trick. Of course someone has to invent something with more side effects that is not known to work and likely more expensive just because the government foots the bill.
PS: I am against the death penalty.
My understanding of what happened in Oklahoma, the executioner pushed the Midazolam, the vein collapsed, and only a small dose was administered. Apparently the convict missed the paralytic entirely, and when they reset the IV, all he got was the Potassium Chloride, which worked.
Not a comfortable way to die, but then the guy was convicted for shooting a young woman with a shotgun and then burying her while she was still alive. Her crime? She walked in when he and his buddies were robbing her home.
It is my understanding that a large dose of potassium induces a heart attack, which if true would likely be opposed due to intentional pain and suffering on the person being executed.
For someone who denounces the State on a daily basis, why you would want
the state to have this kind of power, escapes me.
In a sane world, there’d be no need for state executions, because their intended victim would have killed them in self-defence.
Sadly, the state loves to disarm victims so predators can rob, rape and murder in safety.
Everyone has to sleep.
And the point of that is what? That someone can kill me while I sleep therefore I must be disarmed for 100% of the time?
Nothing is a 100% guarantee. If you have a fire extinguisher, you can still die in a house fire while you sleep. But, to not have a fire extinguisher means that you can’t put out the fire even if you wanted to and were awake.
And so you just also made the point for state executions. That there are times that I will be asleep and can be killed. And so there needs to be an entity that can punish that crime, which requires both an entity and an ability to punish.
Also, as to your first post, the state already has the power to kill. Cops carry guns. During an arrest, a cop has the ability to shoot the person at any time. So, now we are just arguing about when it is used, not whether or not the state has the power.
And the point of that is what?
You ask so much. He’s never had a point, why would he have one now?
Still, your response is well made.
“For someone who denounces the State on a daily basis, why you would want
the state to have this kind of power, escapes me.”
Some people want the state to be able to remove some people from society for rape, murder, and torture of the worst kind. Other people want the state to remove people from society because of their political ideology.
Wow! A broken clock IS right twice a day!
Radley Balko wrote a great column last week about why conservatives should oppose the death penalty (you can find it at http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/05/01/why-conservatives-should-oppose-the-death-penalty/). And dn-guy has it right for once: if the state can’t execute you, then if they convict you wrongly (as happens far, far too often), there is still a slight chance that it can be fixed. Once you’re dead, doesn’t matter anymore. Given everything we’ve learned about prosecutor misconduct over the last decade, “it can’t happen to me” is head totally in the sand.
I also subscribe to the moral argument that we as a society should be better than killing people for retribution, but I think the practical argument above is plenty sufficient for anybody who distrusts the State even a little bit to support ridding ourselves of the death penalty.
In a police state, they don’t NEED the death penalty- just an unwillingness to prosecute police who make “honest mistakes” that leave dead opposition activists, or “concerned citizens” who do the same. Things never go as far as a trial. Consider Germany during Weimar, or the LAPD’s execution of Ruben Salazar.
Which is why we have trial by jury as a counter to arbitrary conviction and sentencing by the State.
Since hypoxia is all that’s required, wouldn’t it make both sense and cruel justice to execute people with a concentrated atmosphere made up of Michael Moore or Rosie O’Donnell’s farts?
Robert-Francois Damiens’ execution was more merciful! I am now converted to an anti-death penalty person! I didn’t imagine that such cruelty was possible!
Oh the humanity!
I work in a lab with liquid nitrogen, and a low oxygen alarm is required.
Remember that there are two reasons for the use of lethal injection: make it painless for the recipient and make it quick and minimally distressful for the witnesses.
The three drug cocktail (barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium) will cause unconsciousness in seconds, prevent any involuntary movements, and atop the heart in a minute or two. Pure nitrogen gas will cause unconsciousness in a minute or so, brain death in 6, but the heart could go on for 20 minutes or more. A lengthy process for the witnesses.
Also, the recipient may panic, hold his breath, and struggle, further distressing witnesses.
Personally, I think it should be distressing for witnesses. However well deserved, and execution is not a minor matter. You are killing a human being. It is an ugly matter and should remain that way.
Also, keep in mind that while the drugs can be painless, placing two large bore IV catheters never is. Placing a mask is much easier.
I also came to this solution back then. The advantages are 1) the the very equipment that is now in place for hydrogen cyanide can be used. Just fill it with nitrogen. 2) There is no environmental impact, nor risks to the workers as there is with the handling of cyanide and its release into the atmosphere. 3) The convict just goes unconscious and then dies from hypoxia. There is no gag response when breathing nitrogen because the gag response is caused by a build-up of CO2 in the body that is not being expelled; it is not from the lack of oxygen. This is why these people drop dead without even knowing what is happening. As long as they breathe and expell the CO2, they have no way of knowing anything is wrong, and then they black out and die from lack of O2.
This is the simplest solution that handles all the objections including the rigmarole surrounding injections.
Why not the pneumatic pistons used for killing cattle before slaughter? Compressed air is cheaper than gaseous or liquid nitrogen, and it is already considered a humane method for killing the animals we eat. I don’t see why we should treat dangerous 2 legged beasts better than placid 4 legged ones.
That said I share many of Radley Balko’s qualms regarding our ‘justice’ system, and thus the hazards of using the death penalty in practice. In theory I think it can be good and just, as long as it is cheap (not an imposition on taxpayers). Maybe if it utilized only equipment donated for the purpose, and the person to be executed was afforded the choice between the donated mechanisms.
If we really want to go the hypoxia route, why not use Helium so at least they can laugh a few times at how funny their voice sounds before they pass out. You could always finish them off with something faster after loss of consciousness.
I’m somewhat of a fan of the “punishment to fit the crime” idea. In the case mentioned, live burial would be appropriate for example.
Do you mean after being shot in the face? It’s hard to get that right.