Category Archives: Law

Execution By Hypoxia

I’ve long wondered why they haven’t used a nitrogen mask for a blissful way to die, but some states have apparently authorized it, and now Alabama may be the first to use it for capital punishment.

I’m sort of amused by the objection from the usual suspects: “‘No state in the country has executed a person using nitrogen hypoxia and Alabama is in no position to experiment with a completely unproven and unused method for executing someone,’ Angie Setzer, a senior attorney with the Equal Justice Initiative said.”

What they really fear is not that it is experimental, but that it will work very well, and remove one of the arguments against capital punishment: that it is cruel.