Pfizer blocks its drugs from being used in lethal injections in prisons (2016)
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
If you're going to execute somebody, just put them up against a wall and shoot them, FFS. A firing squad has the benefit of being quite certain (accounts of botched executions are quite horrifying, IMHO), and cheap (prison guards already have guns and ammo, no need to procure and maintain some special execution apparatus).
If not, why do they have guns in the first place then? Besides, I imagine a firing squad situation is quite different from an escape attempt, violent riot, or whatever situation that might otherwise warrant the use of firearms.
> Besides, I imagine/hope that most of them wouldn't want to.
I imagine that as well. But, I don't think making it comfortable on the executioner should be particularly high on the list of priorities. If nobody wants to be the person who pulls the trigger, presses the button, or whatever, then maybe it suggests we shouldn't have capital punishment in the first place?
> Let's take inspiration from George R.R. Martin and have the judge who imposed the death penalty be on that squad.
Awesome, I fully support that.
Perhaps any prosecutor seeking the death penalty in a case would have to join a pool of executioner's assistants? (Same for jurors and judges - unless you are willing to follow through on actually killing someone, you are barred from deciding on the matters of life and death?)
In this way, their verdict on any particular case wouldn't make any difference (to them!) - they could be called upon to take part in the dirty details of an actual execution in any other case but the one they sat in on.
The only problem I have with such a system, is that there's probably people out there who'd basically ask 'Cool, where do I sign up?', which is somewhat scary.
The civilized thing, of course, would be to abolish it altogether. Capital punishment basically ensures that The System(tm) WILL murder innocents on occasion.
As I like to ask proponents of the death penalty - what false positive rate is acceptable?
It is also interesting to note that a "wrong" conviction seldom means that the person was a fine upstanding citizen. Often it means something like "convicted of the killing, but only provided the weapon" or "convicted of the killing, but was only trying to help a fellow gang member by disposing of the body". This sort of false positive isn't anywhere near as bad as what we commonly imagine to be the case, with a 100% innocent person being wrongly convicted.
To phrase my question differently - if we take your concerns about false positives into account, and accept that trying to help dispose of the body or providing a weapon makes you fair game, capital punishment-wise - how large a remaining false positive rate is acceptable to maintain that fine institution, capital punishment?
1 in 100 fine, upstanding citizens being wrongfully convicted and executed? 1 in 1,000? At which point is the collateral damage, if you like, acceptable?
The matter was discussed here on HN recently, in the case of Kevin Cooper[0].
That's but one instance of what seems like a case where there's definitely reasonable doubt - to put it mildly - regarding the convict's guilt.
Whether the person was a 'fine, upstanding citizen' IMHO is largely irrelevant, unless one wants to set the bar for being sentenced to death lower - like, for being an accessory to murder, for instance.
We consider it acceptable to drive cars. This kills 1% to 2% of the population. This seems like the baseline for acceptability. Not even 1% of the population gets put on trial with the possibility of the death penalty, so we could just go straight to execution without a trial and still be more acceptable than letting people drive cars.
Or shall we ban cars?
Only 1 in 119,012 die from execution.
Another baseline for acceptability is drowning. Homes all across America have pools. A person is about 100x more likely to die of drowning than an execution, yet pools are still legal.
...and on the other being locked up for years by the system we - as a collective - have created to protect us from just that kind of arbitrary violence, before that same system murders you -ahem- for the Greater Good(tm)?
The fact that the murder of an innocent is highly unlikely doesn't (IMHO) make it any more acceptable. Government is supposed to protect you; not kill you in the very textbook definition of premeditated murder.
(Besides, cars and swimming pools have verifiable upsides. The 'benefits' -if any- of the death penalty are highly debatable.)
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.
> "There were five marksmen: They're all volunteers and they're police officer trained."
> Of the five rifles, one is loaded with blanks so that no one knows for sure who fired the bullets.
https://www.npr.org/2015/04/05/397672199/utah-brings-back-fi...
100% agree with your sentiment.
In the end, I think it's more about plausible deniability on a psychological level than something you couldn't figure out if you wanted to.
That same body of knowledge should exist for humans.
Not knowing the difference between KCL and CH3CO2K - a vet would have their license revoked for this.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/08/446862121...
We know from high-altitude aircraft accidents (like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522) that lack of oxygen leads to quick and painless loss of consciousness and eventual death.
To be clear, I am against the death penalty, but if it’s needed then I much prefer a humane method rather than untested drugs that often backfire.
Yup, that would make the world a better place... /s
Ok, fine, the parent didn't explicitly say that is a view (s)he shares.
Lethal injections are used because they tend to make for a good show, not because they're anywhere near the easiest or most humane option available.
Death row inmates falling asleep and not waking up.
Death row inmates being drawn and quartered (bit of an extreme example).
(for those that don't know "drawn and quartered" involves four plow horses, some rope and an axe or two)
And, in case anyone is wondering, no I am not suicidal. I became interested in the topic after reading about Air Force pilot training, where the pilots were put into a large decompression chamber, the pressure was reduced to simulate high altitude, and the pilots were required to remove their oxygen masks, so they could learn to recognize the symptoms of hypoxia. I vaguely remember that one of the side-effects of hypoxia is euphoria, which would run counter to some of the comments about there needing to be a component of retribution or punishment to the death penalty.
Although I didn't see a specific excuse state governments are using to hide their suppliers, just that the state governments are being "secretive".
Except maybe in some countries where doctors dish out opioids like they are candy.
In some cases, it's essentially identical to drugs used in hospitals. In the UK, diamorphine is commonly used in palliative care.