Alabama has put to death Kenneth Smith, the first death row inmate known to die by nitrogen gas, marking the emergence of a wholly new method of execution in the United States.

I am personally against the death penalty but I do find it strange how many debate over if it will be ‘painful’ or ‘cruel’. You are executing a person. It’s not going to be pleasant.

  • NeuromancerOPM
    106·
    5 months ago

    You are killing someone. No matter what you do, it’s going to be painful to some degree either psychologically or physically.

    Debating if Nitrogen is more cruel than hanging, or shooting a person is a stupid exercise to me rather than accepting we are killing someone and maybe we shouldn’t.

    • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com
      1·
      5 months ago

      I suppose that’s why the Supreme has never invalided a state’s chosen procedure, from fire squads, electrocution, to mechanical failures that screw up the first attempt.

      • NeuromancerOPM
        47·
        5 months ago

        I just find the whole debate strange. Nitrogen gas should he fairly painless. Shooting someone is fairly painless as well. Most methods are more psychological painful than physically painful.

        I just think the debate should be why are we executing people especially when most the time it’s 30 years later.

        • thepreciousboar
          2·
          5 months ago

          Reportedly, he appeared to have suffered, and nitrogen ipoxia can be painless but can also be fairly painful in some cases

          • NeuromancerOPM
            48·
            5 months ago

            I don’t care if they “suffer”. They are being killed. To me that’s the silliness of it. We want it to look peaceful when we are killing someone.

            • thepreciousboar
              21·
              5 months ago

              The whole idea of capital punishment is “as a society we said that killing people is wrong, but some people are tol dangerous and they must be killed”, but at that point you want to do it without any unnecessary suffering, onlt for the good of society. So you either say that capital punishment should bw abolished, or it must be done without suffering. Death penalty with pain means you are the same as the people you are trying to kill because too dangerous

              • NeuromancerOPM
                23·
                5 months ago

                I disagree. It should be abolished because we can’t correct a mistake if you execute the wrong person. I don’t care about the pain aspect. If someone needs to be killed, I’m not overly concerned if it painful.

                I do care that we take 50 years to do it and we have executed innocent people. If we can keep them safely for 30+ years then there is no need to execute them.

                Focusing on the pain ignores there isn’t a need to even execute the majority of prisoners.