The American Veterinary Medical Association wrote in 2020 euthanasia guidelines that nitrogen hypoxia is not an acceptable euthanasia method for most mammals because the anoxic environment "is distressing."
The American Veterinary Medical Association discourages the use of nitrogen in euthanizing animals, in part because of the difficulties of keeping oxygen low.
https://apnews.com/article/alabama-nitr ... 4f453c50f3
The American Veterinary Medical Association wrote in 2020 euthanasia guidelines that nitrogen hypoxia is not an acceptable euthanasia method for most mammals because the anoxic environment “is distressing.” And experts appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council cautioned they believe the execution method could violate the prohibition on torture.
Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist who as one of four professionals who filed the U.N. complaint that led to the warning, said Smith is at risk for seizures and choking to death on his own vomit. He said any leak under the mask could prolong the execution.
“A leak will do two things. It will potentially endanger people around. … Air could then get under the mask as well,” Zivot said. “And so the execution could be prolonged or maybe he might never die, he just could get injured.”
A bullet to the head would be quicker and cheaper....
and more humane
I'm pretty sure I'm against gas chambers, in general.
The relentless pursuit of “non-stop executions” by a rump of US death penalty states is exposing prison staff to extreme levels of psychological and physical stress, according to traumatized corrections officers who are appealing for help.
Though capital punishment is generally on the wane in America, with only five states carrying out executions last year, those states that remain active are showing a renewed determination. In some states, the pace of judicial killings is now so intense that prison guards are kept in an almost permanent state of readiness, with mock executions staged on a rolling basis.
In Oklahoma, officers at the state penitentiary in McAlester, which houses the death chamber, are so stretched by the schedule of 25 executions set in 2022 by the Republican-controlled state that the state’s own attorney general and the head of the prison service have appealed to the courts for a more staggered approach. They have requested that the gap between executions be widened from 60 to 90 days, so far to no avail.
AndyinPA wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2024 12:45 pm https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... th-penalty
Blood for the Blood god, Skulls for the Skull Throne.....The relentless pursuit of “non-stop executions” by a rump of US death penalty states is exposing prison staff to extreme levels of psychological and physical stress, according to traumatized corrections officers who are appealing for help.
South Carolina executes first man in 13 years despite new evidence of innocence
Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, 46, killed by lethal injection days after state’s key witness recanted critical testimony
Sam Levin
Sat 21 Sep 2024 02.41 CEST
South Carolina executed a man on death row on Friday, days after the key witness for the prosecution came forward to say he lied at trial and the state was putting to death an innocent man.
Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, 46, was killed by lethal injection, pronounced dead at 6.55pm, according to the Associated Press, which was one of several media witnesses to the execution.
His lawyers had filed emergency motions for a delay this week, citing new testimony suggesting he was wrongfully convicted. But the state supreme court rejected the pleas and Henry McMaster, the Republican governor, announced just before the execution that he would not be granting clemency.
Allah, who was previously known as Freddie Owens, was strapped to a gurney in the death chamber when the curtain opened for media to view the proceeding, the AP reported. He appeared to mouth a goodbye to his lawyer, who smiled at him. Allah seemed to lose consciousness after roughly one minute.
His breathing became shallow and his face twitched for several minutes before he stopped moving. He was declared dead roughly 10 minutes later. Allah made no final statement.
Allah’s execution was the first in 13 years in South Carolina and could be the start of a rapid series of executions in the coming months.
The state gave Allah a choice of lethal injection, electrocution or firing squad, but Allah objected to signing off on a method, saying that amounted to suicide and violated his Muslim faith. His attorney chose lethal injection for him.
Allah was convicted of the armed robbery and murder of convenience store cashier Irene Graves in November 1997. He was 19 at the time. Graves, a 41-year-old mother of three, was shot in the head during the robbery. Allah has long asserted his innocence.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -execution
One of the many problems with the death penalty is its inconsistency with relation to the crime. One murder: death penalty. Multiple murders, cannibalism, etc. (Dahmer): Prison. In this case, given there was enough evidence to think this man might have been innocent, what are the state court and governor guilty of?John Thomas8 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 21, 2024 9:42 am Red states enjoy murdering citizens, they do it so often when proof exists the victim didn't do it.
I get the legal process, but when it's abused like South Carolina, Texas and Missouri do it with disregard to the truth things get obscene.
Allah's co-conspirator testified against him. A few weeks ago, the co-conspirator alleged he had an unwritten plea agreement to avoid the death penalty (and the prosecutor didn't disclose this agreement).South Carolina executed a man on death row on Friday, days after the key witness for the prosecution came forward to say he lied at trial and the state was putting to death an innocent man.
* * *
His lawyers had filed emergency motions for a delay this week, citing new testimony suggesting he was wrongfully convicted
The state of Missouri on Tuesday executed Marcellus Williams shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to delay the execution. The state Department of Corrections said he was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m. CT.
* * *
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they would have granted the request to halt the execution.
"Tonight, Missouri will execute an innocent man," said attorney Tricia Rojo Bushnell of the Midwest Innocence Project in a statement after the Supreme Court ruling. "...The victim's family opposes his execution. Jurors, who originally sentenced him to death, now oppose his execution. The prosecutor's office that convicted and sentenced him to death has now admitted they were wrong and zealously fought to undo the conviction and save Mr. Williams' life."
* * *
[In] 2015, the Missouri Supreme Court halted execution plans and appointed a special master to review DNA testing on the handle of the murder weapon, the butcher knife that was used to stab [Felicia] Gayle 43 times and was left lodged in her neck.
Williams' attorneys said DNA experts who reviewed the results determined that he was not the source of DNA found on the knife. But the special master sent the case back to the Missouri Supreme Court, and a second execution date was set for August 2017.
Then, hours before Williams was set to be executed, then-Gov. Eric Greitens called it off and appointed a panel of five retired judges to investigate the DNA evidence. The board, however, was dissolved by [now-Governor Mike] Parson in June 2023 and never issued its final report.
Faced with the DNA evidence and other new information in Williams' case, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell sought to toss out the conviction on numerous grounds, including the results of the DNA testing and constitutional violations during the jury selection process.
But the night before an evidentiary hearing was set to take place, Bell's office received new test results indicating DNA on the knife handle was consistent with that of a prosecutor who worked on Williams' case and a former investigator with the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.
Williams' attorneys said in a filing that the DNA results confirmed they handled the knife without gloves, contaminating the evidence.
With the DNA evidence spoiled, Williams and Bell, the prosecuting attorney, reached an agreement under which Williams would enter a no-contest plea to murder in the first degree with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
Gayle's family indicated they did not support executing Williams, according to court filings, and in August, a judge signed off on the agreement. But Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, objected to the plea.
The state supreme court went on to block the plan and ordered an evidentiary hearing on Williams' claims of innocence.
* * *
The prosecutor also acknowledged that he handled the murder weapon without gloves at least five times during witness preparation sessions before the trial, as he believed the investigation into Gayle's killing was finished.
* * *
Still, on Sept. 12, the judge declined to toss out Williams' conviction and sentence. The Missouri Supreme Court then denied relief.
There is no taking back a death sentence. "Oops, my bad" doesn't fix the error. Not in the least.John Thomas8 wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 9:03 pm This case convinced me that juries are too influenced by CSI pseudo science and outright stupidity:
Alabama has executed Alan Eugene Miller, the second inmate known to die by nitrogen gas
Michelle Watson and Jason Hanna, CNN
Fri, September 27, 2024 at 4:52 AM GMT+2
Alan Eugene Miller was executed Thursday evening in Alabama, state officials said, making him the second inmate known to die by nitrogen hypoxia, a controversial method critics say is tantamount to torture.
Miller, 59, who was sentenced to death in 2000 for the 1999 killings of three men, was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m. at a prison in Atmore, Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said at a news conference.
Miller shook and trembled on a gurney for about two minutes, with his body at times pulling against restraints, according to The Associated Press, which had a reporter witness the procedure. The shaking and trembling was followed by about six minutes of periodic gulping breaths before he became still, the AP reported.
“I didn’t do anything to be in here,” Miller said in his final words, which at times were muffled by a mask that covered his face from forehead to chin, according to the AP.
Miller was fitted with the mask during the procedure, during which nitrogen gas flowed for about 15 minutes, Hamm said. In response to a reporter’s question, Hamm confirmed the two minutes of shaking, which he said was to be expected.
“There’s going to be involuntary body movements as the body is depleted of oxygen. That is nothing we did not expect,” Hamm said at the news conference.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/alabama-set- ... 41069.html
(original: CNN)
Six days of horror: America’s thirst for executions returns with a vengeance
Five executions, five states: a glut of judicial killing not seen in 20 years took place last week – and there was nothing random about it
Ed Pilkington in New York
Sun 29 Sep 2024 12.00 CEST
The death penalty is waning in America. Most states have abolished it or put it on pause, the annual crop of executions and new death sentences is in decline, and public opinion is turning steadily against the practice.
So the battle to break America’s primal adherence to a-life-for-a-life is prevailing.
Not this week, it isn’t. Five executions. Five different states over six days of horror.
This was the week in which America’s ailing death penalty bit back. Such a concentrated glut of judicial killing was last seen more than 20 years ago in the US.
Across the US south and midwest – from Alabama to Missouri, Oklahoma to South Carolina, and of course in the heart of it all, Texas – states fired up their death chambers. Experts said it was a random coincidence that so many capital cases, with their convoluted legal journeys, came to a climax at once.
But there was nothing random or coincidental about the disdain for probable innocence that was on display this week. Nor about the racial animus, or the callous indifference to life animating supposedly “right-to-life” states.
Deacon Dave Billips protests against the execution of Marcellus Williams in Missouri. Photograph: Laurie Skrivan/AP
“This week has exposed the reality of the death penalty in America, in all its brutality and injustice,” said Maya Foa, joint executive director of the human rights group Reprieve. “Across the US, executing states are going to ever more extreme lengths to prop up the practice.”
While much of the US is focused on Donald Trump’s remolding of the Republican party and his efforts to bring his Make America Great Again (Maga) movement back to the White House in November’s election, a parallel shift has taken hold in the death penalty world, albeit behind the scenes and largely unnoticed. Republican prosecutors, many of whom pay lip service to Trump and his Maga values, have become increasingly aggressive in pushing capital cases to finality.
The federal courts, which Trump transformed by appointing more than 200 judges during his presidency, have also changed their tune. Where they once acted as a failsafe against unreliable convictions, they now largely step aside.
That is especially true of the US supreme court, with its new ultra-right supermajority secured by Trump’s three appointed justices, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
“There’s been a radical shift in the legal culture as it relates to the death penalty in the past six years,” said Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, who perhaps more than anyone has alerted Americans to the inequities of death row. “The refs are gone, there is no more oversight.”
The result, Stevenson said, was that the rump of largely southern states still wedded to capital punishment are now unbound. “Without safeguards, without accountability, the states have leeway to do pretty much what they want,” he said.
This week is a case in point.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... th-penalty
