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The death penalty

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neonzx
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Re: The death penalty

#101

Post by neonzx »

https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/physics/ ... rrent.html
More about "The Fatal Current"

Electric current damages the body in three ways:

harms or interferes with proper functioning of the nervous system and heart
subjects the body to intense heat, causing burns
causes the muscles to contract

Remember, it's the Current that Kills!

It's the electrical current that does the damage. Current equals voltage divided by resistance (I = V/R), but voltage is not a reliable indication of danger because the body's resistance varies so widely that it is impossible to predict how much current will flow through the body for a given voltage.

The actual resistance of the body varies depending upon the condition of the skin (moist or dry) at the points of contact . The skin resistance may vary from 1000 ohms for wet skin to over 500,000 ohms for dry skin. However, once the skin is broken through (for example, by the burning away of skin or by a wire piercing the skin) the body presents no more than 500 ohms resistance to the current.

The path through the body has much to do with the shock danger. A current passing from finger to elbow through the arm may produce only a painful shock, but that same current passing from hand to foot or through the chest from hand to hand may well be fatal. Therefore, the practice of using only one hand (keeping one hand behind your back) while working on high-voltage circuits is a good safety habit. Even better would be to disconnect all sources of power from the equipment you are about to repair. Do not rely on insulated tool handles, rubber-soled shoes, etc., to protect you.

A.C. is More Dangerous than D.C.

A.C. is said to be four to five times more dangerous than D.C. For one thing, A.C. causes more severe muscular contractions. For another, it stimulates sweating, which lowers the skin resistance. Along those lines, it is important to note that resistance goes down rapidly with continued contact. The sweating and the burning away of the skin oils and even the skin itself account for this. That is why it's extremely important to free the victim from contact with the current as quickly as possible (but without endangering yourself) before the climbing current reaches the fibrillation-inducing level.

The frequency of the AC has a lot to do with the effect on the human body. Unfortunately, 60 cycles is in the most harmful range. At this frequency, as little as 25 volts can kill. On the other hand, people have withstood 40,000 volts at a frequency of a million cycles/sec or so without fatal effects.
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Re: The death penalty

#102

Post by LM K »

I doubt this was a "miscommunication".

Quintin Jones' Last Words Before Execution in Texas
Desel said the officials included a number of new personnel who had not participated in an execution before.

"As a result of a miscommunication between officials at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, there was never a call made to the summon the media witnesses into the unit," Desel told Newsweek.

"We apologize for this critical error. The agency is investigating to determine exactly what occurred to ensure it does not happen again."
Revealed: Republican-led states secretly spending huge sums on execution drugs
Republican-controlled states are spending astronomical sums of their taxpayers’ money to buy pharmaceutical drugs from illicit dealers in a desperate and almost certainly unlawful attempt to carry out lethal injection executions.

Documents obtained by the Guardian reveal the full extent of the spending blitz that American death penalty states have embarked upon as they try to restart executions delayed by the pandemic. The findings show that Republican leaders are not only willing to run roughshod over their own state and federal laws, but are also prepared to spend lavishly in the process.

The most jaw-dropping outlay has been made by Arizona, a state in which Republicans hold both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s mansion. A single-page heavily redacted document obtained by the Guardian records that last October the department of corrections ordered 1,000 vials of pentobarbital sodium salt, each containing 1g, to be shipped in “unmarked jars and boxes”.

At the bottom of the document, the record states: “Amount paid: $1,500,000.”


:snippity:
It is a felony under Arizona and federal law to dispense pentobarbital without a valid prescription. Medical practitioners are not allowed to issue prescriptions for the drug for use in executions as taking the life of a prisoner serves no therapeutic or medical purpose.

:snippity:
As a result, death penalty states have been forced to enter into increasingly dubious – and often unlawful – deals with suppliers at home and abroad. In 2010, five American states illegally purchased execution drugs without federal Food and Drug Administration approval from Dream Pharma, a wholesaler operating out of a driving school in London.

Since then, states have been pushing at legal boundaries in their scramble to evade the boycott of pharmaceutical supplies.“States have switched from one drug to another, crossed state lines to get drugs, paid cash and failed to record the payments to keep the purchases secret,” said Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham law school.

Denno added: “All of those actions are violations of state or federal laws, and all of them have ended up jacking up the price of the drugs.”

In recent years, 19 states as well as the federal government have moved to shroud their execution practices in secrecy – working especially hard to obscure the source of their lethal injection drugs. That too allows unscrupulous producers and dealers to hike up their prices.
:snippity:
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Re: The death penalty

#103

Post by sugar magnolia »

the department of corrections ordered 1,000 vials of pentobarbital sodium salt, each containing 1g, to be shipped in “unmarked jars and boxes”.

At the bottom of the document, the record states: “Amount paid: $1,500,000.”
How the hell many people do they plan on executing?
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Re: The death penalty

#104

Post by LM K »

sugar magnolia wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 6:56 pm
the department of corrections ordered 1,000 vials of pentobarbital sodium salt, each containing 1g, to be shipped in “unmarked jars and boxes”.

At the bottom of the document, the record states: “Amount paid: $1,500,000.”
How the hell many people do they plan on executing?
That's enough for 200 executions. AZ plans to use these vials even when expired.
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Re: The death penalty

#105

Post by bob »

Sotomayor, Breyer, and Kagan dissent (after the raft of silent denials) from a cert. denial in which the petitioner wants to be executed by firing squad (he previously also had requested nitrogen gas). The Missouri prisoner alleges pentobarbital will cause him to have excruciating seizures.
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Re: The death penalty

#106

Post by LM K »

bob wrote: Mon May 24, 2021 8:30 pm Sotomayor, Breyer, and Kagan dissent (after the raft of silent denials) from a cert. denial in which the petitioner wants to be executed by firing squad (he previously also had requested nitrogen gas). The Missouri prisoner alleges pentobarbital will cause him to have excruciating seizures.
From the dissent.
Johnson alleges that, because of his unique medical condition, injecting him with the drug pentobarbital, as Missouri’s lethal injection protocol requires, will create a “‘substantial’” risk that he will suffer an extraordinarily painful seizure. Pentobarbital is part of a class of medications known to trigger seizures, even in those without seizure disorders. Pentobarbital also has “an anti-[analgesic] effect,” which means that “it exaggerates pain.” As a result, Johnson claims that executing him using pentobarbital is “‘sure or very likely to’” trigger an exceptionally painful seizure and cause him “‘serious and needless pain.’” On the other hand, Johnson alleges that executing him using nitrogen gas would be painless. Notably, “Missouri law already permits execution by lethal gas, and nitrogen, which is used commonly in welding and cooking, is easy to obtain.” By fitting a hood or mask over Johnson’s head and administering the gas, Missouri could induce lethal hypoxia without triggering Johnson’s seizure disorder.
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Re: The death penalty

#107

Post by AndyinPA »

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -documents
The state of Arizona is preparing to kill death row inmates using hydrogen cyanide, the same lethal gas that was deployed at Auschwitz.

Documents obtained by the Guardian reveal that Arizona’s department of corrections has spent more than $2,000 in procuring the ingredients to make cyanide gas. The department bought a solid brick of potassium cyanide in December for $1,530.

It also purchased sodium hydroxide pellets and sulfuric acid which are intended to be used to generate the deadly gas. The gas chamber itself, built in 1949 and disused for 22 years, has been dusted off and, according to the department, “refurbished”.

Over the past few months the Republican-controlled state has moved aggressively to restart its deeply flawed execution system. The death penalty has been in abeyance in Arizona for seven years following the gruesomely botched lethal injection of Joseph Wood in 2014.

Last month, the Guardian revealed that Arizona spent a jaw-dropping $1.5m on a batch of pentobarbital in October, a sedative which it now hopes to use as its main lethal injection method.
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Re: The death penalty

#108

Post by Suranis »

Or, you know, bullets?

Hell, a nice heavy bus would be cheaper.
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Re: The death penalty

#109

Post by LM K »

AndyinPA wrote: Fri May 28, 2021 2:33 pm https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -documents
The state of Arizona is preparing to kill death row inmates using hydrogen cyanide, the same lethal gas that was deployed at Auschwitz.

Documents obtained by the Guardian reveal that Arizona’s department of corrections has spent more than $2,000 in procuring the ingredients to make cyanide gas. The department bought a solid brick of potassium cyanide in December for $1,530.

It also purchased sodium hydroxide pellets and sulfuric acid which are intended to be used to generate the deadly gas. The gas chamber itself, built in 1949 and disused for 22 years, has been dusted off and, according to the department, “refurbished”.

Over the past few months the Republican-controlled state has moved aggressively to restart its deeply flawed execution system. The death penalty has been in abeyance in Arizona for seven years following the gruesomely botched lethal injection of Joseph Wood in 2014.

Last month, the Guardian revealed that Arizona spent a jaw-dropping $1.5m on a batch of pentobarbital in October, a sedative which it now hopes to use as its main lethal injection method.

That's a brutal death.

AZ had a very botched gas chamber execution in 1992.
The Arizona House of Representatives, its members disturbed by graphic accounts of the slow death of the first man executed in the state's gas chamber in 29 years, has voted to switch from gas to lethal injection.

:snippity:
The change was proposed early this year but did not gain significant support until the April 6 execution of a triple murderer, Donald Eugene Harding, in the gas chamber at the state prison in Florence.

Mr. Harding was not pronounced dead until 10 1/2 minutes after two cyanide pellets were dropped into a bowl of sulfuric acid beneath his chair. Witnesses described a gruesome scene: Mr. Harding gasping, shuddering and desperately making obscene gestures with both strapped-down hands.

The campaign for change gained momentum on Tuesday when California had its first execution in 25 years. The California inmate, Robert Alton Harris, also took 10 minutes to die.

:snippity:
Among the backers is State Attorney General Grant Woods, who acknowledged being disturbed by watching Mr. Harding die.
:snippity:
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Re: The death penalty

#110

Post by neeneko »

LM K wrote: Fri May 28, 2021 7:38 pm
AndyinPA wrote: Fri May 28, 2021 2:33 pm https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -documents
The state of Arizona is preparing to kill death row inmates using hydrogen cyanide, the same lethal gas that was deployed at Auschwitz.

Documents obtained by the Guardian reveal that Arizona’s department of corrections has spent more than $2,000 in procuring the ingredients to make cyanide gas. The department bought a solid brick of potassium cyanide in December for $1,530.

It also purchased sodium hydroxide pellets and sulfuric acid which are intended to be used to generate the deadly gas. The gas chamber itself, built in 1949 and disused for 22 years, has been dusted off and, according to the department, “refurbished”.
Huh. Normally a state producing chemical weapons to use on its own citizens gets a bit more attention from the US...
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Re: The death penalty

#111

Post by LM K »

Long and excellent article.
:snippity:
[On trial was the legality of the way lethal injection is being carried out, on the grounds that it violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

:snippity:
From behind the screen, John Doe No. 1 — later identified in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch as Alan Doerhoff, a doctor who the newspaper reported had more than 20 malpractice suits filed against him and hospital privileges revoked at two institutions — testified that he began performing lethal injections in Missouri in the mid-90s after a botched execution. During that execution, the execution team, which did not include a doctor, tried to inject the lethal drugs into an inmate’s thumb. (If an inmate has a history of IV drug use, it can be very difficult to find a suitable vein.) Doerhoff, like virtually all those taking part in executions, did so anonymously, a vestige from the days of the hooded executioner. That day, shrouded on the stand, Doerhoff explained that he had devised the state’s execution protocol without consulting anyone. About a third of the way through two hours of questioning, in response to Taylor’s attorney, Ginger Anders, asking why Doerhoff gave inconsistent answers to questions concerning the amounts of drugs used, he said: “I can save you a whole lot of time and offer my apologies to the court, but last night I was trying to pay my cable bill. . . . I realized I had copied my account number by dropping one digit and transposing two. In surgery that’s not important. But I am dyslexic . . . . so it’s not unusual for me to make mistakes.”

Over the course of Doerhoff’s testimony, Anders uncovered many significant details similar to those uncovered in other states. For instance, Doerhoff testified that executions in Missouri have taken place in the dark, an execution team working by flashlight, and that the execution team routinely consists of “nonmedical people.” For most, the day of the execution is “the first time probably in their life they have picked up a syringe . . . so it’s a little stressful for them to be doing this.” Doerhoff stated that he determined if an inmate being executed had been adequately anesthetized by observing the condemned’s face through a window, which others noted was obscured by partly opened blinds. He also told the court that he reduced by half the five grams of anesthetic he had been using after the pharmaceutical company supplying it started packaging it in smaller bottles, which made it tricky to get the five grams in a single syringe. When Anders asked if he used calculations to determine the quantities of drugs to administer, he replied, “Heavens, no.”

:snippity:
Each change in technique was based on the notion that the new method would be better — more dignified, less gruesome — and in some ways each has been. Nooses, if the drop is too short, can leave bodies twitching for up to 45 minutes, and if the drop is too long, as it was for Saddam Hussein’s half brother, the condemned can fall with so much force that his head is ripped off. Firing squads are considered too violent. Lethal gas takes too long; the 1992 lethal-gas execution of Donald Harding in Arizona was so long — 11 minutes — and so grotesque that the attorney general threw up and the warden threatened to quit if he were required to execute someone by gas again. The electric chair often results in horrible odors and burns; in Florida, in the 990s, at least two inmates heads’ caught fire, and the chair routinely left the condemned’s body so thoroughly cooked that officials had to let the corpse cool before it could be removed.

:snippity:
...the federal government has never convened a panel to study the practicalities of killing death-row inmates. And unlike officials in Britain, which in 1953 published “The Royal Commission on Capital Punishment,” advising against using lethal injection, neither wardens nor legislators in the United States have ever conducted a professional survey on execution procedures or studied how those practices might be improved. The American Veterinary Medical Association issues and reviews recommendations for euthanizing animals. No one in the United States does anything similar for condemned inmates.

:snippity:
...the American Medical Association in its ethics code told its members not to participate in executions (though that mandate has not been strictly enforced). Later the code would prohibit physicians from selecting fatal-injection sites or starting IV lines; prescribing or injecting lethal drugs; inspecting, testing or maintaining lethal-injection equipment; consulting with or supervising an execution team; monitoring condemned prisoners’ vital signs; or declaring the death of the inmate. (Confirming or certifying after an inmate has been declared dead is permissible.) As a result, the first execution by lethal injection — that of Charles Brooks Jr. in Texas in 1982 — did not go well. The execution team turned to a doctor, who had come only to certify the death, in order to find a suitable vein for the IV. Instead of preparing and injecting each of the three drugs separately, the warden mixed them all in the same syringe, producing a thick, white sludge. When the attending doctor approached Brooks to certify death, he found the inmate still breathing. The task of administering drugs, so routine in hospitals, failed to translate smoothly to the death chamber. As Chapman, its progenitor, told me: “It never occurred to me when we set this up that we’d have complete idiots administering the drugs.”


:snippity:
As a remedy, he ordered Missouri to hire a board-certified anesthesiologist, and in the following weeks the Missouri Department of Corrections sent letters to 298 regional anesthesiologists, hoping to recruit a new executioner. The idea that an anesthesiologist should deliver the drugs is reasonable enough; yet in demanding that the Department of Corrections find a new doctor to take part in lethal injection, Gaitan ensnared Missouri’s death penalty in a Catch-22. Not only does the American Medical Association prohibit doctors from participating in executions; nearly every other professional medical organization, including the Society of Correctional Physicians, does as well. Shortly after Gaitan’s ruling, Dr. Orin Guidry, president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, issued a letter to his membership urging them to “steer clear” and reminding them of their obligation “to do no harm.”

:snippity:
In his 1975 treatise “Discipline and Punish,” the philosopher Michel Foucault observed that in the West, the locus of punishment has shifted away from the body to the soul, and because execution requires an act of violence, it is a task we are almost ashamed to perform[/highlight]. “Foucault was not a fan of the death penalty, but he was right,” Blecker told me, “the twitching, the moaning, we can’t even tolerate that.” Executions, to be ethical, must be transparent, Blecker maintains: “
:snippity:
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Re: The death penalty

#112

Post by LM K »

It comes down to this. Our country can't figure out how to execute an inmate that doesn't violate the 8th amendment.

Maybe we should stop executing people?
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Re: The death penalty

#113

Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

I just watched a TV show and read the surviving father's book (Murder by Family) about the conviction and commutation of the death sentence of Thomas Bartlett Whitaker who masterminded the killing of his mother and younger brother. His father was supposed to die too, but didn't. At the trial three young men testified about two previous attempts that didn't work. (Scary thought that this was even considered doable by 5 young men from middle class families in Texas who each thought they were getting a portion of a $1 million insurance policy. The insurance policy was only $50,000. The shooter testified at Bart's trial that he could shoot the family because "they weren't human". )

The father's family and mother's family testified against the death penalty. The father said he already lost the other members of his immediate family and it would punish him to lose this son. All the family members wanted Bart to have an opportunity to rehabilitate himself in the Christian sense by being saved. The father had not been saved until he was 40. Bart was 22 or thereabouts. If executed before he was saved then Bart would have eternal punishment which would create greater pain for the family.

I was interested in the psychoanalysis of Bart which was not done until after he was tried and convicted. His defense lawyer didn't want a battle of the experts since the main goal was to get a life sentence. The father wrote Bart couldn't get psychotherapy while in jail pending trial. Bart didn't deny the killings or his role. He refused to say "Not Guilty" at his arraignment so the judge entered a "Not Guilty" plea. The father believed Bart was saved, but a "new Christian" subject to possible loss of faith.

In retrospect the father learned Bart suffered from a mental illness. Somewherze I read Bart had a thought disorder causing him to begin thinking at the age of 13 that his family hated him. This piqued my interest and began my research because I had not heard of this before using these specific terms.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/d ... l-disorder
Delusional Disorder

Delusional disorder is a type of serious mental illness in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined.

What is delusional disorder?
Delusional disorder, previously called paranoid disorder, is a type of serious mental illness — called a “psychosis”— in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. The main feature of this disorder is the presence of delusions, which are unshakable beliefs in something untrue. People with delusional disorder experience non-bizarre delusions, which involve situations that could occur in real life, such as being followed, poisoned, deceived, conspired against, or loved from a distance. These delusions usually involve the misinterpretation of perceptions or experiences. In reality, however, the situations are either not true at all or highly exaggerated.

People with delusional disorder often can continue to socialize and function quite normally, apart from the subject of their delusion, and generally do not behave in an obviously odd or bizarre manner. This is unlike people with other psychotic disorders, who also might have delusions as a symptom of their disorder. In some cases, however, people with delusional disorder might become so preoccupied with their delusions that their lives are disrupted.

Although delusions might be a symptom of more common disorders, such as schizophrenia, delusional disorder itself is rather rare. Delusional disorder most often occurs in middle to late life.

The types of delusional disorder include:

Persecutory. People with this type of delusional disorder believe that they (or someone close to them) are being mistreated, or that someone is spying on them or planning to harm them. It is not uncommon for people with this type of delusional disorder to make repeated complaints to legal authorities.
► Show Spoiler
For those who believe he is not saved, and is a true sociopath, see
https://www.click2houston.com/news/2019 ... -in-prison.
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Re: The death penalty

#114

Post by AndyinPA »

I'd seen it before, but the case was just on the Murder Channel a few days ago. It's my fall-asleep channel, and I fell asleep before the end of it.
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Re: The death penalty

#115

Post by AndyinPA »

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... ium=social
Arizona is taking steps to use hydrogen cyanide, the deadly gas used during the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis at Auschwitz and other extermination camps, to kill inmates on death row.

Corrections officials have refurbished a gas chamber that hasn’t been used in more than 20 years and have procured ingredients for the lethal gas, also known as Zyklon B, according to partially redacted documents obtained by the Guardian. Invoices show that the state purchased a brick of potassium cyanide, sodium hydroxide pellets and sulfuric acid, and a report details the considerable efforts taken to deem the gas chamber at a prison in Florence, Ariz., “operationally ready.”

Critics of the gas method say that in addition to hydrogen cyanide’s infamous use in the mass killings of Jewish people by the Nazis, it has produced some of the most botched, disturbing executions in the United States.

“You have to wonder what Arizona was thinking in believing that in 2021 it is acceptable to execute people in a gas chamber with cyanide gas,” Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told the British outlet. “Did they have anybody study the history of the Holocaust?”
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Re: The death penalty

#116

Post by bob »

So: Kevin Cooper.

Cooper is on California's death row, having exhausted all appeals. Cooper has maintained his innocence, and has argued emerging DNA evidence will prove that (by excluding him as a source of the blood from the crime scene).

Schwarzenegger had denied Cooper's clemency petition, and he was nearly executed in 2004 (an en banc 9th Circuit stayed his execution).

Governor Newsom, in addition to a general moratorium on executions, in 2019 ordered another evaluation of the DNA evidence (to help him decide whether to grant some more of clemency). Last week, Newsom appointed Morrison and Foerster to "help" the parole board (i.e., the entity that makes recommendations to the governor).
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Re: The death penalty

#117

Post by bob »

bob wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 2:38 pm At present, the inmates are all choosing injection because they know it isn't available. The new law allows the state to claim injection's unavailability and use electrocution, unless a firing squad is available and the inmate chooses it. E.g.:

"We're going electrocute you, unless you choose lethal injection and it is available."
"I choose lethal injection."
"It isn't available; we're going electrocute you, unless you choose firing squad and it is available."
"I choose firing squad."
"It isn't available; we're going electrocute you."

I assume the first time South Carolina declares a method to be unavailable that a lawsuit will challenge the state's declaration.
As expected: SCOSC rules the Hobson's Choice of electrocution or electrocution was unconstitutional (until the firing squads come online):
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Re: The death penalty

#118

Post by zekeb »

I thought they tossed out electrocution as being cruel and unusual. Why is it coming back into fashion?
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Re: The death penalty

#119

Post by bob »

zekeb wrote: Wed Jun 16, 2021 11:11 pm I thought they tossed out electrocution as being cruel and unusual.
Nebraska had ruled electrocution violated its state constitution. But the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled electrocution was unconstitutional under the federal constitution.
Why is it coming back into fashion?
Because states are seeing the writing on the wall: Between the drug manufacturers' embargo and the endless lawsuits, states are reverting to earlier methods.
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Re: The death penalty

#120

Post by LM K »

When euthanizing one of my furbabies last week, I learned two interesting things about pentobarbital.

1. Pentobarbital stops the brain before stopping the heart. I wrote about brain vs cardiac death earlier in this thread. I thought pentobarbital stopped the heart without stopping the brain. I'm extremely grateful to know that I was incorrect about the way pentobarbital stops life.

2. The companies that sell pentobarbital to vets now strictly monitor how much pentobarbital vets use in their clinics. Our vet explained that they can no longer give enormous overdoses of pentobarbital like they used to. They definitely use what is necessary to properly euthanize animals, but they have to be much more stringent on dosing. Some vets are having a really difficult time getting pentobarbital. These companies are cracking down on vets to keep pentobarbital from being sold to prisons under the table.

Remember AZ's purchase of 1,000 small bottles of pentobarbital? I suspect that might have come from an unethical vet practice. I don't have evidence of that. But it's something I wonder about.

Prison's inability to get pentobarbital is now affecting vet's ability to obtain pentobarbital.

All this because of the death penalty.
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Re: The death penalty

#121

Post by Azastan »

LM K wrote: Wed Jun 16, 2021 11:48 pm When euthanizing one of my furbabies last week, I learned two interesting things about pentobarbital.

1. Pentobarbital stops the brain before stopping the heart. I wrote about brain vs cardiac death earlier in this thread. I thought pentobarbital stopped the heart without stopping the brain. I'm extremely grateful to know that I was incorrect about the way pentobarbital stops life.

2. The companies that sell pentobarbital to vets now strictly monitor how much pentobarbital vets use in their clinics. Our vet explained that they can no longer give enormous overdoses of pentobarbital like they used to. They definitely use what is necessary to properly euthanize animals, but they have to be much more stringent on dosing. Some vets are having a really difficult time getting pentobarbital. These companies are cracking down on vets to keep pentobarbital from being sold to prisons under the table.

Remember AZ's purchase of 1,000 small bottles of pentobarbital? I suspect that might have come from an unethical vet practice. I don't have evidence of that. But it's something I wonder about.

Prison's inability to get pentobarbital is now affecting vet's ability to obtain pentobarbital.

All this because of the death penalty.
I have been reading that veterinarians are having a very difficult time getting enough pentobarbital, especially vets in large animal practice. They have had to switch to a different method of euthanasia. Animals are now given anesthesia and then intrathecal lidocaine (lidocaine into the space surrounding the spinal cord). With this different method, it’s anesthetizing them first with IV injections, then positioning their head a certain way and inserting a needle into an area near the horse’s poll and injecting the lidocaine. The horse doesn't feel the needle going in because it's anesthetized, but it does apparently take longer and the placement of the needle may be upsetting for some people. Even if not for the pentobarbital shortage, many large animal vets were moving to this method of euthanasia because it is not as harmful to the environment.

I too wondered if unethical vets have been supplying these states with pentobarbital. I know of one vet here, who has had his license to practice suspended for animal abuse, who would have absolutely no problems with selling pentobarbital to states for use in executions (I assume he can't actually order prescription drugs with his license suspended, but that doesn't mean he didn't have several bottles on hand before he had his license suspended).
Patagoniagirl
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Re: The death penalty

#122

Post by Patagoniagirl »

I just cant. If the purpose of the death penalty is vengeance, or justice, what do we gain? If the purpose is ridding society of those we (sometime erroneously) percieve as monsters, how can we justify those absolutely exonerated and freed from death row?

If it is just to rid society of people we consider not worthy to live, why can we not simply use humane euthanasia protocols? We do that for animals. Some countries allow humane methods for people.

It's about revenge. And hate. I just dont get it.
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Re: The death penalty

#123

Post by somerset »

Patagoniagirl wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:40 pm I just cant. If the purpose of the death penalty is vengeance, or justice, what do we gain? If the purpose is ridding society of those we (sometime erroneously) percieve as monsters, how can we justify those absolutely exonerated and freed from death row?

If it is just to rid society of people we consider not worthy to live, why can we not simply use humane euthanasia protocols? We do that for animals. Some countries allow humane methods for people.

It's about revenge. And hate. I just dont get it.
I've wondered about this too. Asphyxiation with nitrogen would be painless and very easy to implement today. Why don't we do it?

I think the first answer is the one you point out - It doesn't have enough of a "punitive" aspect to it. I think this would be the conservative argument against it.

From a progressive view, I think the second argument is that making executions so simple is a slippery slope society shouldn't start down. Making it too easy to kill people isn't a good thing.
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Suranis
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Re: The death penalty

#124

Post by Suranis »

somerset wrote: Fri Oct 29, 2021 9:03 pm From a progressive view, I think the second argument is that making executions so simple is a slippery slope society shouldn't start down. Making it too easy to kill people isn't a good thing.
That's hardly an exclusively "progressive" view.
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Re: The death penalty

#125

Post by LM K »

Oklahoma botched it's 4th execution since 2014. Oklahoma paused the execution of prisoners for 6 years because of 3 botched executions. Of the 5 executions since Jan, 2014, 4 were botched.

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections claims that Grant's execution was performed without complications. That's a blatant lie.

The state plans to execute 6 more inmates by the end of March. Oklahoma's next execution is scheduled in less than 3 weeks.



Condemned Oklahoma prisoner convulsed, vomited before dying, witness says
Condemned Oklahoma prisoner John Grant convulsed and vomited before dying from a cocktail of drugs on Thursday as the state conducted its first execution in years despite questions about its lethal injection protocol, a witness to the death reported.

Grant, 60, died at 4:21 p.m. (2121 GMT), the state said. It was Oklahoma's first execution since three botched attempts - including one that was called off because the wrong drug had been supplied - led to a halt in 2015.

The three-drug cocktail is meant to first render the recipient unconscious and unable to feel pain, followed by others that lead to death.

But a media witness said Grant convulsed two dozen times and vomited before dying.

"As the drugs began to flow, the first drug, midazolam, he exhaled deeply," Sean Murphy said in a news briefing posted online. "He began convulsing, about two dozen times, full body convulsions."

Vomit covered his face until a prison official wiped it off, Murphy said.

Dale Baich, one of the attorneys representing Grant, called Thursday's execution "problematic."

"There should be no more executions in Oklahoma until we go to trial in February to address the state's problematic lethal injection protocol," Baich said.
:snippity:

The Oklahoma Department of Corrections said that Grant's execution was carried out in accordance with its protocols and without complication.

After Grant died on Thursday, his lawyer, Sarah Jernigan, said he had tried to atone and understand his actions "more than any other client I have worked with."
:snippity:

Last-minute intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a stay of execution for Grant and Julius Jones, who is scheduled to be put to death on Nov. 18.
:snippity:

They also argued that Oklahoma's newest lethal injection protocol is too similar to a prior method that led to the botched executions.
:snippity:
Another witness recount.

Grant's convulsions were violent.
Oklahoma is coming under sharp criticism after witnesses to the state’s first judicial killing for six years described gruesome scenes of the dying prisoner convulsing and vomiting as he was administered the lethal injections.

John Grant, 60, was pronounced dead at 4.21pm on Thursday at McAlester state penitentiary after he was injected with a triple cocktail of midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. Later, the department of corrections said the killing had gone “in accordance with protocols and without complication”.

But eyewitness accounts from reporters at McAlester’s supposedly state-of-the-art death chamber gave a very different account
. Dan Snyder, an anchor at the Oklahoma TV channel Fox 25, said that events went drastically off course the instant the first drug, the sedative midazolam, was injected into the prisoner.

“Almost immediately after the drug was administered, Grant began convulsing, so much so that his entire upper back repeatedly lifted off the gurney,” Snyder reported. “As the convulsions continued, Grant then began to vomit. Multiple times over the course of the next few minutes medical staff entered the death chamber to wipe away and remove vomit from the still-breathing Grant.”


It took 15 minutes for Grant to be declared unconscious by medical staff, after which the vecuronium bromide, which paralyses the body, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart, were given.

On Twitter, Snyder gave his response to the state’s official claim that all had gone according to plan. “As a witness to the execution who was in the room, I’ll say this: repeated convulsions and extensive vomiting for nearly 15 minutes would not seem to be ‘without complication’.”

Accounts of the botched execution of Grant, who was being put to death for the murder in 1998 of a prison cafeteria worker while he was already serving a sentence for armed robberies, will come as a deep embarrassment for Oklahoma. No judicial killings have taken place in the state since 2015 after a spate of botched procedures caused widespread alarm and forced the authorities to review their use of lethal injection drugs.

In 2018, officials in the state went as far as to announce they would abandon lethal injections entirely, due to the protocol’s lack of transparency and to the inhumane executions that had taken place. But in August the state reversed that decision, saying it would resume executions without giving an explanation for the U-turn or revealing critical details about how it intended to carry out the killings.

The state’s six-year hiatus was prompted in part by the execution in 2014 of Clayton Lockett, who writhed and groaned on the gurney for 43 minutes before he was declared dead after the intravenous line through which the lethal drugs were delivered was inserted improperly. The gruesome descriptions of his death by eyewitnesses in the Guardian and elsewhere caused nationwide revulsion.

The following year the state used the wrong drug to kill Charles Warner. In the wake of these botched procedures a bipartisan commission reviewed the state’s death penalty system and issued a highly critical report that called for the moratorium on capital punishment to be extended.

Maya Foa, joint executive director of the human rights group Reprieve US, said that Grant had suffered the “same horrifying fate as Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner”. The disturbing scenes had occurred as a result of the state returning to the failed methods of lethal injections “under cover of secrecy”.

Foa added that “these drugs were never intended for capital punishment, and it is little wonder that the healthcare companies that make them universally and publicly oppose their misuse in executions. What happened yesterday shows lethal injection is broken beyond repair.”

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told Associated Press that Grant’s convulsing and vomiting was extremely rare. “I’ve never heard of or seen that. That is notable and unusual.”


Grant’s execution was allowed to proceed on Thursday after the US supreme court voted five to three, with the three liberal justices dissenting, to allow the judicial killing to go ahead. It is unclear whether the descriptions of his death will affect future planned executions in the state.

Oklahoma has an aggressive calendar of executions scheduled, with six set to take place by the end of March.
I'm not sure why midazolam caused Grants to violently convulse. ERs regularly use midazolam to stop convulsions accompanying some forms of seizure disorder.

I hope one or more of the near future death penalty inmates will successfully get a court to pause all executions in Oklahoma again. Oklahoma isn't using lethal injection to execute inmates, it's using chemicals to torture inmates to death.

Michael Lee Wilson. Jan 9, 2014*
Kenneth Eugene Hogan. Jan 23, 2014
Clayton Lockett. April 29, 2014*
Charles Frederick Warner. Jan 15, 2015*
John Grant. Oct 28, 2021*

*Botched
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