Are Certain Executions Unconstitutional or Inhumane??

[SoonerP226]

My Kaw indian gramma 'traumatized' us many times when I was a little kid by watching her go out in the yard and come back with a chicken and then killing it in front of us in the backyard. Her style was pretty brutal, yet she was very sweet with us. Later we were enjoying some good ol grammas fried chicken so I guess I wasnt too traumatized cause I ate it all up.

My mom told me about my grandmother killing chickens (she had a very sharp knife for the job), but I never saw her do it. The closest I came was at my paternal grandparents' house when my youngest uncle brought back a mess of quail that he'd shot at the farm; one of them wasn't quite dead, and commenced to running around the yard. A Browning Sweet 16 ended its little exercise period.

My mom told me a story about when my grandpa got sent out to kill a couple of chickens. Just like Grandma, he hung them upside down on the clothesline and lopped their heads off. Unlike Grandma, he didn't take down the clean laundry first...

 

[Travis798]

As far as the steel rod used in a slaughterhouse, even it isn't 100%. I worked as a contractor in one once running some drain pipe and the workers told us about one not dying. It ended up breaking loose and running around the kill floor mad as hell. They said it took an hour to catch it and finish the job. The Rabbi with a sword for the Kosher beef did a pretty awesome job though. Maybe they will sub-contract for the state on the side.

No method of execution will be 100% instantaneous and reliable. With that said, you gotta do some pretty bad stuff to get the death penalty, so no botched execution will probably be as bad as those guys deserve.

 

[CHenry]

I've killed several calves with a 22 short. We butchered our own beef for years and my little browning shoots shorts only. Don't know about a 38.

Hmm? Well I watched a buddy try to kill a sick cow with a .38 to the forehead and it didn't even penetrate the skull. We were both shocked and I told him to put the next round in its ear. That worked.

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[farmerbyron]

Hmm? Well I watched a buddy try to kill a sick cow with a .38 to the forehead and it didn't even penetrate the skull. We were both shocked and I told him to put the next round in its ear. That worked.

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The forehead is probably the thickest part of the skull. I've seen .243 not give instakill on a headshot. Need to shoot them in the side of the head in between the eye and the ear. The brain resides there and the side if the skull are less likely to deflect a bullet than the forehead.

 

[CHenry]

The forehead is probably the thickest part of the skull. I've seen .243 not give instakill on a headshot. Need to shoot them in the side of the head in between the eye and the ear. The brain resides there and the side if the skull are less likely to deflect a bullet than the forehead.

Yep, we learned this the hard way. Had I been the shooter, I would have put the first one in the ear.

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[cmhbob]

If we're still going to encourage The State to kill people given the error rate of capital punishment, let's make it simple, easy, and quick: nitrogen asphyxiation. It requires no special training, like marksmanship, or skills, like correctly setting the drop for hanging based on the condemned person's weight. There are no risks of fire, like with the electric chair. You simply put someone in an airtight chamber, pump out the oxygen, and replace it with nitrogen. Much less of a risk than cyanide gas. Once the execution is complete (verified with external cardiac monitoring), you open teh chamber door, letting the outside air rush in. There's no need to vent a toxic gas to the atmosphere.

 

[nofearfactor]

There has been alot of new stuff reported. The guy pretty much was in refusal mode all that day. Refused to eat his last meal because he didnt get the surfnturf he 'ordered' (seems there is a $15 limit on the "last" meal); he wouldnt cooperate when they were trying to do the IV so they ended up putting it in his groin, hence most likely the problem with the vein besides his squirming around which got him tazed on the table. The guy was very muscular and had good veins according to another report but he was struggling so much against the actions of the staff.

 

[tRidiot]

If we're still going to encourage The State to kill people given the error rate of capital punishment, let's make it simple, easy, and quick: nitrogen asphyxiation. It requires no special training, like marksmanship, or skills, like correctly setting the drop for hanging based on the condemned person's weight. There are no risks of fire, like with the electric chair. You simply put someone in an airtight chamber, pump out the oxygen, and replace it with nitrogen. Much less of a risk than cyanide gas. Once the execution is complete (verified with external cardiac monitoring), you open teh chamber door, letting the outside air rush in. There's no need to vent a toxic gas to the atmosphere.

Pumping out the oxygen is going to cause hypoxia - quite traumatic.

Nitrogen narcosis results when increased barometric pressure causes significant increase in the amount of nitrogen to be dissolved into the blood, but not in the absence of oxygen... like in deep-water diving. But this requires a bariatric chamber. I don't see the state spending the money for that.

 

[tRidiot]

There has been alot of new stuff reported. The guy pretty much was in refusal mode all that day. Refused to eat his last meal because he didnt get the surfnturf he 'ordered' (seems there is a $15 limit on the "last" meal); he wouldnt cooperate when they were trying to do the IV so they ended up putting it in his groin, hence most likely the problem with the vein besides his squirming around which got him tazed on the table. The guy was very muscular and had good veins according to another report but he was struggling so much against the actions of the staff.

This was my thought... a lost venipuncture site due to struggling/refusal to cooperate, makes it a much much more difficult process - this I can vouch for from personal experience. Trying to sedate a struggling patient, especially one who is literally fighting "for his life" is dangerous and difficult and a no-win situation, honestly.

If this is indeed what happened, it wasn't a poor process or poor drugs or poor methodology or whatever - if he died in pain because of that, then that's his own problem.

I still vote for the .45ACP to the back of the head/base of the skull.

 

[ChuckC]

Give them whatever they gave me when I had a colonoscopy then execute them with whatever method they want. Once I was under I think they could have cut my head off with a rusty hand saw and I'da never known the difference.