State’s ‘slow and agonizing’ execution of Kenneth Smith using an untested method labeled as cruel by experts and advocates

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/14097254

Smith’s execution by “nitrogen hypoxia” took around 22 minutes, according to media witnesses, who were led into a viewing room at the William C Holman correctional facility in Atmore shortly before 8 pm local time.

After the nitrogen gas began flowing, Smith convulsed on the gurney for several minutes. The state had previously said the nitrogen gas would cause Smith to lose consciousness in seconds and die within minutes, according to the Associated Press.

“I’ve been to four previous executions and I’ve never seen a condemned inmate thrash in the way that Kenneth Smith reacted to the nitrogen gas,” Lee Hedgepeth, a journalist who witnessed the execution, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    102·
    5 个月前

    And even if he was in a pod where the nitrogen level rose, making his death as physically painless as possible (or so we believe), he still knows he is going to die. That’s torture. It should not be legal.

    • limonfiesta@lemmy.worldEnglish
      152·
      5 个月前

      I disagree that a painless execution is torture, even if I understand where you’re coming from.

      My objection to capital punishment isn’t because I don’t believe some people deserve death.

      My objection is simply that innocent people are convicted all the time, but at least unjust incarceration is situation that can be reversed.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        74·
        5 个月前

        Psychological torture is still torture. Federal agents/Secret police/Military/etc. in many countries have been known to do all sorts of painless torture methods such as sleep deprivation and constant loud music. And then there are things like waterboarding, where it is almost certain that you won’t die, but you will feel like you’re drowning the entire time. It is torture even if you know you’re going to live through the waterboarding.

        Christopher Hitchens was waterboarded and wrote about how it was torture.

        Torture does not have to be painful or even involve physical contact.

        • limonfiesta@lemmy.worldEnglish
          93·
          5 个月前

          So if I’m sentenced to 20 years for first degree murder, is the fear and terror I feel over losing my freedom the state torturing me?

          What about if my doctor’s office refuses to give me my diagnosis over the phone on a Friday, and tells me I have to wait for an office appointment on Monday. Is that torture? Should I file a legal complaint or try to get charges pressed?

          You’re conflating internal agony and anticipatory fear, with actual externally applied methods of torture.

          I understand what point you’re trying to make, but words have meaning and if everything is torture, then how bad can torture really be?

          • ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.comEnglish
            16·
            5 个月前

            If you redefine torture into any form of discomfort sure. But that is not what the word means.

            “the action or practice of inflicting severe pain or suffering on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something.”

            So solitary is for sure torture. Normal prison shouldn’t be but can for sure be in some cases. It’s only slightly better than the corporeal punishments (lashes, stockade) of old in my opinion.

            How would actually killing someone, with the person being killed being fully aware that it happens, as it happens. Not be “externally applied methods of torture”? Asphyxiation has been used as a method of torture for millennia.

            • limonfiesta@lemmy.worldEnglish
              4·
              5 个月前

              You realize that my questions were rhetorical, right?

              Re-read the comment chain, maybe you meant to reply to someone else?

              • ninjan@lemmy.mildgrim.comEnglish
                15·
                5 个月前

                No. I’m saying it’s you who don’t understand what torture means and your “rhetorical questions” are daft and completely unrelated to what anyone in the thread is saying.

                • limonfiesta@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  3·
                  5 个月前

                  Seeing as these all flow down from my original response, I’m pretty sure it’s you who doesn’t understand the context of the conversation.

                  Also, the torture in question wasn’t the execution method. So again, I suggest you re-read the comment thread.

    • ConfusedPossum@kbin.social
      6·
      5 个月前

      Agreed, the death penalty is inherently cruel, no matter what the person has done. Especially if you make people wait for decades in a prison cell before the sentence is carried out

      • limonfiesta@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        5 个月前

        The decades are a function of the appeals processes; some mandatory, and others initiated by inmates.

        I’m not sure fast tracking the process would be an improvement…