Thread

Tennessee inmate still alive after being administered two lethal injections

47 points · 139 comments · techolic

joegibbs · 1790833441 · focus · HN ↗
I am very against medicalised punishments like this. It’s bad for medicine as a whole to be associated with it. I also think it prolongs the suffering of the person and often has things like this happen, and is mainly for the benefit of the audience not wanting to see icky blood.
What is wrong with firing squads? They have been used longer than lethal injections. If they didn’t succeed the first time they can fire again. There’s no danger of the drugs not working or not being able to find a vein.
Also I don’t think it’s right for a prisoner to be on death row for most of their lives. 4-5 years is good enough, but after that it’s cruel.
1. Someone · 1790836268 · focus · HN ↗
  > What is wrong with firing squads? They have been used longer than lethal injections. If they didn’t succeed the first time they can fire again.
  Many jurisdictions (I would hope all) have laws against cruel punishment. Having to retry an execution definitely falls under that.
  (Also, for many, there’s something wrong with capital punishment, to start with, but that’s a different discussion)
  1. roryirvine · 1790844711 · focus · HN ↗
    Agreed. Mock executions are considered to be a form of torture. Botched executions are perhaps even worse, given the actual physical pain and severe risk of brain injuries being inflicted.
  2. flowerthoughts · 1790846151 · focus · HN ↗
    The news is that lethal injections are legal, but required a retry. GP asked: So why not a firing squad? Them retrying might be less cruel than reinjection.
  3. ashleyn · 1790862147 · focus · HN ↗
    >Many jurisdictions (I would hope all) have laws against cruel punishment. Having to retry an execution definitely falls under that.
    US case law disagrees. From a botched execution of a child, even: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Francis" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Francis
2. dyauspitr · 1790837792 · focus · HN ↗
  If I had to die I want the injection because if it works right you just doze off and die. That compared to being tied to a pole and have people fire guns at you seems terrible. There is a significant chance of serious pain and suffering.
  1. ndsipa_pomu · 1790842447 · focus · HN ↗
    I think you have that the wrong way round. The injection is far more likely to cause intense pain and suffering due to the lack of medical professionals being involved (it's not a medical procedure). The drugs are often obtained from "dodgy" sources and so the dosage can't be determined due to the variability of the drugs. The lack of medical professionals will often mean that the injections are poorly administered (e.g. missing a vein).
    I was just reading a Reddit post from a veterinarian and the protocol for euthanising animals is far better than that used for lethal injections - notably pre-meds are used to sedate the patient and prevent breathing issues and panic.
    A bullet or two to the head is far more effective and reliable. The only downside to lethal shooting is that it looks too barbaric to observers.
  2. drcongo · 1790842621 · focus · HN ↗
    Doze off and die is not what happens.
  3. ashleyn · 1790862758 · focus · HN ↗
    "If it works right" is doing quite the heavy lifting here. The adminsitering guards are not medical professionals, nor are the people designing the protocols.
3. godwinson__4-8 · 1790837825 · focus · HN ↗
  Firing squads should be making a comeback given recent Trump DOJ guidelines that break with what had been the precedent on these questions.
  Perhaps this will turn into a test case that furthers Republican zeal for firing squads since presumably they are still obligated to kill her and it seems unlikely (as you point out) that a firing squad would replicate this same sort of failure, certainly not if they are also allowed two (times n firing squad members) shots at it if you'll pardon the unfortunate language.
  The current administration has been quite open about its preference for firing squads. Personally, I don't find this reassuring at all but maybe that's just me. By the way, much of the US prison system is cruel and unusual in my view. I used to think prison abolition was a naive concept until I attended a talk were the speaker pointed out the same sort of conservatism was used to urge that prior abolitions, notably of slavery, were not only undesirable but almost unnatural. It seems much as Aristotle could not really conceive of a world without slaves, most people today feel prisons are simply a natural, necessary artifact of civilization. Of course, much of it is not driven by anything approaching a learned Aristotelian principle but rather a sort of vicarious satisfaction in meeting a violation with a greater violence.
  The truth is the American prison system is largely barbaric. As usual the current president is less a sea change and more an unvarnished look into the prism of horrors that is the right-wing American mind.
4. WithinReason · 1790841991 · focus · HN ↗
  Why not use pure nitrogen gas? 100% working, no suffering.
  1. UncleMeat · 1790858769 · focus · HN ↗
    Because in the cases where we've used nitrogen gas we've observed people suffering. Nitrogen works if the victim breathes normally. But people naturally won't do that when you put the murder mask over their mouth and nose.
    karmakurtisaani · 1790859797 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm against the death penalty, but the engineer in me wants to solve this problem.
    So why not put the patient to sleep first with anesthetic drugs? After that the mask should not be a bother.
    roryirvine · 1790861451 · focus · HN ↗
    The problem is that anaesthesia has proven difficult for non-medics to reliably administer.
    (As demonstrated by this botched execution, which used pentobarbital - a barbituate used for anaesthesia)
    karmakurtisaani · 1790864132 · focus · HN ↗
    Right, then you need a medical professional willing to do it, and that probably gets difficult.
    [deleted] · 1790866225 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
  2. ashleyn · 1790862451 · focus · HN ↗
    Alabama did. In reality, the executions did not go as cleanly as the proposals suggested they would.
    <a href="https://eji.org/issues/alabama-botched-executions/" rel="nofollow">https://eji.org/issues/alabama-botched-executions/
    OutOfHere · 1790867749 · focus · HN ↗
    Studies are warranted to determine the pattern of introduction of nitrogen that eliminates any adverse sensations. The studies could probably be done on those seeking assisted suicide.
5. ButlerianJihad · 1790844879 · focus · HN ↗
  It may make pharma look bad, but that is an entirely accurate conclusion, and that is a big reason that they’ve begun refusing to distribute the lethal drugs that have been extremely efficacious.
  <a href="https://maps.app.goo.gl/5cp4NxZt8KMjA9Wa7?g_st=ac" rel="nofollow">https://maps.app.goo.gl/5cp4NxZt8KMjA9Wa7?g_st=ac
  Pharma would rather stick to their core competencies, such as pesticides and herbicides.
6. ashleyn · 1790861838 · focus · HN ↗
  Medical professionals do not take part in executions. Lethal injection has the vague trappings of a medical procedure, but is fundamentally not one. Prisons even must resort to trickery to obtain the drugs, as pharmaceutical organisations are prohibited ethically and even sometimes legally from selling to them.
  By and large I view the death penalty as anachronistic, but as long as it must exist, one gets the impression that firing squads and hangings are a hell of a lot more honest about what it really is.
  1. dyauspitr · 1790887116 · focus · HN ↗
    This is what I don’t understand. You don’t need a doctor to tell you what to do. Like ChatGPT 3.5 could tell you the best way to kill a person painlessly and effectively. Why don’t they just go with something better like nitrogen asphyxiation or a morphine overdose or something?
    evolvevia · 1790904285 · focus · HN ↗
    > Why don’t they just go with something better like nitrogen asphyxiation
    Alabama have just started using this method - and it appears to be extremely torturous. Rather than just passing out, the person suffocates while conscious:
    <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/26/alabama-nitrogen-gas-execution-torture" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/26/alabama-nitr...
    > or a morphine overdose
    Nebraska has tried using fentanyl. But the drug manufacturers are against it.
    <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45185687" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45185687
7. yimmo_7 · 1790863088 · focus · HN ↗
  > What is wrong with firing squads?
  Coming back in fashion? I've heard of at least two executions recently in which the condemned requested and were granted a firing squad execution.
  1. kyleee · 1790908474 · focus · HN ↗
    Nice, citations?
    yimmo_7 · 1791053861 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/07/us/brad-sigmon-south-carolina-firing-squad-execution" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/07/us/brad-sigmon-south-carolina...
    <a href="https://scdailygazette.com/2025/11/14/death-row-inmate-set-to-become-3rd-in-sc-executed-by-firing-squad/" rel="nofollow">https://scdailygazette.com/2025/11/14/death-row-inmate-set-t...
    Sounds like there's an additional one I'm missing at the moment. There's also been some loose murmurs about it in regards to that botched execution woman.
8. iamnothere · 1790863590 · focus · HN ↗
  I’m against capital punishment and I agree with you. If it’s to be done at all, it should be brutal, bloody, and instant. Capital punishment is barbaric and shouldn’t be concealed under false cover like medical procedure.
  A guillotine would also be acceptable.
  1. evolvevia · 1790904900 · focus · HN ↗
    > A guillotine would also be acceptable.
    The last execution by guillotine in France was surprisingly recent; 1977, the same year Star Wars was released.
    There is also some evidence that the head may stay conscious after decapitation (which would make it unnecessarily cruel):
    <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/nerve-connection-body-mind-decapitation-576727" rel="nofollow">https://www.newsweek.com/nerve-connection-body-mind-decapita...
9. belorn · 1790864909 · focus · HN ↗
  I would guess that most people being shot and dies do so from bleeding out or disruption to breathing, and not the impact itself. The only thing that actually is guarantied to work, fast and produce minimal pain would be an high speed explosion.
  1. simonra · 1790875306 · focus · HN ↗
    I thought overdosing on opiates was highly easy to achieve, basically pain free, and also relatively cheap even in the social backwaters of the world where they have death penalties?
    fatbird · 1790881996 · focus · HN ↗
    This is how pets are euthanized, usually, and it's about as humane as it gets. That said, you'd never sell this because the portion of the population who want the death penalty either want it to be inhumane, or would balk at the possibility of making the condemned euphoric before death.
    belorn · 1790884635 · focus · HN ↗
    How an opiate impact a person varies from person to person. Some would fall asleep, others would violently convulse, some would get trouble breathing, and others would get irregular heart rhythms and multiple heart attacks.
10. bestouff · 1790910376 · focus · HN ↗
  Just do stop killing people like any civilized country.

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