U.S. states could turn to firing squads if execution drugs scarce

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

U.S. states could turn to firing squads if execution drugs scarce
Source: Reuters - Sat, 18 Jan 2014 12:21 AM

By Kevin Murphy

Jan 17 (Reuters) - Lawmakers for at least two U.S. states say they should conduct executions by firing squad if opposition to capital punishment by pharmaceutical companies makes it hard to obtain drugs for lethal injections.

States have turned to pharmacies that customize drugs and adopted untested new mixes after supplies of traditional execution drugs were cut off by manufacturers opposed to their use for the procedure.

The debate over lethal injections was reignited on Thursday when an inmate gasped and convulsed violently during his execution in Ohio as the state used a two-drug method for the first time in the United States.

Missouri state Representative Rick Brattin, said Friday the controversy over lethal injections forces families of murder victims to wait too long for justice so he introduced his bill Thursday to add "firing squad" as an execution option.


Read more: http://www.trust.org/item/20140118000421-xxk5c/

[Ash_F]

1. Feels weird being on the same side as Pharm companies

I am still comforted in knowing I am not on the same side as such illustrious governments as North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia!

[7962]

4. And yet abortion is mostly legal in those countries too! nt

[sharp_stick]

14. It's mostly forced

not necessarily just legal.

[Scootaloo]

17. No, it's certainly not

North Korea, yes - refugees returning from China and Russia have been forced to undergo forced abortions and infanticide, as a state policy to keep Korea "Korean."

Saudi Arabia and Iran do not force abortion. Saudi Arabia forbids "on-demand" abortions... but has a laundry list of medical conditions and mental stats that abortion is permissible for. Iran does the same thing. net result is that abortion is illegal, except for the majority of the time where it's not.

Sounds to me like you've been reading some bad sources.

[Incitatus]

8. It is strange seeing pharmaceutical companies refuse to make a profit on ethical grounds.

My understanding is that lethal injection is just the use of a few basic chemicals that any manufacturer could produce. There's one that puts you to sleep like they use for surgeries, a muscle relaxer and potassium chloride to stops your heart. I find it hard to believe that states can't get their hands on these drugs. Kevorkian did it for years by himself. For the record I do oppose capital punishment, but there's something about the story that doesn't make sense.

[cosmicone]

11. The drugs are available

but the Pharma companies say that they will stop shipments of ALL their other drugs to a state if any drug is used for the death penalty.

This makes it impossible for a state to take a chance even though the drug is available in the neighborhood pharmacy.

[treestar]

23. Yeah, who knew they were not the font of all evil?

Selling the drugs would make them a profit. I thought that was all they cared about.

[primavera]

25. We don't execute enough people for it to be profitable

If lethal injection drugs were a billion dollar a year industry, I have no doubt that the pharmaceutical companies would be only too happy to set aside their ethical qualms for the sake of the almighty dollar.

[mindwalker_i]

2. Nah, just call Dominos

[adirondacker]

3. What a sick and disturbing country we live in. nt

[Red Mountain]

6. If you don't like China.....

you should get the hell out!

[FarPoint]

5. I'm okay with this option.

I was thinking about the firing squad just today. A quick bullet between the eyes I'm guess is the most effective target site....I sense that will get it done promptly.

I live in Ohio and the execution was a hot new story for the past few days.

I don't think he really suffered by the new drugs either.....but I wasn't there....

[Red Mountain]

7. You know what would be cool.....

turn it into a game show. Wire up a thousand buttons to drop a guillotine blade and let people compete to be one of the people lucky enough to push a button.

Only ONE would be the real one, of course.

[Judi Lynn]

9. They could make it generate revenue, too! Maybe sell opportunities to get a button,

to partake in the great whackoff, and the proceeds could go to further lower the taxes of the 1%, bless their hearts.

[Fumesucker]

39. Could do it over the internet, one IP address gets to actually push the key that drops the blade

They could make millions out of that.

[Historic NY]

12. Well they could off-shore the work....

I'm surprised they have privitized this yet.

[marble falls]

13. Just what we need. More gun vioence.

[blkmusclmachine]

15. NRA approved, I'm sure.

[jmowreader]

16. Not Texas?

[Scootaloo]

18. Does the notion of maybe NOT killing people just not appear in lawmakers' heads?

Rather than considering the fact that if Pfizer - motherfucking Pfizer - is taking a ethical stance against doing something with hte product they create... then maybe just maybe it REALLY IS a bad idea to keep doing it?

[GliderGuider]

19. If y'all have to kill people, why not consider inert gas asphyxiation?

Inert gas asphyxiation

Inert gas asphyxiation is a form of asphyxiation which results from respiration of inert gas in the absence of oxygen rather than atmospheric air (a mixture of oxygen and the inert nitrogen). The painful experience of suffocation is not caused by lack of oxygen, but because carbon dioxide builds up in the bloodstream, instead of being exhaled as under normal circumstances. With inert gas asphyxiation, carbon dioxide is exhaled normally, and no such pain experience occurs.

Hypoxic atmospheres have been used as a method of animal slaughter in animals such as chickens, where it is known as controlled atmosphere killing.

An occasional cause of accidental death in humans, inert gas asphyxiation has been used as a suicide method, and has been advocated by proponents of euthanasia (using helium or nitrogen in a device called a suicide bag). Nitrogen asphyxiation has been suggested as a more humane way to carry out capital punishment, but so far this use of inert gas has not been attempted by any country, state or territory.

The fact that this technique has never been used for human executions strongly suggests that the motive behind execution is punishment, not the simple elimination of an egregious criminal. Old Sparky makes for a much more painful (for the victim) and entertaining (for the onlookers) event.

[safeinOhio]

21. I'll take laughing gas

turned up to 12.

[fbc]

20. How about opiate overdose?

Or how about anything while under anesthesia?

I'm not for the death penalty, but there sure seems like any number of ways to do it without causing pain if the goal is in fact a "humane" method of killing someone.

[davidpdx]

22. No hanging huh?

I thought the Republicans wanted to move us back 500 years?

[warrant46]

31. Burning at the Stake--- A time Honored Tradition

Take us back to Paris, Texas, Feb. 1, 1893.

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5487/

Paris, Texas, Feb. 1, 1893.—Henry Smith, the negro ravisher of 4-year-old Myrtle Vance, has expiated in part his awful crime by death at the stake.

Arriving here at 12 o’clock the train was met by a surging mass of humanity 10,000 strong. The negro was placed upon a carnival float in mockery of a king upon his throne, and, followed by an immense crowd, was escorted through the city so that all might see the most inhuman monster known in current history. Words to describe the awful torture inflicted upon Smith cannot be found.

The child’s father, her brother, and two uncles then gathered about the Negro as he lay fastened to the torture platform and thrust hot irons into his quivering flesh. It was horrible—the man dying by slow torture in the midst of smoke from his own burning flesh. Every groan from the fiend, every contortion of his body was cheered by the thickly packed crowd of 10,000 persons.

The men of the Vance family have wreaked vengeance, the crowd piled all kinds of combustible stuff around the scaffold, poured oil on it and set it afire. The Negro rolled and tossed out of the mass, only to be pushed back by the people nearest him. He tossed out again, and was roped and pulled back

[billh58]

38. The descendents of those

"10,000 strong" are alive and well, and that same mindset still exists.

[warrant46]

41. Most definitely!! They call themselves Republicans

And they are the SCUM who elected the Chimpanzee (below ) as their Governor



And this CLOWN CRUZ as their Senator

[davidpdx]

42. Egads, that is disgusting

[warrant46]

43. Just more Texas Justice being meted out

Shrub would have turned the mobs loose if he ruled 100 years ago

[treestar]

24. that does seem more merciful

the injection was supposed to be, but if it's not going to work out . . .

[nilesobek]

26. I'm against the death penalty

in most situations. Firing squad was considered an officer's death in WW2. Why should despicable convicted humans get the same treatment as an officer?

If you have to kill these guys bring back the rope.

[24601]

30. Military executions depended more on the nature of the offense rather than the rank of the offender.

Military related crimes, such as cowardice under fire or desertion would be firing squad. Murder and rape, more associated with customary criminal elements faced hanging. Spies were hung and as far back as the revolution, G. Washington denied British Major Andre a firing squad after he was caught in civilian clothes trying to cross lines with the West Point fortification plans provided by Benedict Arnold. The German saboteurs were executed in the electric chair.

[nilesobek]

45. Thanks for that information.

I knew that enemy officers, in general, would get the firing squad unless they were war criminals.

[leftyladyfrommo]

27. This thread seems completely crazy to me.

A discussion on how best to kill people?

Lordy, Lordy.

[Nye Bevan]

28. I know. People competing with each other to come up with creative execution methods

on a progressive discussion board. The mind boggles.

[leftyladyfrommo]

48. I think the whole concept of the death penalty is mind boggling.

It's totally barbaric.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

29. Or they could get their asses out of the Dark Ages and join the 21st Century.

Hmmm, decisions, decisions.

[SansACause]

32. A gun nut dream!

Finally! They'd get to shoot someone with NO legal ramifications! The volunteer line will be out the door and down the block.

[Paladin]

33. +100 (nt)

[onehandle]

34. Exactly. They are reading the Reuters story with one hand extremely busy at the prospect. nt

[mysuzuki2]

35. Just make them eat McDonalds for every meal.

It shouldn't take long! (actually I'm against the death penalty -just thought I'd add a ludicrous answer to kind of a strange thread).

[WilliamPitt]

36. "And soon, Your Honor..."

"...with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward, backward! through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!"

- Henry Drummond, "Inherit the Wind"

[yurbud]

37. that would be more honest. Most current methods are humane for audience

no blood, no mess, no big deal--except for the person being executed.

[flamingdem]

40. I'd pick a firing squad over some horrible drug

At least you could look them in the eye and know it was human foible not some uncertain chemical doing you in.

[Springslips]

44. If we are going to be monsters than might as well...

Just do it like the Tudor Days:

Drag them by horse to the execution site.
Hang them until amost dead.
Cut off their privy parts.
Disembowel them and burn their guts in front of them.
Chop off their head.
Quarter them.
Stake their head for three weeks at the state or national capital building.

Or we could just me, you know, be HUMAN BEINGS and abolish the death penalty altogether; either or.

[NickB79]

46. Firing squad was last used in Utah in 2010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_by_firing_squad#United_States

John Albert Taylor was executed in 1996. Taylor reportedly chose this method of execution, in the words of the New York Times, "to make a statement that Utah was sanctioning murder."[52] However, an article for the British newspaper The Times, written 14 years after his execution, quotes Taylor justifying his choice because he did not want to "flop around like a dying fish" during lethal injection.[53] A law passed on 15 March 2004, banned execution by firing squad in Utah, but since that specific law was not retroactive,[54] four inmates on Utah's death row (one, Roberto Arguelles, died of natural causes while on death row) could still opt for execution by firing squad.
Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by five anonymous officers on 18 June 2010. In February 1996, Gardner threatened to sue to force the state of Utah to execute him by firing squad. He said that he preferred this method of execution because of his "Mormon heritage." Gardner also felt that lawmakers were trying to eliminate the firing squad, in opposition to popular opinion in Utah, because of concern over the state's image in the 2002 Winter Olympics.[55]

[Paladin]

47. "Mormon Heritage"

That heritage, and its direct relationship to Utah's use of firing squads, is dealt with in Norman Mailer's brilliant book on Gary Gilmore, "The Executioner's Song." It turns out that blood atonement is part of Mormon doctrine---thus the preference for firing squads instead of comparatively blood-free executions via lethal injection, hanging, or electric chair.