Kenneth Smith, 58, is facing execution by an untested method that has never before been used in capital punishment in the US. It’s a technique that has been rejected on ethical grounds by veterinarians for the euthanasia of most animals other than pigs: death by nitrogen gas.
My argument was not to demonstrate that any given execution method might be bad, but the context in which something occurs fundamentally changes the nature of it. Because this method of execution is used in other ways in completely different contexts it does not necessarily mean it would be less painful or traumatic than other methods.
The nitrogen chamber appears to be less violent than a firing squad, but it is not certain whether this is the case. The purpose of banning certain execution methods and allowing others is not that one is cruel and unusual and the other is less so, it is to obfuscate the brutality of what executing a person is. If firing squad was the only allowable form of execution more people would oppose it due to the very clear presentation of what it is regardless of that method potentially being far less distressing and painful than the use of a small gas chamber.
Ah! Thanks for clearing that up. I understand your point. I’m not certain I agree though. As I wrote to another user downthread:
Using the stark, open, and obvious violence of a firing squad might make execution less palatable to the masses, but honestly, when are “the masses” actually exposed to footage of a criminal execution in the United States? We don’t normally film executions, and even when we do, we certainly do not broadcast them. Despite being one of the most carceral nations, typically unless a person has actually personally experienced prison, he or she largely has no idea what even goes on at that level, let alone death row.
It is true that executions by the state are not typically viewed by average people but the average person has probably been exposed to the way we execute people in one form or another. It could be through a re-enactment, a dramatization, a recounting, archived footage from a documentary, or some other such method. The idea that lethal injection is a humane method of punishment is much easier to sell than depicting a row of rifleman shooting someone full of holes. For example, until France abolished their death penalty their method of execution was guillotine within the walls of the prison. The idea of the state beheading people was too much for the sensibilities of France in the 70s even if they didn’t have to watch it happen. Beheading in this manner may also ultimately cause less panic and pain to an unwilling participant than a nitrogen chamber might but the idea of it is much more horrible.
My underlying point of course being that there isn’t really a humane way to kill someone or even a relatively humane way aside from deliberate torture. The idea that there might be I think allows the practice to continue by making it easier to tolerate even though it probably shouldn’t be. This is aside from the larger problems of it being completely permanent and therefore with zero tolerance for error or bias at best and legitimizing the idea that a state may legally kill its own citizens under some circumstances at worst. The case in this article is far from clear with the judge overruling their jury to impose a death sentence when the jury didn’t believe it was merited in this case. A judge being this cavalier about peoples’ lives being the final say in the matter to me indicates that the death penalty is not being taken as seriously as it should.