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Oklahoma plans to start carrying out executions with nitrogen gas, a method that has never been used in the U.S. but that some states have already approved amid difficulties with lethal injections.
At a news conference Wednesday, Oklahoma Atty. Gen. Mike Hunter and Corrections Director Joe M. Allbaugh said that over the next few months the state would develop a protocol for using nitrogen.
[...] In recent years, Oklahoma and other states have struggled to obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections, the most common execution method but one that has increasingly faced scrutiny.
In 2015, a state court put a moratorium on executions in Oklahoma after a series of botched executions, including one in which an inmate convulsed for 43 minutes before dying and another in which the wrong drug was administered.
Oklahoma is poised to become the first state to use nitrogen gas in executions
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 16 2018, @04:09AM (3 children)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 16 2018, @09:38AM (2 children)
Please accompany me over here to the "I would prefer death" window. Please fill out this form and then push the buzzer once it is signed and dated. Before you begin, could you do me one small favor? Can move over just a smidgen? You need to be standing on the red "X". Thanks so much.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 16 2018, @05:50PM (1 child)
The word "window" actually prompted an image in my head: instead of securely locking up the death penalty prisoners and then having trouble executing them, how about putting them on the highest floor, and each time they go for a walk, they pass by a door that leads to a five-story drop (with a safety to make sure accidents don't happen, and a tarp at the bottom)...
The state has decided you should die, and if you are not fighting it (psychos and/or overwhelming evidence), you are allowed to regain control of your own death and save us money and logistics.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 16 2018, @07:25PM
And if it's actually inmate #2 that decided you should take a flight? After all, moderating violence between inmates is one of the big reasons for individual cells.
Still, it seems like a suicide booth would make for a valuable addition to pretty much any prison, and it should be easy enough to make it so you have to lock the door and then intentionally activate it, so nobody else can make the choice for you. Nitrogen asphyxiation is probably still one of the cheaper and cleaner ways to go about it though - nitrogen is really easy to make: just burn a carbon-rich fuel in air until no more will burn, and then pass the air through an alkaline filter to separate out the resulting CO2. Any CO impurities aren't a problem since killing the person breathing it is the whole point.