Ohio politicians may be poised to consider whether the state might break its unofficial moratorium on the death penalty by following Alabama in using nitrogen gas to execute inmates.
Ohio hasn’t executed anyone since 2018. In 2020, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine declared lethal injection “no longer an option,” citing a federal judge’s ruling that the protocol could cause inmates “severe pain and needless suffering.”
Republican state Attorney General Dave Yost scheduled a news conference Tuesday to discuss “next steps to kickstart” Ohio’s capital punishment system. He has expressed support for the nitrogen gas method used for the first time in Alabama last week, when convicted murderer Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was put to death with nitrogen gas administered through a face mask to deprive him of oxygen.
The execution could hardly be considered a success. The mask wasn’t sealed properly to his face and allowed oxygen to be inhaled as well. Nitrogen-execution requires a complete lack of other trace gasses to effectively asphyxiate without pain. This man suffered the equivalent of drowning for 22 minutes.
Why do people keep speculating on the reason it took a reported 22 minutes? It’s more likely that asphyxiation regardless of the method implemented is a poor way to execute people. I’m aware of the science behind using this gas but it’s never been used in this specific way. Now we are trying to say the mask wasn’t sealed around his face? What about the small traces of oxygen already in his lungs? What happens when his body switches over to anaerobic metabolic functions to try to keep the body alive. Probably the seizure like convulsions they saw. Acting as if this is a sound way to kill people but it “just needs to be done properly” is laughable at best. First, states that love executions don’t really care about getting it right. All the other forms of execution were said to be painless and quick when done “right”. Second, the humane execution came about for the executioner not for the condemned. The person turning on the gas wants to go home and think they just made the person slip into death peacefully. But the reality is killing is killing. Humanity only knows of one fullprof way for a painless death. Severing the brain instantly.
there have been plenty of accidental inert gas suffications and use with animals to know how it works and yes it was the mask. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation
This will inevitably come out to be not accurate for human executions. And it’s sickening to think about the number of victims will be tortured before the courts put a stop to it. Once again theirs a difference between none sentient animals unknowingly asphyxiating or a terminally ill person who’s on other drugs to make the transition easy. But go on. This idea is no different than what was found about lethal injection, the electric chair, and the first gas chamber. (people were adamant about those being quick and painless until the glaring evidence became to large to wave off by animal experiments.) Sad to see so many people not have a sceptical eye on how the government chooses to kill people.
The accidents were humans. it was the mask with the prisoner for sure in this case. don’t get me wrong. executions just should not happen but this is as humane as you get. this is how I would go out to avoid the end stages of a horrible disease.
this is so unacceptable and quite frankly makes me wonder if it was intentional by someone like corroded who wanted suffering. inert gas is the easiest way to have death without suffering.
This guy stabbed an innocent women to death for some cash.
I hope each of those 22 minutes was pure torture.
Stop allowing others’ choices to impair your judgement.
My judgment is not clouded. Good people deserve to be happy, and bad people deserve to suffer. If you brutally murder someone for financial gain, you’re a bad person, and you should endure suffering. Yes, that’s inhumane, as it should be. In this case, the punishment fits the crime.
bad people do not deserve to suffer as suffering has no point. They deserve to be cleared from the board to avoid suffering for others.