Electric chair sure is making a comeback in Tennessee

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Tennessee executed five inmates in less than a year, after almost ten years of hiatus. Three out of five opted to die in the electric chair, fearing complications with the lethal injection process, the most recent one being on August 15. The first of five executions, a badly botched injection, likely played a role here.

Additionally, a few years back, Tennessee became the first state to mandate electrocution if lethal injection drugs are not available, which is yet to occur. The last person executed via electrocution who had no other option to pick was in 2002 in Alabama. The last state to retain the chair as its sole means of execution was Nebraska, until it was ruled unconstitutional in 2008.

[Progressive Pessimist]

That sure is an efficient use of taxpayer money...

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

I'm opposed to the Death Penalty, period.

[Strudelcutie4427]

That sure is an efficient use of taxpayer money...

Ropes and gravity are cheap too

[Green Line]

Probably more efficient than a lethal injection.  Firing squad would be good also, and obviously guillotine but thats not coming back for obvious reasons.

[Kingpoleon]

I'm opposed to the Death Penalty, period.

This, but any jury that recommends a death sentence or judge who rules one should take place should have to personally poison/stab/shoot the condemned.

[here2view]

For those interested, the backup methods of execution after lethal injection by form are:

Electrocution: 6 states (AR, FL, KY, OK, SC, and TN)
Lethal Gas: 4 states (AL, MO, OK, and WY)
Firing Squad: 2 states (OK and UT)

I'm kinda surprised hanging isn't one of the backup methods mentioned, although it hasn't been used by a state since 1996. Execution by firing squad was used more recently (2010).

[Grassroots]

This is fine, but is a little expensive. Cheaper methods?

[Badger]

This is fine, but is a little expensive. Cheaper methods?

( bangs head on keyboard)

[Goldwater]

For those interested, the backup methods of execution after lethal injection by form are:

Electrocution: 6 states (AR, FL, KY, OK, SC, and TN)
Lethal Gas: 4 states (AL, MO, OK, and WY)
Firing Squad: 2 states (OK and UT)

I'm kinda surprised hanging isn't one of the backup methods mentioned, although it hasn't been used by a state since 1996. Execution by firing squad was used more recently (2010).

FF states.

[Sir Mohamed]

Terrible. Capital punishment needs to be abolished. If this saves just one innocent life, it's worth it.

[pbrower2a]

Nitrogen asphyxiation is on the way. Pure nitrogen poses no degradation of the body, does not depend on executioners finding a vein (as with long-term users of injected drugs) and poses no danger to the staff that must dispose of the body (as is the case with cyanide). The condemned simply quits breathing after he exhales the last oxygen that he will ever have in his lungs while alive. The process is apparently painless, as persons who have walked into pure nitrogen and died showed no sign of having thought anything wrong.

If anything, the pure nitrogen could come with an attractive scent that tells the defendant that the end is nigh -- if that is an objective.

It is best that we abandon capital punishment, more questionable for the capriciousness of the legal process that achieves it than for cruelty to the condemned. But if we must execute killers, then nitrogen asphyxiation seems the right way to go.  Second-best is a well-performed long-drop hanging. even if such results in effective beheading of the condemned.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

For those interested, the backup methods of execution after lethal injection by form are:

Electrocution: 6 states (AR, FL, KY, OK, SC, and TN)
Lethal Gas: 4 states (AL, MO, OK, and WY)
Firing Squad: 2 states (OK and UT)

I'm kinda surprised hanging isn't one of the backup methods mentioned, although it hasn't been used by a state since 1996. Execution by firing squad was used more recently (2010).

Only three people were executed by hanging post-1977 (two in Washington, one in Delaware), all having selected the method. I believe NH was the most recent state to have it as a sole method, though it hasn't been used since 1939 and the state just abolished capital punishment.

Two states now allows inert gas asphyxiation, as a secondary or backup method (Alabama and Mississippi), with Oklahoma actually making it a primary method, but is yet to actually devise the protocol. We don't know when and where it'll be first used.

[MarkD]

For those interested, the backup methods of execution after lethal injection by form are:

Electrocution: 6 states (AR, FL, KY, OK, SC, and TN)
Lethal Gas: 4 states (AL, MO, OK, and WY)
Firing Squad: 2 states (OK and UT)

I'm kinda surprised hanging isn't one of the backup methods mentioned, although it hasn't been used by a state since 1996. Execution by firing squad was used more recently (2010).

I'd really be supportive of executing people by smooshing them under a steam roller.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

It is best that we abandon capital punishment, more questionable for the capriciousness of the legal process that achieves it than for cruelty to the condemned. But if we must execute killers, then nitrogen asphyxiation seems the right way to go.  Second-best is a well-performed long-drop hanging. even if such results in effective beheading of the condemned.

If we're talking about decapitation, the guillotine would've been better than ripping someone's head off.

A long-drop hanging is relatively quick, provided it's being done by an Albert Pierrepoint-esque professional, which would probably be very difficult to get given U.S. procedures on carrying out the death penalty. There are no skilled, really professional executioners. In many states the job fells to correctional officials (like it fell to sherrifs in the old days), or the state hires a randon anonymous psycho to push the button (like in Florida). One of the reasons U.S. hangings were so notorious for f**k ups was a lack of such trained professionals.

Historically, among methods used on the U.S., the firing squad, has fewest instances of botched executions, and it would be my preferred method to go out if I were on death tow. If my choice were limited between lethal injection or electrocution, I can seriously see myself going for the chair. It's a ghastly spectacle and the whole "you lose consciousness just as the surge hits you" was never proven, but it's quicker and there were fewer botched electrocutions than injections in post-Gregg era.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

This is fine, but is a little expensive. Cheaper methods?

( bangs head on keyboard)

The first Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia actually ordered that executions should be done by bayonetting to save expensive bullets.

[Badger]

This is fine, but is a little expensive. Cheaper methods?

( bangs head on keyboard)

The first Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia actually ordered that executions should be done by bayonetting to save expensive bullets.

I recall. Lost my reaction to an American Teenager and a genocide dictator having even somewhat similar views of cost-effective capital punishment.

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

For those interested, the backup methods of execution after lethal injection by form are:

Electrocution: 6 states (AR, FL, KY, OK, SC, and TN)
Lethal Gas: 4 states (AL, MO, OK, and WY)
Firing Squad: 2 states (OK and UT)

I'm kinda surprised hanging isn't one of the backup methods mentioned, although it hasn't been used by a state since 1996. Execution by firing squad was used more recently (2010).

FF states.

[Strudelcutie4427]

Fwiw, I like the nitrogen idea

[emailking]

I'm opposed to the Death Penalty, period.

This, but any jury that recommends a death sentence or judge who rules one should take place should have to personally poison/stab/shoot the condemned.

The jury is basically making a finding of fact, whether the aggravating factors of the crime outweigh the mitigating factors. In theory, it is not a matter of opinion or subject to their feelings about the death penalty. They can of course disclose in voir dire that they would not be comfortable giving a death sentence in which case they would be struck. But that also means they would not participate in the guilt phase.

[AN63093]

My opinion on capital punishment is rather simple- I have no moral objection to it, but think it should be reserved for those who we can be certain of guilt (e.g., mass murderers, terrorists, people caught in the act of committing the crime, etc.), and I'm generally opposed otherwise- for the simple reason that if new evidence is discovered that indicates a verdict must have been wrong, the state cannot practically correct the situation or fairly compensate someone who has already been executed.

That being said, it always seemed to me that the firing squad was the obvious choice, with maybe gas as a secondary, and I have no idea why we ever used injection in the first place, except for the misguided belief that there was something "clinical" about it (though the history of its use indicates it actually has a much higher failure rate than other methods).

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

That being said, it always seemed to me that the firing squad was the obvious choice, with maybe gas as a secondary, and I have no idea why we ever used injection in the first place, except for the misguided belief that there was something "clinical" about it (though the history of its use indicates it actually has a much higher failure rate than other methods).

Very good point. It's been always my suspicion that adoption of lethal injection was in no small part motivated by states' desire to avoid unpleasant spectacles, which inevitably generate controversy. You know, almost like putting somebody to sleep: a death without the appearance of death. That's why quicker methods like firing squad had been abandoned even though it's much more "merciful" to to prisoner, but it does involve visible violence and blood.

I'm a layman in medical field, but I think another problem is that the whole lethal injection protocol is just flawed.