death penalty options (or, why don't we just give them a bunch of heroin?)

[dead0man]

It seems I've seen a satisfactory answer to this question before, but I can't remember what it is.  The question:if the current methods of execution suck for whatever reason, why don't we just give the convicted a big ol' bag of pure heroin and whatever tools they need?  Or shoot them in the back of the head when they are asleep?  Or any of the other dozens of fun and/or painless ways a human can die?

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I oppose the death penalty, but I unironically agree with George Carlin on the methods that should be available so long as it still exists. It's a better way to make a point, it will actually increase revenue, it may or may not deter future killers and pedophiles, and it will still keep some terrible people off the street:

1. The return and sponsorship of public executions, including crucifixions.

2. Chop the perp's head off over a slide and let people gamble on which hole the head is going to roll into.

3. Boil the perp alive. Sponsored by Crisco.

4. Dip the perp in brown gravy and lock them in a small room with a wolverine who's high on LSD.

5. Shoot the perp out of a catapult into a brick wall.

6. Take a small explosive, insert it inside the perp's genitals, and ignite it.

We do want to keep killing people humane though, so be fair and let the perps choose their method. Drug them up if for some reason they choose one of the slower deaths.

Again, not my own ideas. But stream these events online for a decent price. Age restricted, of course. And if we don't have the balls to handle that, maybe not do it at all.

[brucejoel99]

if the current methods of execution suck for whatever reason, why don't we just give the convicted a big ol' bag of pure heroin and whatever tools they need?

The 8th Amendment prohibits the government from imposing cruel & unusual punishments. Getting capital felons really high to die would be unusual, to the extent that I'd expect victim families to likely protest the justice-sanctioned euphoria that they'd be getting before they leave this world, & while you may think heroin might not be cruel, it very well could be. Consider that de-jure lethal injection (i.e., the old 3-drug combo) is meant to do 3 things in a specific order: cause unconsciousness, decrease respiration, & then stop the heart so that the condemned is pretty sure to be quickly & painlessly dead in a short amount of time. Inducing heroin overdoses would be nowhere as reliable. Just look at the Joplin, Belushi, or Farley autopsies: vomiting, convulsions, etc. In the absence of an exact method to determine how much of the drug will be needed to quickly & painlessly kill, it's less than ideal. Unless the goal is to defeat the purpose, it just can't be heroin to not cause undue suffering/avoid wrongful death lawsuits filed claiming that the executions were especially cruel.

Or shoot them in the back of the head when they are asleep?

Why go that far? Firing squads remain perfectly constitutional. Most state legislatures & gubernatorial signatures just aren't providing for them, which tracks when you consider that many policy* proponents of the death penalty want the condemned to suffer without a care for whether it's quick & painless, because giving them the option wouldn't fit with that mindset (*this is to distinguish from legal proponents thereof, who can abhor it but nevertheless concede constitutionality).

Or any of the other dozens of fun and/or painless ways a human can die?

No matter how fun, if "painless" instead of painless, then it's constitutionally improper. Ya, I know that the current SCOTUS disagrees, but that's at least what it's supposed to be (& was 'til the '09(?) combo loss didn't lead to abolition-via-attrition).

[Person Man]

What about Mortal Kombat fatalities? For example, stealing their soul or uppercutting them off a tall tower onto a bed of spikes?

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

In the United States, public lashings are deemed "cruel and unusual" (and thus impermissible) whereas life imprisonment without parole is not. Which one would you rather be subjected to? I know which one I would choose for myself, and it's not the life without parole. We have a kneejerk opposition to public lashings as being inhumane, but how can it really be more inhumane than life without parole if I and presumably a vast majority of others would prefer it?

Similarly, people's visceral reactions to different methods of executions are oftentimes at odds with which methods are actually the most painless. To many, a firing squad seems to be intuitively more barbaric than lethal injection, but it appears to actually be a superior choice for the victim.

TLDR: Our gut instincts as to what punishments are humane vs. inhumane may not actually be good reflections of what is best/preferable for the punished.

[Del Tachi]

All executions should be done by either hanging or firing squad.  These are the most proven methods of bringing about a quick, humane death.

Lethal injection only exists to place a medicalized veneer on top of the execution process.  It's a very telling revelation of our society's morbid fetishization of doctors that they're the ones we've chosen to preside over state-sanctioned killings. 

[Alcibiades]

All executions should be done by either hanging or firing squad.  These are the most proven methods of bringing about a quick, humane death.

Lethal injection only exists to place a medicalized veneer on top of the execution process.  It's a very telling revelation of our society's morbid fetishization of doctors that they're the ones we've chosen to preside over state-sanctioned killings. 

What on earth are you talking about? It is a huge violation of the Hippocratic Oath for doctors to partake in an execution in any way, so in America they are never involved with administering lethal injections. Instead it is done by prison staff, who often have very limited medical knowledge; this is why many lethal injections are botched.

[brucejoel99]

All executions should be done by either hanging or firing squad.  These are the most proven methods of bringing about a quick, humane death.

Lethal injection only exists to place a medicalized veneer on top of the execution process.  It's a very telling revelation of our society's morbid fetishization of doctors that they're the ones we've chosen to preside over state-sanctioned killings.  

What on earth are you talking about? It is a huge violation of the Hippocratic Oath for doctors to partake in an execution in any way, so in America they are never involved with administering lethal injections. Instead it is done by prison staff, who often have very limited medical knowledge; this is why many lethal injections are botched.

Not to mention that the characterization of lethal injection as something that we transitioned to due to societal medical fetishization is even more insane when one considers that it (or, at least, the original 3-drug combo) was transitioned to because it was legitimately more humane - by rendering the convict anesthetically unconscious before anything lethal happens, as one would when euthanizing a pet - in application than such previously-employed methods as hangings & firing squads. (I would totally agree, however, with a characterization that the continuation of unsafe legal injection after the 3-drug combo's disappearance-via-attrition only persists because people inertly tell themselves that it's humane since it used to be, even though it's emerged many times in the last decade that it's just not anymore.)

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

All executions should be done by either hanging or firing squad.  These are the most proven methods of bringing about a quick, humane death.

Lethal injection only exists to place a medicalized veneer on top of the execution process.  It's a very telling revelation of our society's morbid fetishization of doctors that they're the ones we've chosen to preside over state-sanctioned killings. 

What on earth are you talking about? It is a huge violation of the Hippocratic Oath for doctors to partake in an execution in any way, so in America they are never involved with administering lethal injections. Instead it is done by prison staff, who often have very limited medical knowledge; this is why many lethal injections are botched.

He's wrong about that, but he's right that people wrongly perceive lethal injection as more "humane" just because it feels vaguely more medical/science-y. It's somewhat similar to the "if a service is sh**ttier, it must cost less" assumptions that I've discussed with Vosem in the recent past. The public, especially a public like that of the US that's incredibly partisan yet staggeringly depoliticized when it comes to On The Issues acumen, has a hard time looking past appearances with things like this.

[Del Tachi]

All executions should be done by either hanging or firing squad.  These are the most proven methods of bringing about a quick, humane death.

Lethal injection only exists to place a medicalized veneer on top of the execution process.  It's a very telling revelation of our society's morbid fetishization of doctors that they're the ones we've chosen to preside over state-sanctioned killings. 

What on earth are you talking about? It is a huge violation of the Hippocratic Oath for doctors to partake in an execution in any way, so in America they are never involved with administering lethal injections. Instead it is done by prison staff, who often have very limited medical knowledge; this is why many lethal injections are botched.

You're wrong.  Doctors can and do participate in executions and there are many state laws that actually require it.  Another source here

The ethical guidelines of national medical associations are not binding law; medical licensing boards are quasi-legal state entities and, therefore, very unlikely to take action against doctors who participate in executions. 

[Alcibiades]

All executions should be done by either hanging or firing squad.  These are the most proven methods of bringing about a quick, humane death.

Lethal injection only exists to place a medicalized veneer on top of the execution process.  It's a very telling revelation of our society's morbid fetishization of doctors that they're the ones we've chosen to preside over state-sanctioned killings. 

What on earth are you talking about? It is a huge violation of the Hippocratic Oath for doctors to partake in an execution in any way, so in America they are never involved with administering lethal injections. Instead it is done by prison staff, who often have very limited medical knowledge; this is why many lethal injections are botched.

You're wrong.  Doctors can and do participate in executions and there are many state laws that actually require it.

The ethical guidelines of national medical associations are not binding law; medical licensing boards are quasi-legal state entities and, therefore, very unlikely to take action against doctors who participate in executions. 

This article is from 2009. In 2010, the American Board of Anesthesiologists voted to revoke the licenses of anaesthesiologists who participate in executions. I cannot find any record of doctors aiding lethal injections since, except for signing death certificates and a few who were present in the room without as passive observers without actively participating in administering the drugs.

[Del Tachi]

All executions should be done by either hanging or firing squad.  These are the most proven methods of bringing about a quick, humane death.

Lethal injection only exists to place a medicalized veneer on top of the execution process.  It's a very telling revelation of our society's morbid fetishization of doctors that they're the ones we've chosen to preside over state-sanctioned killings. 

What on earth are you talking about? It is a huge violation of the Hippocratic Oath for doctors to partake in an execution in any way, so in America they are never involved with administering lethal injections. Instead it is done by prison staff, who often have very limited medical knowledge; this is why many lethal injections are botched.

You're wrong.  Doctors can and do participate in executions and there are many state laws that actually require it.

The ethical guidelines of national medical associations are not binding law; medical licensing boards are quasi-legal state entities and, therefore, very unlikely to take action against doctors who participate in executions. 

This article is from 2009. In 2010, the American Board of Anesthesiologists voted to revoke the licenses of anaesthesiologists who participate in executions. I cannot find any record of doctors aiding lethal injections since, except for signing death certificates and a few who were present in the room without as passive observers without actively participating in administering the drugs.

Private organizations like the ABA can only revoke their own self-enforced memberships and certifications (i.e., "board certifications"), not state medical licenses.  Only about 75% of anesthesiologists in the U.S. are board-certified.

As I said, doctors can and regularly do participate in executions.  Here's an article about doctors participating in OK state executions this year.  Carlo Musso is almost infamous for this practice.  In 2021, seventeen states require physician involvement in state executions, to some capacity. 

Even if state laws only require the bare minimum of physicians (i.e., requiring one be present to declare the death of the inmate) that's still a violation of the AMA's ethical guidelines on execution, which just proves my point of how non-enforceable they are.  For the record, I don't think state law should codify the participation of doctors in executions but to act like they can't/don't isn't true. 

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Why not just knock them out with anesthesia before inducing nitrogen hypoxia.

[Person Man]

Drawing and quartering with two monster trucks.

[Figueira]

All executions should be done by either hanging or firing squad.  These are the most proven methods of bringing about a quick, humane death.

Lethal injection only exists to place a medicalized veneer on top of the execution process.  It's a very telling revelation of our society's morbid fetishization of doctors that they're the ones we've chosen to preside over state-sanctioned killings. 

What on earth are you talking about? It is a huge violation of the Hippocratic Oath for doctors to partake in an execution in any way, so in America they are never involved with administering lethal injections. Instead it is done by prison staff, who often have very limited medical knowledge; this is why many lethal injections are botched.

He's wrong about that, but he's right that people wrongly perceive lethal injection as more "humane" just because it feels vaguely more medical/science-y. It's somewhat similar to the "if a service is sh**ttier, it must cost less" assumptions that I've discussed with Vosem in the recent past. The public, especially a public like that of the US that's incredibly partisan yet staggeringly depoliticized when it comes to On The Issues acumen, has a hard time looking past appearances with things like this.

There's also the fact that anyone who is actually invested in being humane opposes the death penalty.

[Hope For A New Era]

4. Dip the perp in brown gravy and lock them in a small room with a wolverine who's high on LSD.

*PCP

Though a wolverine on LSD would certainly be interesting.

[Person Man]

4. Dip the perp in brown gravy and lock them in a small room with a wolverine who's high on LSD.

*PCP

Though a wolverine on LSD would certainly be interesting.

It’s basically a ferret the size of a dog. That sounds like fun.