An Alabama inmate would be the test subject for the “experimental” execution method of nitrogen hypoxia, his lawyers argued, as they asked judges to deny the state’s request to carry out his death sentence using the new method.

In a Friday court filing, attorneys for Kenneth Eugene Smith asked the Alabama Supreme Court to reject the state attorney general’s request to set an execution date for Smith using the proposed new execution method. Nitrogen gas is authorized as an execution method in three states but it has never been used to put an inmate to death.

Smith’s attorneys argued the state has disclosed little information about how nitrogen executions would work, releasing only a redacted copy of the proposed protocol.

  • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    You know you live in a third world country if you have discussions about how to kill your citizens. There is no need for the death penalty but a twisted and false sense of justice.

    • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Apparently it’s a hot take: there are people who exist that we would all absolutely be better off were they dead.

      This guy was someone who was paid to kill another person for a thousand dollars. This is not just “a citizen” unless you’re saying it makes sense to keep people around in society that will fucking murder someone for less than a months pay.

      • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.fmhy.net
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        1 year ago

        Here’s the thing though.
        I agree 100% that the world is probably better off without this asshole in it.
        But I don’t think we should be doing that. For every one of these guys, you’ll have another guy who got railroaded by a crooked prosecutor, or who will later be proven innocent with better DNA testing. There’s just no way to be sure every one is ‘good’, and I’d rather let bad people live than accidentally kill good people.

      • whome@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        That’s what they say, even keeping him locked up for life would be cheaper. Also how do you decide what’s gruesome enough to justify killing people, what about wrongfully convicted people they do exist and they got murdered. There are so many good arguments against and do few if any for the death penalty it’s mind-blowing to me how any more or less democratic society doesn’t abolish it.

      • Thief_of_Crows@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Even if you’re right, that doesn’t mean we should actually kill them. People are people, they should be treated as such. We can throw them in jail far easier, and to the rest of us, it’s equivalent to them being dead.

      • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        I never said this is a person that society needs to keep around.

        I do not believe that living is a right that can be earned or unearned. It is a right everyone has. If a person is unfit for society they need to be seperated from society. If that means having them in prison for live than that is what we should do. Killing them is done for one purpose mainly: Because it gives some people a sense of justice. This sense of justice however is false as the only justice would be to undo what was done.

        • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Congratulations, the laws of reality disagree with you. When authoritarians are knocking down your door to tear your life apart, remember: you decided to let them live.

          • Lowlee Kun@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            Nice. If someone disagrees with you they are diasgreeing with reality? Sure makes sense. And nobody told me i personally can decide who is going to live. Damn man, now i feel bad about all those executions i could have stopped.

          • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            When the authoritarians are knocking down your door you’ll think “I wish I had given the government more power to kill people. Only when the government can legally kill people are we safe from tyranny.”

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Counterpoint: Given the number of people in government who said government should murder me because of the rainbow pin on my lapel, I don’t want government to have the power to murder anyone even if we all agree they deserve it. What makes you think that this is the one thing the government is competent at?