The mechanics of death.

[Pappy13]

Lethal Injection is about as painless as it gets.

[Spider-Dan]

Not when they screw it up:

There is no standard definition of what constitutes a botched execution. For its analysis, Reprieve designated an execution as botched if it met certain criteria. Researchers checked documents and witness reports to confirm details like whether there was evidence that a prisoner made visible or audible expressions of pain, was still conscious after a drug was administered, or whether execution workers had struggled at length to find a prisoner's veins.

That happened in 2022, when execution workers in Alabama spent three hours attempting to insert an IV line into the veins of Joe Nathan James, Jr., a Black man. His autopsy showed puncture marks and cuts in his feet, hands, wrists and arms.. A few months later, Alabama left white prisoner Kenneth Smith alive on the gurney for hours after they struggled to find a vein to use for his lethal injection execution, prompting his lawyers to ask the state to use nitrogen gas to execute him in January.

Lengthy procedures like those were not uncommon, the Reprieve analysis found. Over one third of lethal injections lasted more than 45 minutes and over a quarter took an hour or more.

[masterfins]

Joking aside, I've never known a Vet to have trouble putting down an animal.  I'm anti death penalty all around, so I'd be more in favor of ending the practice.

[SCFinfan]

I have a serious question that I don't understand.  The morals of the act aside, I don't really understand the mechanics of the death penalty (or in lesser cases, human euthanasia).  You hear horror stories.  We electrocute people and it takes minutes, we gas people and they choke and panic, legal injection doesn't always kill you....I literally don't understand.

I put our cat to sleep over the weekend and the process was 4 shots -- they put in a catheter first and then administered a sedative to where they were immobile and had no pain -- they said that you could pull a tooth.  Then they injected saline (water), just to push the previous drug through the system.  Then they give an overdose of pain relief that kills the animal and a 2nd saline shot to push it through the system.  The process was said to take 45 seconds, but it wasn't even that long.

I understand that people aren't cats.

However, I had a colonoscopy done and I had a kidney stone procedure.  They do that and it's completely painless and you are fully knocked out.  So, how is it that we fuck this up.  Unless we are specifically trying to be sadistic, it seems like we could put people to sleep and then just kill them while they're sleeping, instead of making them be awake and choke their way through it.  I just don't understand.

It seems like the most humane way to do it is to give them a calming drug first so they aren't freaking out and panicking...before the actual death.  Then, you put them out with propofol....then you OD them while they're asleep.  I mean...you could knock them out with drugs and then drop a piano on their head.  It makes no sense.

1. I admittedly know very little about the chemistry or biology here
2. My thoughts on the DP are on the record in this forum
3. I read zero of the post subsequent to this in this thread before posting this

But, there is that line from "Dead Man Walking" where Penn's character indicates that, despite the calm expression on his face, he will still feel enormous pain as his heart is stopped by the killing drug. So, I don't know that there is an actual "humane" way to do it if "humane" in this context means pain-free.

[Dave Gray]

But, there is that line from "Dead Man Walking" where Penn's character indicates that, despite the calm expression on his face, he will still feel enormous pain as his heart is stopped by the killing drug. So, I don't know that there is an actual "humane" way to do it if "humane" in this context means pain-free.

That's what I'm asking.  In both the case of my colonoscopy and my kidney stone stuff, I had zero awareness and was fully sedated.  They could've thrown me off a building, blown me up, whatever.  I just don't get how there could be pain -- I was unconscious.

It seems like a 3 step process would make this super easy:
- sedative/relaxant
- make them unconscious
- lethal dosage