Federal judge orders more execution details from Oklahoma

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


The Associated Press
Updated 6:53 pm CDT, Tuesday, May 5, 2020

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A federal judge in Oklahoma on Tuesday gave the state one month to provide more details on how it plans to train prison workers to carry out lethal injections.

Federal Judge Stephen Friot issued the ruling in a case in which Oklahoma death row inmates are challenging the state’s lethal injection protocols. Friot gave the state until June 5 to provide information and documents on how it’s training members of the execution team.

“It is no secret that inadequate training is the significant factor as to why there were problems in Oklahoma’s past executions," said Dale Baich, one of the attorneys representing death row prisoners.

Although Oklahoma had considered executing inmates using nitrogen gas, Attorney General Mike Hunter announced in February the state had secured a supply of lethal injection drugs and was ready to resume executions after a five-year delay.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/article/Federal-judge-orders-more-execution-details-from-15249056.php

[SpankMe]

1. Nitrogen gas. Or, maybe you can tickle them to death

For some reason, I've stumbled across a lot of YouTube videos recently that analyze executions. (I had watched a few vids on the Nuremberg trials and I think the YouTube algorithm signed me up for hanging videos, or something crazy like that.)

Anecdotal analysis shows that only about 10% of hangings throughout history have actually snapped the neck and caused instant death. The other 90% resulted in gruesome, lengthy choking deaths, decapitations, broken skulls as the condemned hit their heads on the frames of the trap doors as they fell, and on and on.

Now that lethal injection is being exposed as problematic, too, maybe it's just time to scrap the whole idea instead of trying think of new and creative ways to kill people.

We can go on a battle field and efficiently kill thousands with the press of a button. But, we can't figure out how to efficiently, painlessly kill a single individual in a focused, controlled environment that doesn't require dismemberment of some sort.