Lethal Injection Is Pretty Much the Worst Way to Execute People. So Why Do We Use It?

New York Magazine ^ | 05/06/2014 | Benjamin Wallace-Wells

[SeekAndFind]

Killing a human being turns out to be surpassingly hard to do.

This was made gruesomely apparent in Oklahoma last week, when the state tried to execute a convicted murderer named Clayton Lockett by injecting him with a new and secret mix of deadly chemicals. "Man," Lockett moaned, sixteen minutes after the injection and long after he was supposed to be dead, and he tried to get up, and began to writhe and jerk on the gurney until prison officials closed a curtain to keep the witnesses from seeing the rest of the episode. Alarm set in. The doctor on hand told state officials that Lockett had not received enough chemicals to kill him, but that there were no more chemicals on hand. There were debates over whether to take the prisoner to a hospital. Forty-three minutes after injection, Lockett had a massive heart attack (this was not part of the state's plan) and died.

Even under controlled circumstances like state executions — in which the executed has no freedom of movement, no ability to resist, in which the state is in complete control — human beings prove surprisingly resilient. Over the past century, 3 percent of hangings have been botched, and about 2 percent of electrocutions. More than 5 percent of gassings in state-operated gas chambers went awry. Lethal injections have become the most common mode of execution in the United States, but they are more error-prone still: 7 percent of them are botched. Which means that subsumed into the deep and difficult question of why we are executing prisoners at all is another question, more tangible but just as telling: Why are we killing them in the least effective way?

[PapaNew]

Why Do We Use It?

Because there's no right way to do the wrong thing. Same with trying to "fix" Obamacare.

[Tennessee Nana]

Napalm baby..

if its good enough for unborn babies its good enough for adult killers..

[BitWielder1]

It was supposed to be more humane.
I don't see why they can't use the same drugs as when they euthanize pets.
We know it works and the supply is plentiful.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Because the liberals/socialists/racists WANT there to be AS MANY failures and errors and AS MUCH pain as possible so they can eliminate capital punishment ... while aborting as many babies as possible!

[ShadowAce]

Because there's no right way to do the wrong thing.

Sorry--but execution is sometimes the most right thing to do.

[ShadowAce]

I say crucifixion.

[redhawk.44mag]

Why can’t they just use a lot of heroin?

[Mouton]

Gee, well if the other “controlled” executions did not work, how about we try some new ones like the drop from a bomb bay from 40000 feet without a parachute; flame thrower till melted down, water immersion for two hours, and having to listen to an obama speech over and over for a few days.

[Tijeras_Slim]

We just need more practice.

[PapaNew]

But someone was already executed for that capital crime. So this is double jeopardy, unjust and immoral.

[Theo]

I’ve heard that drug companies are refusing to sell the necessary drugs to prisons, out of political correctness.

[17th Miss Regt]

Agreed. Some folks do not make a distinction between the state executing an individual for a crime and a revenge killing by an aggrieved family member.

[Bryanw92]

The guillotine is 100% effective.

[Sacajaweau]

Firing squad makes the most sense.

[ShadowAce]

Double jeopardy is being tried for a crime for which one was already found not guilty.

Also, more than one person can be found guilty of a particular murder. It isn't necessarily a lone crime.

[SgtHooper]

I like your reasoning!

[gdani]

So Why Do We Use It?

Because the government screws up most everything it touches and capital punishment is no exception.

[Zippo44]

ping

[Buckeye McFrog]

Bingo. Their goal is the elimination of the death penalty.

And instead of doing the hard work in the political arena to convince a majority to agree with them, they are doing the typical Lib thing and playing cute manipulation games to get their way.

Vilify hangings, firing squads and the electric chair as barbaric. Granted the visuals do lend themselves to that. Make State Legislators afraid to go anywhere near them.

Then go after the gas chamber. Draw uncomfortable parallels with Auschwitz. You can get States to drop that one like a hot potato with an effective PR campaign.

That leaves the scientifically modern, “humane” method of lethal injection. Use intimidation tactics to shut off all possible supplies of the drugs, and you’ll have achieved your objective.