Move follows Alabama’s recent killing of death row inmate Kenneth Smith using previously untested method
Three of the largest manufacturers of medical-grade nitrogen gas in the US have barred their products from being used in executions, following Alabama’s recent killing of the death row inmate Kenneth Smith using a previously untested method known as nitrogen hypoxia.
The three companies have confirmed to the Guardian that they have put in place mechanisms that will prevent their nitrogen cylinders falling into the hands of departments of correction in death penalty states. The move by the trio marks the first signs of corporate action to stop medical nitrogen, which is designed to preserve life, being used for the exact opposite – killing people.
The green shoots of a corporate blockade for nitrogen echoes the almost total boycott that is now in place for medical drugs used in lethal injections. That boycott has made it so difficult for death penalty states to procure drugs such as pentobarbital and midazolam that a growing number are turning to nitrogen as an alternative killing technique.
Now, nitrogen producers are engaging in their own efforts to prevent the abuse of their products. The march has been led by Airgas, which is owned by the French multinational Air Liquide.
And we have the capacity to be better than that.
There was no compelling need to execute him. If such a compelling need did exist, it would have presented itself in the past 36 years where he was in custody but not executed. But it didn’t, so the state just waited until some arbitrary time to tick a box that didn’t need to be ticked.
My fundamental issue is with the “better than that”. I really don’t see why letting a cold blooded murderer off lightly would be the better way.
Well prison for decades doesn’t seem very light to me. I have never been granted but from those that have I have heard most wouldn’t recommend it.
What do you mean by “off lightly?” They’re still getting punished while serving a life sentence. The punishment stops when the lights go out.
Do you actually believe that life imprisonment and death are the same level of punishment? And if yes, why would it matter which one we use?
If it is not the same, then how are they not getting of lightly for ending someone elses life?
Having a comparator does not automatically make something light.
Water torture is not “light” simply because we’re not gouging eyeballs and cutting off testicles. Burning someone with acid is not “light” simply because we’re not actively lighting them on fire.
You have yet to provide any justification for your claim that imprisonment is “light” other than that it’s not death. You can’t justify barbarism simply by saying that something else that isn’t barbarism is lighter by comparison, and therefore barbarism must be justified. Were that true, you could try to justify any proposed barbaric act by saying that the second worst thing is “light” by comparison.
What is the necessity of killing someone after 36 years of not killing them? There’s clearly not a safety concern, or a concern of escape, or anything else pressing. It’s so far removed from the original crime that it’s not really a punishment for that crime anymore: the last 36 years of imprisonment were the punishment. It’s just an act of barbarism for the sake of ticking a box.
I guess both barbarism and light are subjective, but I think I understand your argument.
That being said, there are so many things more barbaric than executing criminals going on in our societies that focusing on this is like fixing a burst water pipe on the sinking Titanic.
“Other things are bad so we should fix nothing” is bad reasoning. If we all agree that something is bad and can be fixed by proper legislation, then it should be done. The price of tea in China has no bearing on whether this specific problem should or shouldn’t be fixed.
If you have other things you want to focus on, feel free to advocate for those in the proper channels.
An empty swimming pool is bad. A burning house is bad. Filling your pool with limited water supply before putting out the fire is also bad.
There is so much focus to go around for politics.
In this analogy, what is the “water?” Legislators’ time? Because that time is consumed much more by political infighting than any specific topic for legislation.
You realize right now is that your argument is essentially that we should keep killing prisoners because not killing them would take time away from “other things,” things so pressing they can only be spoken about in the most vague of notions?
“Yeah, I totally want to go to your wedding bro, but I’ve got sooooo much stuff going on, just like… you know, soooo much and all and yeah, totally wish I could bro.”
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as