“Kenny just began to gasp for air repeatedly and the execution took about 25 minutes total.”

Pretty compassionate way to kill a person.

Once again, the Law in the south is brutal.

  • @[email protected]
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    405 months ago

    I don’t support capital punishment.

    But hypoxia in humans is well studied. Unless they were using monumental stupid gas like CO2 (which triggers your breathing reflex) then the problem wasn’t the method, in principle.

    I wouldn’t put it past a execution supporter to fuck it up somehow, though.

    • @[email protected]
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      5 months ago

      This was discussed in another thread. Apparently they did not scrub the CO2 he expelled (which presumably under high anxiety and adrenaline would be way higher) and he simply rebreathed that CO2 back in, mixed with the nitrogen.

      For those unaware, CO2 buildup in our blood is what triggers our brainstem to go crazy and gasp for air and convulse and generally have that terrible sense of asphyxiation/drowning. Lack of oxygen does not.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 months ago

        All they needed was an open circuit constantly flowing nitrogen into a breathing mask or a bag over his head. It’s so simple. I’m not surprised but incredibly disappointed they fucked it up.

        With the kind of money I’m sure they spent, they could have just made a big airtight rubber room, flushed it with nitrogen, and just put him in for 10 minutes.

    • @[email protected]
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      95 months ago

      So,.like — was this guy in a relatively large volume chamber/booth and they just trickled the N2 gas in?

      If there was enough volume, it could take a long time for the O2 levels to get low enough for him to pass out… BUT does a human body produce enough CO2 to fill that space to the point of triggering the suffocation response? Seems unlikely…

      OR did they just strap a rebreather mask to his face and turn on a few l/min?

      Were any specifics about the actual setup published?

    • @[email protected]
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      25 months ago

      Many people do believe it was botched, because the dude struggled for almost 30 minutes. Nobody can stay awake without oxygen for that long under normal circumstances. Hell, the world record for breath holding is ~25 minutes. So he almost certainly had oxygen bleeding in from somewhere, which prolonged his death. Because we all know this dude wasn’t on a world record attempt as a lifelong free diver with years of experience and training.