Humane and inhumane killing

I am principally against executing humans, however insidious their crimes. But if it must be done, at least keep it humane.

In January 2024 the Alabama Court system executed a spree killer — using nitrogen hypoxia. He was the first person in the world who was put to death using this method. The procedure will be explained in detail below.

Even though public support for the death penalty in the US is waning, newly elected President Donald Trump, immediately after his January 20 2025 inauguration, signed an executive order supporting executions. He instructed the Attorney General to “take all necessary and lawful action to ensure that each state that allows capital punishment has a sufficient supply of drugs needed to carry out lethal injection.” So we can stand by for a slew of executions in the US.

Capital punishment has been prevalent in almost all countries throughout history. Executions have been considered justified for serious crimes, but were generally conducted as persecution, or as a result of superstitious beliefs. In medieval times they were conducted with unspeakable brutality, as a deterrent or simply for entertainment. Under the reign of Henry VIII, it is estimated that 70,000 people were put to death.

In recent years, the use of the death penalty has declined around the world. Here’s a map showing which countries still have the death penalty, and which have abolished the practice or have stopped implementing it.

China conducts the largest number of executions per year, followed by Iran. In 2022 it is estimated that thousands were executed in China (where execution data is considered a state secret), followed by Iran with 576+, and Saudi Arabia 196.

Worldwide, stoning, the prime method of capital punishment prescribed in the holy books of the monotheistic religions, is no longer practiced. Beheading is only used in Saudi Arabia. Other countries use hanging, shooting and lethal injection, the least painful of all. In the US the 18 prisoners were put to death in 2022, all by lethal injection.

Killing with nitrogen

Now some countries are experimenting with execution by nitrogen hypoxia. It involves placing a respirator mask over the face, and replacing the breathing air with pure nitrogen gas. That deprives the individual of oxygen, which should lead to unconsciousness in a few seconds, and death in several minutes. At least theoretically.

Humans and many other animals have evolved mechanisms to determine suffocation, but that is mainly done by detecting an increase in blood carbon dioxide levels. That produces the burning, panicky sensation. Breathing pure nitrogen (or helium) expels carbon dioxide, preventing the sense of suffocation and panic setting in.

I have witnessed nitrogen tests on mice, and there are well-known experiments involving pigs. In this one a pig feeds from a trough in a chamber filled with an inert gas (nitrogen or argon). In a few seconds it becomes unconscious and falls out of the chamber, and once again starts breathing normal air. When it regains consciousness it quickly returns to the trough and continues feeding. This seems to indicate that it had felt no pain or undue distress.

However: very drastic video secretly taken in Australian slaughter houses, where nitrogen hypoxia is used to render pigs unconscious before they are slaughtered, show that it takes around 30 seconds for them to lose consciousness — 30 seconds in which they struggle and gasp, clearly in intense distress. Do not search for videos depicting this, unless you have very strong nerves.

The first US nitrogen executions

• On January 25, 2024, in Alabama, Kenneth Eugene Smith became the first person in the world to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia. Smith was convicted of a 1988 contract killing, and was scheduled to be executed in 2022, via lethal injection. But after the executing staff had spent hours trying to establish intravenous access, the botched attempt was called off.
• On September 27, 2024, Alan Eugene Miller became the second American to be put to death with nitrogen gas. His lethal injection execution had been scheduled two years earlier, but here too the procedure was terminated after prison staff failed to establish intravenous access to deliver the injection. After that the state of Alabama agreed that nitrogen gas could be used for the execution.

After the death of Smith, the Alabama attorney general hailed the execution as “a historic breakthrough,” calling the new method humane and effective. Witnesses begged to differ. The prisoner, they said, appeared to be conscious for several minutes, convulsing and pulling against the restraints. United Nations experts raised the alarm that Smith’s execution could constitute torture, saying, “We are concerned that nitrogen hypoxia would result in a painful and humiliating death.”

A special ACLU site dedicated to the “Fight Against Capital Punishment” also reported on the apparent suffering that Smith had endured, but included a nonsensical warning about the general dangers of nitrogen gas. “History, science, and common sense,” they wrote, “tell us that storing and using nitrogen in Alabama prisons, or elsewhere, is a ticking time bomb. The question isn’t whether nitrogen gas will kill staff and incarcerated people; the question is when.”

Don’t they know that over 78% of the air we breathe consists of the inert gas nitrogen? It is non-toxic and non-explosive. Depriving people of the 21% oxygen that is also in the air we inhale that is fatal.

Are there more humane methods?

Recently I underwent knee replacement surgery. I was prepped for the operation and a needle was inserted in a vein on the back of my hand (“you’re going to feel a small prick,” the anesthesiologist warned).

SA

After that, the following conversation took place:

Anesthesiologist: “I will now give you a mild sedative which will make you feel warm and calm…”

Me: Yes. Ahh, it feels nice. By the way, how long will the operation take?

Anesthesiologist: “It took just over an hour, and everything went very smoothly.”

That, I swear, is exactly how I experienced it: no time lapse between “It feels nice” and “How long will it take.” That in spite of the fact that the operation had taken over an hour and had involved cutting, sawing, chiselling, filing, screwing and stapling. No explosives were used, I believe.

During the hour I was out they could have removed my heart or sent thousands of volts of electricity to fry my brain. I am sure I would have not experienced anything. I just wouldn’t have woken up.

So why, I have been asking since my operation, it using the kind of anesthesia that was administered to me not an option when you are executing humans (if you really have to do it at all). The answers I get from experts is not fully convincing. The arguments against using medical anesthesia are:

• You cannot find experts to use the procedure. Medical professionals are bound by ethical codes and would never participate in executions.
• Many pharmaceutical companies refuse to sell drugs for use in executions, making it difficult to obtain medical-grade anesthetics. Germany, for instance, which is the main producer of propofol, the powerful anesthetic agent that induces unconciousness, opposes the death penalty and would generally ban the export of the drug to any country that uses it for executions. As a consequence, that country would have general shortages of propofol for surgical use.
• Execution teams consist of non-medical staff who lack the necessary training to administer medical-grade anesthesia safely and effectively.

Propofol is administered as an intravenous injection and induces unconsciousness within 13 to 30 seconds. Medical experts are required for its use in surgery — in order to make sure the patient stays alive! But in executions that is not a requirement.

My question remains: if you have decided to have executions, and are doing it using hideously cruel methods, why not a least switch to propofol — and use street drug addicts to expertly administer it?