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Notes -
Over a decade ago, the BBC came out with a documentary titled How to Kill a Human Being that went into what the director believed to be the most humane and painless way to execute someone if you really wish to do so. Towards the end of the documentary, they interview someone who believes that death row criminals don’t deserve the most humane death possible because those criminals hardly offered their own victims a humane death. The documentary gives it an air of “Look, we’ve found a humane way to actually do executions, and these barbaric Americans don’t want to do that because to them, bloodthirsty cruelty is the point.”
Well, what do you know, Alabama has now actually implemented this “most humane” form of execution for the first time, and news coverage from the BBC and others have been almost exclusively negative. There’s little to no nuance, just statements that the UN and EU condemns this “particularly cruel and unusual punishment.” Where now is the context that the US is merely doing what it was previously criticized for not doing?
To be sure, the scene of thrashing does seem to be more violent than the documentary insinuated such an execution would be, but that itself appears to be because the inmate tried to forcibly hold their breath for as long as possible instead of allowing themselves to pass out from hypoxia. I wouldn’t pin the blame for voluntary thrashing on the method of execution.
What do you think? Am I wrong in reading this as just another case of “Americans can do nothing right”?
Last I'd heard, Texas dropped the other two and uses an overdose of veterinary anesthetics these days. This is A) not the most humane method of execution and B) not that easy to watch. No doubt if the condemned was offered the choice of "after religious counseling you can face the guillotine, or a lethal overdose of horse tranquilizer" they would pick the former. But they're not being offered it! A lawyer who simply opposes the death penalty argues with a straight face that it's cruel and unusual punishment because of the manner of execution, then refuses to name a better one, because the goal is to drag out the thirty year long process of execution long enough that the state gives up. Recently the supreme court has called them on it, but I have no hopes for progressive-activist lawyers facing sanctions for this frivolous argument.
or the person dies of natural causes, which I guess is technically a win
In Japan the actual method is hanging, and, true enough, sometimes it is carried out, but more often people sit on death row for years--and though they may be physically alive, they are never told their execution date. This can go on for decades. When they are informed, this occurs mere hours before the execution. (link in Japanese)
If we are talking cruel and unusual, this qualifies in my view.
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