Oklahoma considers gas chamber to execute death row inmates

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Oklahoma considers gas chamber to execute death row inmates
By SEAN MURPHY, Associated Press | February 9, 2015 | Updated: February 9, 2015 4:11pm

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — With executions in Oklahoma on hold amid a constitutional review of its lethal injection formula, Republican legislators are pushing to make Oklahoma the first state in the nation to allow the use of nitrogen gas to execute death row inmates.

A bill scheduled for a hearing Wednesday in a House committee would make death by "nitrogen hypoxia" a backup method of execution if the state's current lethal injection process is found to be unconstitutional.

"You wouldn't need a medical doctor to do it. It's a lot more practical. It's efficient," said Rep. Mike Christian, an Oklahoma City Republican and former Oklahoma Highway patrolman who conducted a hearing last summer on hypoxia, or the depletion of oxygen in the bloodstream.

The U.S. Supreme Court currently is reviewing Oklahoma's three-drug method in a challenge sparked by a botched lethal injection last spring in which an inmate groaned and writhed on the gurney before a problem was discovered with an intravenous line. The case centers on whether the sedative midazolam properly renders an inmate unconscious before the second and third drugs are administered. Three scheduled lethal injections in Oklahoma have been delayed pending the high court's review.




Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Oklahoma-considers-gas-chamber-to-execute-death-6071334.php

[jen1980]

1. Why kill at all?

These people are illogical. They act like they have no choice but to kill kill kill.

[Journeyman]

2. What could go wrong? Google "Robert Pierce, San Quentin, 1956". . .

Or, here's Evan S. Connell to explain:

Robert Pierce, awaiting execution at San Quentin prison,
contrived to slash his throat with a shard of glass,
precipitating a frantic quarrel among the authorities:
some insisted that he be executed before he bled to death
while others thought he should be taken to the hospital.
Presently, with gouts of blood bubbling from his neck,
he was carried into the gas chamber. Witnesses screamed,
vomited and several fainted. The decision had been reached,
officials later explained, because at the time of death
the prisoner probably would still be alive and therefore
conscious not only of his crime but of the retributions
justly demanded by the Sovereign State of California.

Evan S. Connell, Points for a Compass Rose, 1973

Pierce was a contemporary of Caryl Chessman. They shared the Row together, but not a cell, and not even near each other, as Pierce was too dangerous to be kept with the other condemned prisoners; they kept him penned in a special section dubbed the "Iron Curtain."

[longship]

3. "Ohio Replaces Lethal Injection with Head Ripping-Off Machine"

Here is the news, straight from the primary news source, The Onion.

[safeinOhio]

4. Death by laughing gas?

About as humain as it gets.

[Archae]

5. Different gas.

Nitrogen is the most common gas in our air.

You're thinking of Nitrous Oxide, dentists use it.
I like it! (Too bad there isn't a "stoned" smiley)

[YOHABLO]

6. Let's see Utah wants to bring back firing squads but oh, gas would be lovely and so humane.

Why not just bring back the Guillotine

[olddots]

7. death by listening to Mike Huckabee ?

nah thats too inhumane .

[Turbineguy]

8. Oh that would be

Unconstitutional.

[LiberalLovinLug]

9. I have an idea..

Why not make it simple?

Tell all the prisoners that there is some lice outbreak (or some other health concern) and order them all into a massive building equiped with showers. Then once they are all inside, "shower" them with poison gas! Problem solved.



yes this is sarcasm. black black sarcasm. Funny though that is not so far from what they are discussing.

[raccoon]

10. Beheading is probably cheaper. :sarcasm: nt