Alabama is set to perform the second-ever nitrogen gas execution in the United States on Thursday.

Alan Eugene Miller, 59, was sentenced to death for the 1999 murders of his then-coworkers Lee Holdbrooks and Christoper Scott Yancy, and his former supervisor Terry Lee Jarvis.

Miller was to be executed in September 2022 via lethal injection, but it was called off after officials had trouble inserting an intravenous line to administer the fatal drugs and were concerned they would not be able to do so before the death warrant expired.

  • normalexit@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    If they must kill people I don’t understand why they don’t knock people out first. I’ve been under anesthesia for surgery; If they had killed me while under, things would’ve just stayed dark, but I never would have known.

    • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Anesthesiologists won’t do it. That’s why they had so much trouble executing the guy in the first place: its not a doctor doing it, just a prison guard.

    • Fosheze@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Doctors wont do it which makes dosing tricky. More importantly drug companies won’t sell them the drugs because they don’t want their product to be associated with people being killed.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        How does it make dosing tricky? Just give everybody a mega dose… what’s the worst that can happen, they die before you kill them?

        • oatscoop@midwest.social
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          2 months ago

          “Tricky” means “ethical issues of someone who took an oath to heal and save lives doing the opposite.”

          • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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            2 months ago

            They were asking why is getting the dosing right important if the person is going to die anyway.

    • mipadaitu@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      That’s what lethal injection is for. But they can’t get legitimate doctors to perform an execution, so they have to just wing it with hacks, which is why they often get fucked up.

      At least a firing squad is full of people who know how to shoot.

    • YerbaYerba@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      That’s what they used to do. Now they can’t obtain the drugs as no pharmaceutical company or pharmacy wants to be associated with murder…

      • irotsoma@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Only it often didn’t work properly because no medically trained person will participate. Nor should they because they must “do no harm”. So most of the time, the guards have no idea how to tell if someone is reacting to pain and don’t understand the actual effects of the drugs.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      So the lethal injection was supposed to be that, three injections: an anesthetic, a paralytic, then a chemical to kill. Firstly, anesthesia is hard to dose with a doctor much less when it’s understood that serving as an executioner is a violation of professional ethics among doctors. But also even then the person is awake when receiving the anesthesia, they know what’s happening as they’re strapped down against their will and have the IV that will kill them placed. It’s fundamentally cruel to do that.