State plans to carry out first judicial killing in 15 years on Tuesday using technique critics call inhumane

Last year the Guardian revealed that three of the biggest manufacturers of medical-grade nitrogen in the US had put a block on their products being used in executions. Airgas, Air Products and Matheson Gas all took steps to prevent their nitrogen reaching departments of correction in death penalty states.

Airgas, which is owned by the French multinational Air Liquide, told the Guardian that it would not supply nitrogen or other inert gases “for the purpose of human execution”.

  • Droechai@lemm.ee
    3·
    1 day ago

    I’m against the death sentence but why use nitrogen rather than a slowly increasing of carbon monoxide?

    • TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org
      8·
      1 day ago

      Proponents say that that it should be a relatively humane method of execution: Nitrogen is inert and the body doesn’t react to breathing pure Nitrogen with a feeling of suffocation the way that it does with CO2, and suddenly replacing the air a person is breathing with pure inert gas can lead to unconsciousness within just one or two breaths. In practice, though, the first Nitrogen Gas execution that was carried out in Alabama last year did not go that smoothly. I’m not sure about subsequent executions, there have been a handful.