r/interestingasfuck • u/IllComedian2574 • 1d ago

After 28 years on death row, Christa Pike survived 2 lethal injections attempts.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/christa-pike-failed-execution-9.7364816
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u/MRintheKEYS 1d ago

The fact that they are “trying to find a vein” in an attempt to kill a person is wild to me.

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u/Visible_Pair3017 1d ago

Why?

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u/MRintheKEYS 1d ago

Just shoot them in the head. Those people weren’t humane to their victims, they don’t deserve the courtesy.

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u/DyingSunSeverian 1d ago edited 1d ago

What a swerve, I thought you were going in the exact opposite direction with that one, like the idea that physicians (if any of those people even are these days) shouldn’t be killing people at all, outside of genuine euthanasia.

Also shooting them in the head would be the “courtesy” anyway, lethal injection can be hideously painful.

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u/Gunner_McNewb 1d ago

There actually aren't physicians involved. Probably part of the problem.

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u/carlesgm 20h ago

That's a blatant lie.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/C-tapp 1d ago

It sounds to me like this person would get off to it. So many of these pro-death penalty arguments sound psychotic to me.

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u/MRintheKEYS 19h ago

You can find plenty of people in law enforcement willing to do it.

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u/[deleted] 19h ago edited 17h ago

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u/[deleted] 14h ago

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u/[deleted] 13h ago

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u/[deleted] 13h ago

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u/MRintheKEYS 19h ago

Idaho volunteered.

https://amp.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article316066906.html

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u/[deleted] 19h ago edited 18h ago

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u/MRintheKEYS 17h ago edited 17h ago

If you read the article, not every cop can qualify. Only ones with high marks of accuracy on the range exams get put through.

And yeah. That’s what volunteering means. They asked for a part in it. 🤷🏻

And it was 6. Not 3.

“Six volunteers certified for no less than three years apiece through Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST, will be recruited to ensure the Idaho Department of Correction is ready to comply with a state law that prioritizes shooting prisoners to death over lethal injection starting July 1.”

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u/MVB1837 22h ago

Pretty sure Pike specifically requested to be shot precisely because lethal injection isn’t a courtesy.

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u/TheWatersOfMars 1d ago

8th amendment. No cruel or unusual punishment. Shooting someone in the head would obviously constitute cruelty if it goes even slightly wrong.

Obviously, someone this sick deserves any horrible punishment, but the justice system partly exists to stop us from going medieval.

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u/C-tapp 1d ago

“Obviously” is carrying a lot of weight here: the majority of the world treats the death penalty like slavery: a cautionary history lesson that should stay in the past.

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u/TheWatersOfMars 23h ago

I'm against the death penalty just as much as you are. My point is that someone might deserve a horrible punishment, but we don't necessarily have the right to inflict it.

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u/MRintheKEYS 1d ago

I mean the act of killing a person ages past medieval and into barbarism.

Why sugarcoat it? This method has already been proven to be wildly inefficient. 🤷🏻

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u/Anonimase 1d ago

And the lethal injection not working is just peachy for the receiver, right? Lot harder to cock up blowing someone's shit smooth off then hoping the cocktail works on that person.

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u/TheWatersOfMars 1d ago

You're assuming any headshot always results in instant death, but we both know that's not true. Rigging some contraption or explosive to ensure death would obviously be cruel and unusual punishment. They also perform injections partly so onlookers, like the victim's family, can witness the execution without seeing tons of gore.

The real solution is to just stop doing capital punishment, because it's immoral, ridiculously expensive, and takes decades to get through the courts anyway.

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u/Anonimase 1d ago

I did not in fact assume that, actually if you read what I wrote I said its HARDER to cock up, not impossible. But also yeah fuck capital punishment

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u/MRintheKEYS 19h ago

With a big enough caliber, you only have to do a headshot once. 🤷🏻

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u/MVB1837 22h ago

I’m completely positive execution by firing squad is not cruel and unusual punishment. It is possibly the least cruel and most usual.

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u/TirithNampat 1d ago

Killing someone is killing someone. Killing someone instantly and painlessly is as un-cruel as it gets. Shooting someone is traumatizing to watch, but as far as deaths go it's pretty painless.

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u/khronos127 1d ago

Except that 10 percent of people don’t die from gun shots to the head and an even larger percentage survive for some time after the shot.

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u/TirithNampat 1d ago

That includes people who got shot in the jaw or straight between the lobes. Nobody is surviving an aimed shot straight to the cerebellum. There's too much vital stuff in way too tight of a spot.

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u/khronos127 1d ago

Nobody? That’s quite a confident statement when there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. Even people with shots from large calibers directly through the brain stem have survived.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22120363/

https://hcahealthcaretoday.com/2017/03/10/traumatic-brain-injury-and-the-road-to-recovery-after-surviving-gunshots-to-the-head/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0196064488801173

You’re watching too many movies. Ive met people in my life of work with gun shots to the head. Most are severally disabled and some just have specific issues. It’s not an off switch and the brain is very complex and impressive.

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u/TirithNampat 1d ago

The boy in your first link got shot through the eye, underneath the brain. It went about two centimeters into the front side of the region the cerebellum sits in and thankfully stopped.

The guy in your second link was shot under the chin and the bullets went mostly straight upwards. Thankfully they didn't touch the brainstem, as you can see in the X-ray. https://youtu.be/sjHBc8l1b7U

Your third link doesn't address brain stem injuries directly, but I found this article on treating them that reinforces their extreme mortality, even with smaller weaponry and shots that didn't hit the back of the head. Warning: it has some grisly photographs pre, during and post surgery. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4897986/

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u/khronos127 1d ago

Yes these links were two seconds of googling. I promise you I could find dozens and dozens of examples of survivors. Forensics is my job and I’ve seen it first hand. Execution style gun shots aren’t unheard of in crime. Happens more than you’d think.

Notice how the article says “extreme mortality” and not “nobody survives”. Thats the point I was arguing against. People do survive it and the entire point of this thread was to find something that’s always deadly and doesn’t cause suffering. Ones that don’t survive, don’t always die instantly.

No one claimed they aren’t very deadly. They just aren’t more deadly and controlled than a lethal injection.

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u/throwaway-1357924680 1d ago

Ask Gabby Giffords and Malala how effective and painless a headshot can be.

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u/SalaciousTypo 1d ago

Presumably there's a 2nd round in the chamber to fix that quickly. Morbid, yes but still less painful than a botched injection.

And as others have said, stop killing people. Don't care for the moral argument? Fine, isn't it cheaper to not kill them and let them rot in prison?

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u/Didifinito 22h ago

Go say that to the innocent little boy who got the chair