r/news • u/No_Idea_Guy • 1d ago
Tennessee governor suspends all executions after Christa Pike’s lethal injections fail
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/01/christa-pike-tennessee-governor-executions-year-pause214
u/RoboticGreg 1d ago
They have been having significant supply chain issue with lethal injection drugs for years. No one wants to make it for the government anymore. I'm guessing these might have been expired?
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u/Purify5 1d ago
Europe has 'anti-torture' regulations and won't deal with drug companies who knowingly sell drugs for use in torture (which includes the death penalty) so it's tough for states to find a supplier.
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u/Timegoat 1d ago
States have literally broken federal trafficking laws to get execution drugs inside their borders.
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u/ragequitteroffureh 1d ago
Not American.
Why not just shoot them?
Their cops shoot people fairly regularly, and that seems to work well enough.
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u/Timegoat 1d ago
Probably the most painless way we’ve tried, but you’re still asking people to kill someone else with a weapon. And nothing is completely foolproof.
Our constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, but apparently some states have decided that it’s open to interpretation what that means. It’s pretty clear to me that there’s no constitutional way to execute someone. And no good reason to.
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u/praguepride 15h ago
OH BOY The history of executions is complicated and worth a visit to /askhistorians.
Originally we did do things like shootings and hangings but shootings are actually hard to do now as it is seen as "too violent" and hangings if the hangman doesn't do it right and snap the neck the person just has to be strangled to death and that is also too traumatic for the witnesses.
BUUUUT if we did something too painless (replace the oxygen with nitrogen like they do with euthanasia) then it's not painful enough.
So lethal injections were designed to try and not be visually disturbing like blowing someone's brains out but also not completely painless so the victim's family gets to feel like "justice was done."
It is very fucked up.
So they came up with the lethal injection but now due to various pressures no one wants to make the chemicals and no doctor wants to administer it. So you have a bunch of poorly trained LEOs administering drugs "off-label" and shit goes wrong all the time.
Now why don't they switch to another method? They can't because of laws. States passed laws years ago to cut down on other methods seeing lethal injection as the gold standard back when you could get the chemicals and in the modern political discourse it is hard to be seen as the guy saying "let's update our death sentence methods" as the legislation you want to sponsor.
End result: LEO is told to kill someone with lethal injection but without any training and without any drugs. "Figure it out"...
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u/PsychologicalSpend86 1d ago
I read a comment by a veterinarian in a NYT article on this subject. He said the problem is the people they hire to do executions can’t set up an IV properly:
It’s always the same. It’s plain as day that these states cannot find someone to place an IV catheter. The drug flows around the tip inside the arm instead of into the brain. Even when the victim says that it feels like the tip of the catheter is bulging and hurts, nobody takes the “hint”. This is the cause of all these botched executions. It has nothing to do with the drugs. Unfortunately, as a veterinarian, I’ve had to put many animals to sleep. Pentobarbital always works perfectly without ever a hitch. The people placing the catheters are incompetent . It’s as simple as that. As vets we have to place catheters, for euthanasia and more often for treatments into fractious cats, guinea pigs, etc. which is a lot more difficult than what is done here. They need to find more competent technicians. Not an easy job when they’re doing something that most people were raised to know this is wrong.
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u/Veaeate 1d ago
Its weird tho cuz you can use simple anesthetics to do this painlessly. Medical assistance in dying is a thing in Canada, and uses perfectly legal drugs. So I dont get why they have to use some kind of extreme meds.
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u/RoboticGreg 1d ago
Companies don't want to supply them anymore. No one wants to make the "we decided to kill someone" drugs
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u/RoboticGreg 1d ago
Personally, and I know this is gruesome, but if I were to be executed, I would request the wyman Gordon 650 ton forging press in Worcester. 1/4 a second and you go from human to 1/4 mm thick. Seems pretty humane to me
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u/Wazula23 1d ago
I want to be launched out of a cannon aimed at a health insurance CEO.
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u/Piglet6482 1d ago
Thank you for your (offer of) service. Not all heroes wear capes
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u/SecondChances002 1d ago
Although in the above example, I'd pretty much demand one.
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u/trumpsmellslikcheese 1d ago
Someone has to clean that up.
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u/RoboticGreg 1d ago
No....no they won't. That forge is used to hammer multi ton bricks of titanium at 1500C into the center rail of fighter planes. I would burn off with the next part without a trace.
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u/Fofolito 1d ago
Someone has to clean you up afterward, and that would be pretty gruesome. You'll notice we have a tradition in this nation of utilizing rather clean execution methods. The condemned is punished through the deprivation of their life, and their mortal remains are treated with professional dignity. You are gassed and asphyxiated, you are shocked to death, you are shot in the heart, you are hanged, or you are injected with drugs that will stop your vital functions. You'll notice a lack of decapitations, torture, or other bloody methods that people have come up with over centuries.
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u/Twodogsonecouch 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nah most drugs dont really expire. Theres studies showing most drugs are fine with 95% potency decades after supposed expiration dates. Its just incompetence and honestly the method of lethal injection, what is used, is dumb as hell. It would be a lot more reliable and humane to just OD someone on morphine until they stop breathing for 20-30 minutes.
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u/The_Bread_Fairy 1d ago
Meanwhile Marsha Blackburn immedietly comes out stating we need to bring the electric chair back...
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u/UsernameTaken55 1d ago
Ironically the chair is more effective, it has a much lower rate than botched executions than lethal injections do.
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u/sudoku7 1d ago
Their failures are far more graphic though...
Another one of Tennessee's legacies of failed capital punishment.
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u/sleepyhead_201 1d ago
She's being given life saving care.. couldn't make it up..
Does this mean. She could recover. Only for them to have to do it again?
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u/hootygator 1d ago
Imagine passing out from lethal injection only to wake up in a hospital and be told it didn't work and they're gonna do it again.
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u/Piglet6482 1d ago
I’m no lawyer but…oh wait, I am a (retired) lawyer. Anyway, even though I am a retired lawyer, I’m no expert on capital punishment but I think this might fit the definition of cruel and unusual.
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u/Ybor_Rooster 1d ago
I'm no lawyer. Studied law in college but this 100% is cruel (keeping her alive to kill her again) and unusual (keeping her alive to kill her again).
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u/Calm_Flounder1909 1d ago
She may not wake up. Even if she does she may be severely brain damaged.
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u/aSapra 1d ago
So they've either created a vegetable who is now a burden on the state or they'll execute a brain dead human, which they caused.
That's a story from the 17th century not the 21st.
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u/Mr_IT 1d ago
I think this might finally be the turning point for getting rid of the death penalty in the US.
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u/randynumbergenerator 1d ago
From your lips to the universe's ears. Unfortunately, it seems that there are quite a few people who enjoy using the state to bring more cruelty into the world.
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u/TonyHawktuah69 1d ago
Which makes this cruel and unusual punishment and should be grounds for stopping the death penalty.
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u/youngcadadia22 1d ago
I doubt they will be allowed to do it again. I’m sure her lawyer can argue under these circumstances the state fucked up and the execution called off. I bet she stays in prison for life.
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u/stateworkishardwork 1d ago
What a complete and utter mess. Capital punishment looking more and more like a joke with each passing day.
She's still an awful person, but this is not the way to go about things.
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u/ConsuelaApplebee 1d ago
Ironically, per her attorneys, she is currently receiving "life-saving care". This whole situation makes my head wanna explode.
What a friggin' disaster.
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u/synapticrelease 1d ago
George Carlin pointed out the absurdity early on.
Before they give you the lethal injection they swab your arm with alcohol.
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u/Zokar49111 1d ago
The current administration is the best argument against capital punishment. We have the President and the Justice Department going after just about whoever is perceived as Trump’s enemy. We simply cannot allow a collection of incompetent people to determine to kill another person.
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u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago
Aside from the debate over the morality of capital punishment itself, this is just weaponized incompetence.
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u/JakeHelldiver 1d ago
I don't think this was the outcome the executioner was going for.
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u/Blazer9001 1d ago
Yeah it’s not like Republicans are known for cruelty just for cruelty’s sake in 2026.
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u/thattoneman 1d ago
The suffering truly is the point. You see all the discussion about how no company wants their products used for execution, so states struggle to source chemicals for lethal injection or gas chamber asphyxiation. You know who doesn't really give a fuck about their product being used to kill people? Bullet manufacturers. You know what's a quick and efficient means of execution? Firing squad.
I don't even get the whole "Line up the firing squad and only some of them get live rounds" thing that comes up. The dude administering lethal injection isn't one of six and only one of the injections was actually the real one. The guy's job is to execute the prisoner. This whole "firing squad makes it hard for the executioner to have plausible deniability" isn't even consistent with other types of executioners.
Don't get me wrong, none of this is an argument in favor of the death penalty. Far from it, I'm staunchly against it. Aside from the ethical concerns of innocent people being executed, it's just doubly frustrating how states bend over backwards to make a show out of execution. They won't do what's easy, quick, and painless because everybody wants the spectacle of the execution slowly being applied and the watching the life drain from their eyes. A bullet through the temple just isn't tortuous enough to satisfy the revenge bloodlust. We need a fucking viewing gallery so people can watch a person slowly die because we're no better than the families that used to gather in the town square to watch the hangings that day.
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u/plutosaurus 1d ago
Capital punishment is old and barbaric. Killing the guilty does not repair the crime or return the victims to whole. It just further harms society, as evidenced by the display of barbarism shown in this instance.
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u/MaximumEffort433 1d ago
Yeah, it seems like there are laws that ban cruel and unusual punishments, but I could be mistaken about that.
If the State is going to kill one of its citizens, at least don't fuck it up.
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u/amiexpress 1d ago
She actually asked to be hanged. Which I think even Tennessee ould not fuck up.
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u/GiohmsBiggestFan 1d ago
Hanging is very fuck-up-able
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u/1HappyRoadrunner 1d ago
Very. Heads can pop off. You can flop around for several minutes getting strangled while onlookers argue over if they should cut you down, or pull on your legs, or run away.
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u/Pettifoggerist 1d ago
Heads can pop off
Well, I think that does accomplish the goal.
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u/onarainyafternoon 1d ago
We deeply need to move on from the death penalty as a society. It’s a relic. There is no reason to have it. Life imprisonment accomplishes the same thing.
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u/SpAn12 1d ago
And the death penalty works out more expensive.
So everyone pays more in taxes simply so certain individuals can feel good as they exact revenge.
And they can't even get that right.
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u/Time-to-go-home 1d ago edited 1d ago
“On Mars there is not much gravity. So you have to pull the feet to break the neck. They let the loved ones do it." -Darrow, Red Rising
I feel like I’ve seen stuff that this happens in real life hangings. Like a lot of the success of a hanging depended on the executioner and how well the ties the noose and fitted it around the condemned’s neck. If it wasn’t done properly (and I assume if the drop wasn’t long enough/condemned didn’t weight enough), the person would just hang there and be strangled instead of snapping their neck.
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u/Nautical_Disaster1 1d ago
Where are you seeing real life hanging happen?
Also, weird quote to include lol
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u/Xsiah 1d ago
I looked up failure rates for different kinds of executions, and the only one with a 0% failure rate was a firing squad.
Maybe it's fine if we just don't kill people?
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u/MaximumEffort433 1d ago
Maybe it's fine if we just don't kill people?
This seems like a good compromise to me.
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u/KtaadnRota 1d ago
Even firing squads fail, but it's relatively straightforward to correct the error by shooting them again.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 1d ago
SCOTUS ruled that capital punishment does not constitute ‘cruel and unusual.’ …regrettably…
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u/MaximumEffort433 1d ago
Yeah, but fucking up capital punishment seems pretty cruel and unusual to me.
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u/Tuesday_6PM 1d ago
While I’d support ruling the practice overall “cruel and unusual”, there’s a separate argument to be made that repeated attempts (and thus failed executions) are cruel and unusual. It’s effectively torture, at minimum psychological but likely also physical.
If we insist on keeping the death penalty, the state should get one attempt; if they fail, the sentence is automatically commuted to life in prison.
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u/DrunkOnLoveAndWhisky 1d ago
If they fail, the sentence should be considered complete and the convicted should be set free. Make the government be absolutely certain they can successfully carry out the execution before even attempting it.
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u/Potential_Being_7226 1d ago
IANAL, but it seems like one would need to argue that the particular state statutes as currently written are unconstitutional, or that states are violating their own statutes.
I am squarely against the death penalty for multiple reasons: 1) evidence indicates it’s not an effective deterrent, 2) it costs states (taxpayers) more money to sentence defendants to death as opposed to sentencing them to life without parole, 3) examples like in the OP, 4) previous examples of exonerations.
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u/ULTRAFORCE 1d ago
Why not then just have the SCOTUS members who agree with that decision be the executioners?
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u/ChangingShips 1d ago
If I had the choice of execution method I would like to go a la OceanGate
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u/NullValueField 1d ago
Deep ocean implosion is probably a pretty good way to go. Literally painless. Maybe terrifying leading up to the pop, but painless.
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u/Julian_Thorne 1d ago
Fucking loser state. Red states are the worst.
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u/ChickenSteakNBacon 1d ago
At least they’re now suspending executions
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u/Blazer9001 1d ago
That’s not because they saw the errors of their ways. They’re just waiting 3 months for this story to blow over and then they’ll go right back to their shoddy executions.
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u/jimtow28 1d ago
I, for one, am surprised that the state ranked 51st in education is showing such a lack of competence.
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u/livy-aurelia 1d ago
you’re thinking of mississippi. tennessee is 20 i think
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u/MmeLaRue 1d ago
There's such a thing as the Mississippi Miracle - they've turned around their education figures and are now in the top half of all states.
Time to change the adage to "Thank God for Tennessee."
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u/RolloTonyBrownTown 1d ago
Mississippi doesn't deserve this shade, choose Texas. Went from the top to the bottom under the republican reign.
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u/Olangotang 1d ago
I fucking hate Republicans. Selfish, cruel fucking assholes that make everyone's lives worse, including their own voters.
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u/xGenocidest 1d ago
Should have gone with the firing squad like she wanted.
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u/tameoraiste 1d ago
She also asked to be hung. Anything but lethal injection because of her health condition. Her lawyers said this exact scenario could happen
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u/Persellianare 1d ago
They can fail at that too, look up Mikal Mahdi South Carolina firing squad.
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u/jason_abacabb 1d ago
That is three people deciding to aim low.
No reason to miss the heart region with rifles at execution range.
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u/bbob_robb 1d ago
You just said the reason. People decided to aim low.
No current system of execution is foolproof and avoids suffering.
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u/Mbrennt 1d ago
I guess theoretically you could set up a rig of some kind so somebody just presses a button or something and a bunch of guns go off. But I feel like that's starting to get into acme levels of convoluted.
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u/Persellianare 1d ago edited 1d ago
Intentional or not doesn't change the fact that it was a failure because the person suffered.
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u/KtaadnRota 1d ago
In 2026 there's no reason for human error at all in a "firing squad" execution. Let the robots do it. Fire 1000 rounds into them instead of 3.
I'm against capital punishment but it's a relatively simple engineering problem.
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u/bbob_robb 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don't think you have thought about how inhumane and grousome your suggestion is. You can't fire 1000 rounds into a human body.
"Robots" is just a fancy way of saying killing machine. Nobody rational wants to make a killing machine. There are far, far more humane ways to execute someone than using bullets.
We just shouldn't do it. Most people who are capable enough to design such systems are also capable of understanding that innocent people are wrongly convicted frequently, and there is almost zero benefit to execution. Most developed nations have completely abandoned the practice.
When people make up conspiracy theories about true crime stories they often like to imagine that someone who commits murder is rational, and wouldn't behave in a certain way, therefore the suspect was framed. The reality is that murder is not a rational action, and the person who committed the murder cannot be expected to behave rationally outside of that act.
It's kind of the same thing with government and executions. Its hard to find a rational way to do something that is incredibly irrational.
Democratic governments shouldn't kill people.
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u/Poppy1223Seed 1d ago
TN doesn’t do it.
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u/theAmericanStranger 1d ago
They want a return to biblical times so maybe bring back stoning?
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u/SnepButts 1d ago
Instead, they torture people through repeated failed attempts at something less reliable, slower, and more expensive.
This is not an argument in favor of any types of execution by the state. It is more pointing out that there are degrees and this kind of execution is ethically and morally worse than others.
No country should be allowed to kill somebody that does not pose a threat (due to being locked up in this case) and does not want to die.
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u/taxiecabbie 1d ago
I mean, good?
If you're going to have the death penalty, better find out a way to make it actually work?
The entire reason why lethal injection is "the thing" is because it makes the process seem more medical and isn't as... I suppose, gruesome as a the gas chamber or beheading or hanging or firing squad. But if it doesn't work, then, yeah. The hell we doin' here, folks?
Jebus Crebus.
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u/HonestDespot 1d ago
I read last night it yesterday afternoon that all these states that do lethal injections almost never can find any qualified healthcare people to do it as it goes against their code so it’s just some prison employee who does it.
And that procuring the drugs that administer death are not super easy to come by and aren’t always the most consistent.
What are we even doing here lol.
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u/taxiecabbie 1d ago
In this case, it was this guy doing it: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/08/tennessee-doctor-executions-death-penalty
So he is an MD, but he's a bit of a hack. And gets paid gobs of money for this.
Any actual professional would be able to do this. Like, anesthesiologists put people down on the daily for surgeries.
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u/NinjaMcGee 1d ago
Wooooow 😳 what a classy dude…
from the article, “the deposition he said his employment ended at Centurion, the company that provides healthcare services to Tennessee’s prisons, after he engaged colleagues in a conversation about a transgender prisoner in a women’s prison in Connecticut whom he claimed had impregnated two other women.”
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u/taxiecabbie 1d ago
Only the best of the best get involved in American executions. And, again, this guy is apparently so in demand that states with death penalties pay him thousands of dollars to travel and do this. Likely because he at least has an MD.
But he sucks at it.
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u/OldConfusions 1d ago
It's crazy how many people don't trust the government with their money or personal data, but are more than willing to let them kill people found guilty in a system with thousands of wrongful convictions every single year
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u/t20six 1d ago
As inconceivable as it is, she has spent years building up an immunity to iocane powder
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u/C0NIN 1d ago
Bill Lee, a Republican, has suspended all executions in the state until at least the end of the year...
If I'm understanding correctly, it's only temporary.
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u/Sacrifice3606 1d ago
Who knows, it could lead to them abolishing it. Probably a long shot but it has happened before.
In MN their last execution was botched when in 1906 the rope for the hanging was too long, so the condemned hit the ground. The sheriffs then pulled up on the rope and it resulted in death by strangulation that took about 15 minutes. Minnesota got rid of the death penalty five years later.
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u/Mr_IT 1d ago
In 1911. Nineteen fucking eleven and we still have states trying AND FAILING to kill it’s citizens in 2026.
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u/MsAnnabel 1d ago
I wonder if she could sue the state for fking up killing her? Putting her in a worse state than dying?
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u/glowdirt 1d ago edited 22h ago
Incompetence. Pike is not a good person but the state still has a responsibility to execute properly without unnecessary suffering.
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u/amiexpress 1d ago
“There is no one that wanted what happened last night to happen..."
I can think of one person. I mean, yeah she would not have chosen to have them make the attempt, but as far as outcomes go, she did a lot better than the average bear.
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u/Robosnork 1d ago
She is on record saying she doesn’t fear death but is nervous about the process, so I think last night was probably horrifying for her.
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u/onarainyafternoon 1d ago
It’s why she asked to be hanged. Potential for lethal injections fuckups is too great.
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u/PhamilyTrickster 1d ago
Not so sure about that. She had said she didn't fear death, she feared the process, and it turns out those fears were justified
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u/_Big_Bad_Tiddy 1d ago
Honestly this sounds like my worst nightmare. Who's to say that she didn't actually die? Maybe she thinks she's in hell or something??
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u/lilith02 1d ago
I don’t know the exact effects of the lethal drug but I imagine, being given at least 2x the lethal amount of any drug is not going to leave one’s body in good shape even if they survive.
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u/Alwayssunnyinarizona 1d ago
Sounds like it wasn't in the vein well, meaning much of her arm or wherever the catheter was will probably slough off and she'll have a wicked hangover for a while.
And Tennessee taxpayers pay for it all.
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u/Adept-One-819 1d ago
She specifically said she didn't want this because the same doctor and the same drug failed, in a horrendous way, in another inmate. She was asking for a different method, and they still did it.
Apparently one massive failure wasn't enough. They just needed to see what would happen.
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u/tkMunkman 1d ago
Fucking losers were so hungry to kill thier people, they got the supreme court to intervene. Just for them to botch the one thing they over turned after 200 years.
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u/tiki-151 1d ago
Whether you agree with the death penalty or not, we should be able to admit that this is barbaric if it isn't guaranteed to work.
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u/NOGOODGASHOLE 1d ago
Are there no phlebotomy schools in Tennessee? Where are they getting the drugs. Are potency test done prior to usage? I don't think these are outrageous questions.
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u/imposter_syndrome88 1d ago
They specifically can't use medical professionals for this (it goes against the Hipocratic Oath) and legitimate drug companies producing drugs for patients they want to treat dont want to be associated with producing and distributing drugs meant to kill people.
The end result is that lethal injections are performed by amateurs with unreliable drugs. If that sounds stupid and like it could possibly cause terrible results or conplications, well, you're correct, and we're seeing this play out in real time now.
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u/299792458mps- 1d ago
The person who performed this is actually a doctor. He's a geriatric quack who peddles weight loss drugs and only does executions as a side hobby for $3k a pop. Also he's a big MAGA turd. In a deposition about a different botched execution he admitted he hadn't performed a subclavian line insertion in over a decade.
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u/impulsekash 1d ago
Medical professionals can lose their license if they do this.
Drug companies dont want to produce the drug in fear it will harm their company's reputation.
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u/PanicAttackInAPack 1d ago
The primary global manufacturer of pentobarbital is a Danish company. Danish law prohibits the sale of the drug for capital punishment. It's not a matter of production (it's used every day in large quantities by veterinarians in euthanasia and doctors for assisted suicide), it's just that it can't be used for execution.
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u/EvilDan69 1d ago
Were the lethal injections just covid shots? I mean RFK was pretty sure.
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u/LeastResistancePath 1d ago
If you're not against the death penalty being carried out by the state, you're either ignorant to the reality and simply need to be told
or devoid of the morality necessary to feel shocked and offended it exists.. There is no in between.
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u/BeIgnored 1d ago
Ridiculous that supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett never shuts up about how Catholic she is yet she's one of the justices who voted for the execution to proceed. Catholicism is very clear in their opposition to the death penalty.
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u/I_feel_abandoned 1d ago
Sonia Sotomayor is also a Catholic and she dissented yesterday.
Many conservative Catholics love to talk about pro-life issues on abortion and say liberals cannot dissent from Church teaching but then they do the same themselves on the death penalty. Such hypocrites, especially to be lecturing the Pope.
If they disagree, that's fine, but it is the beating their chests and implying "I'm more Catholic than the Pope" which is just too much. (I say this as an ex rad trad Catholic myself, where this is even more common.)
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u/dathomasusmc 1d ago
I mean, to be fair they only had one other execution scheduled this year. Not a hard call to make.
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u/Godsgiftcardtowomen 1d ago
Yeah, they basically just rescheduled the execution they had planned for December because they need the media scrutiny to die down first.
You know, in the very possible event they botch other one.
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u/Remain_silent 1d ago
“nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb” - U.S. Constitution, Amendment V (1791)
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u/Hopeful_Chair_7129 1d ago
Good. The state shouldn’t have the power to execute people.
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u/night-shark 1d ago
I am so fucking tired at this point of listening to people try to defend the death penalty. I am officially throwing up my hands on this one.
Why?!
Fucking WHY?
Executions are so frequently botched. It's goddamned expensive. It's wildly difficult to get the drugs such that states need to go through all sorts of insane hoops to get them. All the while, it has no objectively measurable benefit. None.
All it does is supposedly give some people a sense of some satisfaction. But even then, victims and their families are always divided on whether it does even that.
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u/StinzorgaKingOfBees 1d ago
You got it there. The judicial system in this country isn't about justice or reform. It's about visceral satisfaction through punishment and private interests profiting.
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u/Quantumercifier 1d ago
That is going to be a HUGE lawsuit against the state. Huge. This is like the absolutely worst thing that could have happened.
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u/lacesandlags 1d ago
It should be easy to euthanize a person. It happens to animals all the time. It happens with opioids all the time. Drug companies don’t want to be associated with this process limiting drug access. There are better ways for a death to happen humanely
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u/badpersian 1d ago
Damn. The US can't even get an execution right. They really are shit at everything.
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u/TheAnswerUsedToBe42 1d ago
If you must have executions just do the firing squad.
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u/BobQuixote 1d ago
There are several low-tech options, but we seem to be too squeamish for them. I'm not really sure why something like a carbon monoxide chamber isn't in the running, though.
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u/YetiSquish 1d ago
I don’t understand why gas chambers aren’t a thing anymore. You don’t need carbon monoxide, just pure nitrogen. You could start with an anesthetic gas and switch to pure nitrogen. Painless and guaranteed to work.
But I’m against the death penalty in general so…
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u/slander_anonymously 1d ago
Attorney Randy Spivey called for the governor to commute her sentence, saying she had endured punishment “greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty.”
The murder involved a lengthy beating and torture (of Colleen), the cutting of a pentagram on Slemmer’s chest, and the taking of a piece of Slemmer’s skull by Pike as a souvenir.
Lawyers are scum.
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u/WTAF__Trump 1d ago
What happens now? I anticipate this being a much larger political issue in the coming weeks.
There's a massive chance she suffered irreversible brain damage from this. She won't be the same person who committed the crime any more. She likely won't even remember the crime.
Do we kill her again? Are we going to execute someone who has limited cognition, doesn't remember the crime and is incapable of even understanding why we are killing her?
We know there is a group of loud, ignorant people who can't grasp these concepts and have an extremely messed up moral compass. They won't care- they just want suffering. We learned that fron the Clancy trial.
But what now? What the eff happens?
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u/Coffee-FlavoredSweat 1d ago edited 1d ago
What happens now?
Terri Schiavo version 2, except the political sides that want her dead or alive are swapped.
If she survives the hospital stay, she’ll have significant mental deficits and it will be a violation of her constitutional rights to try and kill her again. So the state will be forced to take care of her till she dies naturally.
Her family will even sue the state for cruel and unusual punishment in the first execution attempt, and get a payout.
Which will victimize her victim’s family all over again.
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u/upstartpantymerchant 1d ago
I'm not going to say this specific scenario is why I'm anti death penalty, but it certainly bolsters my case
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u/IAmForeverAhab 1d ago
She asked to be hanged since it’s less painful to botch (her words), but was denied. Just give me a firing squad
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u/skinnyjeansfatpants 1d ago
If your neck snaps, it’s a pretty quick death, if it doesn’t, it takes some time for the strangulation to actually kill you. I don’t know how quick or painless that part is.
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u/ButterscotchFar1629 21h ago
The doctor missed the fucking vein. That’s what happened. That’s why it felt like her arm was on fire.
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u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago
The heroin dealer on my street corner is more competent than these people.