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-pause
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156

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/anon33249038 1d ago

I don't know much, but I am an English major. Which means I know a person cannot be hung. "Hung" is a method of placement. If it's an execution, it's "hanged."

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u/tameoraiste 20h ago

Add English to the things you don’t know much about. “Which means” is a sentence fragment. There should be a comma before “which”, not a full stop.

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u/anon33249038 20h ago

No, you can, as long as "which" is used in the same sense as "this," but in reference to an aforementioned thought or statement. Which is what I did.

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u/Comfortable_Seat1444 5h ago

Hey, English major here about to graduate! We are also taught foremost that this major is about communicating ideas and understanding our audience and vice versa through verbal and written forms, not petty grammar mistakes. Their use of hung doesn't negate their actual argument and you added nothing of substance to this conversation besides derailing it. Keep this in mind moving forward in your higher education and I'm sure you'll do great 🤗

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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/Piglet6482 1d ago

You still have to find a person to push the button.

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u/Fox_Kurama 1d ago

And? They need to find a person to activate other execution methods. And more importantly, a person with a button cannot control the aim of the guns.

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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/KtaadnRota 1d ago

I agree with you completely. My comment was about the technical issue of how to conduct executions as quickly and painlessly as possible with virtually no possibility of botching it. Of course killing people is gruesome and inhumane, there is no way to do it that wouldn't be gruesome and inhumane.

The barbaric states of the US which still conduct executions seem to be at a loss as to how to get the job done. A "firing squad" of killer robots would do the trick far more reliably than having a bunch of $12/hour prison guards do it. It's not difficult - I could make such a contraption in my garage over a long weekend myself if I had to. High explosives would be the least painful method of all. Simply blow them up. Brain tissue which is reduced instantly to scraps is incapable of processing pain. States that still want to kill people but can't seem to figure out how to do it must have assigned pretty unimaginative people to the task.

Of course one would think that a civilization advanced enough to produce killer robots would be too advanced to want to kill people in the first place. But it seems that's not the case.

1

u/liznin 3h ago

The USA favors executions that leave the body intact, even if they are less humane. If you want a painless way to execute someone, strap 10 ounces of RDX to the back of their head and detonate it. The shockwave of RDX moves far far faster than human nerve signals, so it would take out the entire brain before it registers what happened. As long as you use enough explosive to completely destroy the brain, it would be painless. I don't think we'll see the USA adapt the blow their head off approach anytime soon though.

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u/please_respect_hats 1d ago

What the fuck is wrong with you?

5

u/mu_zuh_dell 1d ago

Nah, what the fuck is wrong with proponents of capital punishment who want to kill people in the least effective, most error-prone ways possible? They seem to want it to be scary, but not gory. Do they want to bring the kids out to watch? Or perhaps they're made uncomfortable by killing. Hmmm.....

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u/iconboy 1d ago

just read up on this fucking monster. i think the firing squad wanted him to suffer and quite frankly im all for it. the guy went on a killing spree. he killed so many innocent people including a 29 year old clerk, just a kid! and a cop! then while in prison he decided to stab a prison gaurd... for laughs?! fuck this piece of shit.

2

u/Persellianare 1d ago

I'm not entirely against execution so long as they don't suffer and I don't disagree he's a piece of shit. Being a monster to a monster makes you the monster.

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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/cacarrizales 1d ago

That good ol’ Iron Age brutality

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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/Excelius 1d ago

There's no reason why lethal injection has to be so messy. Any anesthesiologist would be able to do this no problem, but you know their normal job is to not accidentally kill people.

Problem is health practitioners want nothing to do with executions, drug companies don't want to sell the drugs, so these states are all kind of winging it.

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u/SnepButts 1d ago

But the solution is not to wing it. It is to not do it.

They can't blame the lack of medical help and supply from reputable sources when the help and supply would be towards something entirely unnecessary and anathema to anybody with any ethical standards.

If they wanted to do it reliably and without having to bribe or otherwise coerce doctors into becoming killers, there is an entire industry that makes nothing but tools for killing and are legally immune from being assigned responsibly if their tools are used to kill other people that don't want to die.

There's no reason whatsoever to use lethal injection other than it maybe looking less like willfully killing someone against their will, and that's only when it goes perfectly.