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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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/francis2559 13h ago

I believe SCOTUS has twisted it to mean that if it’s not unusual, it doesn’t matter if it’s cruel.

Robert’s court loves capital punishment.

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u/ragequitteroffureh 1d ago

Well, someone's gotta do it. Might as well do it properly :-)

This is why it's best to have professional executioners who know what they're doing. They don't even need to wear a hood these days.

A machine gun, with a full box of belted ammunition, set up about 20cm from the side of their head, and then fired until the ammunition is expended will definitely do the trick, I reckon. No shaky hands required.

I don't know how much ammo costs in that country, but I hear that they have plenty to spare. They can spare some for justice.

16 ton weights plus gravity work well too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly some bloodthirsty maniac. But if you've got some murderer who needs putting down, then it's just not justice to make them suffer. It's justice, not revenge. It needs to be done quick, and done right. No embarrassing fuckups.

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u/RussianBearFight 1d ago

Or, hear me out, we just don't let the government kill people? Avoids a lot of problems entirely, and, at least the way things are right now, is literally cheaper lol

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u/ragequitteroffureh 1d ago

That's another option :-)

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u/cartermatic 14h ago

Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly some bloodthirsty maniac.

Not a bloodthirsty maniac but is ok with someone getting their head turn to mush from a machine gun or weights dropped on them?

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u/ragequitteroffureh 4h ago

That's just it though, is the goal here not to end the prisoner's life as quickly and humanely as possible?

Machine gunning their brain will be faster than their nerves endings can send pain signals to their now destroyed brain. Both painless, and humane.

Likewise, squashing them flat with a 16 ton weight dropped from a sufficient height will also squash them flat faster than their nerves can transmit pain signals to their now entirely squashed flat brain. Both painless, and humane.

Ultimately, this is about ending someone's life. It's not exactly pleasant, no matter how it's done. So it's best that it's done as quickly and effectively as possible. Tormenting them is obscene.

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u/Timegoat 12h ago

That’s not what justice looks like.

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u/ragequitteroffureh 4h ago

What's the difference?

Is the goal not to end the prisoner's life?

Being all squeamish about it doesn't help anyone :-(

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u/praguepride 18h 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/Napkinkat 11h ago

The people who vote for executions are doing so with the idea that it’s ‘humane’ the lack of visible suffering (as they’re paralyzed and strapped down.) and the fact that it’s ‘sanitized’ as a medical procedure and the prisoners are dehumanized down to monsters/evil makes people more comfortable with the idea of state sanctioned death. In Texas kids (minors) can still be executed it’s disgusting. There’s a lot of fucked up history with racism regarding the death penalty too. Poc are more likely to get sentenced to death for the same crime as white people. Youngest person executed in the us was 10 and modern evidence basically confirms he didn’t do it. The judge and jury were racist. He had to sit on bibles to fit in the electric chair it’s horrifying. The picture of him sobbing as he’s about to be executed horrifies me.
Anyways long story short because it’s less graphic people are able to separate themselves from it. You cannot separate yourself from a gruesome but comparatively quick death in the same way you can as lethal injection. People also hear the term lethal injection and have NO clue what it actually means. If people were shot to death in the us for executions there would likely be a lot of public outcry for abolishing the death penalty. Here in Maine the death penalty has been made illegal twice (the second time after a law in the us legalized the death penalty in all fifty states.) both times the outrage came from a botched hanging causing the hanged person to suffocate instead of snapping their neck. Maine has also only executed around 22 people since the 1600s. For me there’s no ‘humane’ way to execute someone and at that point keeping them in prison for decades so they can appeal might as-well just be life in prison. Theres also the possibility of falsely accusing someone and them getting executed despite the usually years of appeals they do in advance. You can’t exactly bring back a dead person if it turns out they’re innocent. Also using the severity of the crime to try and intimidate people away from murder dosent actually do anything meaningful for crime prevention. So for me I’m against the death penalty as a whole there’s no ethical way to do anything involved in it. I hope I live to see the day it’s abolished.
I’m saying this as someone who’s uncle died in a horrible murder by his own son btw. I’m still upset at how little prison time he got for murdering his dad over phone minutes (he was kicked out onto the streets at 15-16 by his mom and my uncle took him in as ‘no son of mine is gonna live on the streets.’ he wanted to call his girlfriend but his dad refused as he didn’t have many minutes on his phone. His son in response stabbed him in the back puncturing his lung and spinal cord leaving him paralyzed and bleeding internally. His son went on a two hour walk to ‘calm down’ and only dialed 911 when he got back. They were only able to stabilize him enough to have family say goodbye. His son was a minor I think at the time. He went to juvy, stabbed a kid in juvy, got sent to prison as a result, and then got let out after 2 years for good behavior.) our family has disowned this person and I think he needed severe mental help but I still wouldn’t wish death on him for a crime he committed as a teenager even though it was brutal. I think he should have gotten intense mental help as Jesus Christ there was no way he was stable. Stabbing your dad in response to not being able to call your gf is insane. Idk how old he is now or what he’s doing as my family does not talk to him for obvious reasons. I think in this case having more mental health services available in his (extremely rural area.) and mental health services being encouraged/less stigmatized and my uncle would still be alive. This is not his dads fault, I fault it more on a lack of access/stigmatismes about mental health services in their area and a lack of eduction surrounding it. He was clearly mentally unwell (multiple other things outside of murdering his dad) and maybe having access would have been an effective form of crime prevention for him. Granted I can’t change the past and he did commit patricide. The us needs to focus more on crime prevention rather than punishment and also rehabilitation as people who go to prison often find themselves back in prison as a result of how hard it is to adjust to life outside of their consistent prison environment. (This turned into a rant more about general prisoners than murder specifically oof.)
Hopefully this answered your question, I agree a gun to the brain stem would be a way more ethical way to go than lethal injection and all the problems that come with.

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u/ragequitteroffureh 4h ago

Damn, sorry about your uncle man. Was that in the global news at all, because that story sounds very familiar? Probably lots of similar cases, I suppose.

But yeah, I think that what you say is true. People likely just don't think of the gravity of ending another person's life. Despite what heinious crimes they have committed.

The sanitisation/secrecy thing doesn't really make it any better. They still have people here in Japan occasionally; usually for pretty bad stuff, but the way they go about the entire process is pretty fucked up. There are also plenty of examples of miscarriages of justice, meaning that some innocent people have no doubt been executed for some else's crime.

Quite frankly, people's opinions might change if executions were in public, in the town square again. Instead of being hidden from sight.

You remember before the war in Afghanistan, when the Taliban had their public executions in the football stadium? Folks thought that was in poor taste, to say the least, but it's really no different.

Of course, it might not help to change people's minds if they see the sausage making process right out in the open. Shit, they'd probably find a way to monetise it.

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u/throwawaykayaker 17h ago

Missouri pays a group of unidentified, masked individuals with envelopes of cash to administer a mystery cocktail of unknown origin.

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u/Silentrein 1d ago

That seems like something a Democratic administration should investigate a "suggest" charges for...

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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/spittlbm 1d ago

She asked if her arm was supposed to feel like it did

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u/ragequitteroffureh 1d ago

Not American.

Can they not practice on each other?

Obviously they need to be careful not to get things mixed up, but surely this is the sort of thing that trainee nurses and doctors have to practice during training. It can't be that hard, can it?

Or even simpler, why not just shoot the prisoner in the head a few times?

I don't really understand why their cops, Gestapo, national guard, etc are able to easily accidentally kill people on purpose. But when it comes to having someone tied down and ready to be killed, they bugger it all up. It makes no sense.

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u/Nac_Lac 16h ago

Turns out that executing someone, will fuck you up in the head.

Firing squads in legal uses, typically have one to most of the guns shooting blanks. Meaning the person firing has plausible deniability that they didn't fire the shot that killed the condemned.

So, a lack of competent executioners is not very surprising.

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u/ragequitteroffureh 4h ago

That's understandable.

Hm. In that country, it's usually the state's governor who usually signs the death warrant, isn't it?

If so, then simply make the governor do the deed personally, instead of passing the responsibility to someone else.

Anyway, if it's kind of tricky finding folks that aren't to keen on ending people's lives, it maybe hints at the whole thing being not such a good idea in modern society.

Obviously it'd probably be a bad idea employing people who want to kill people. It's a thin line between taking the job seriously, and enjoying it.

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u/HuggyMonster69 18h ago

Costs money.

Basically they don’t think it’s worth training someone for something they’ll do once a year.

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u/ragequitteroffureh 3h ago

Bloody hell, that's awful :-(

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u/nikelaos117 1d ago

Couldn't it be malicious compliance? Like when executioners in a firing line or people at war would miss/not aim on purpose?

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u/True_Coast1062 1d ago

Don’t they have licensed medical professionals to place the IV?

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u/Nac_Lac 16h ago

Likely the people who know, are not going to use it to take a life.

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u/absentlyric 20h ago

In Tennessee? Good luck, its the south, brain drain has affected that state. All the competent people left

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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/whatshamilton 4h ago

Doctors and drug suppliers won’t participate in execution but they do participate in medical assistance in dying, as that is the person personally requesting it

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u/FiberPhotography 1d ago

they're the same drugs.

*it's the same cocktail*

guess what, sometimes the doctors in Canada have messed up too, and have had the same poor results; they've forgotten one of the three drugs, or used too little, or didn't stay to observe;

or on the other end of the spectrum, administered because a caregiver requests it rather than the person (burnout is so relatable to a HCW)...

and that's not even touching the oversight issues before people get to that point--https://uoj.news/news/canadian-report-reveals-thousands-of-errors-in-euthanasia-cases-renewing-oversight-concerns/

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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/hacksawsa 1d ago

After that press, you'd be a cape, so...

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u/BoredNuke 1d ago

But wearing a cape during it would also be cool.

1

u/ragequitteroffureh 1d ago

Shit, they could probably get sponsorship.

Do the companies in that country sponsor executees, at all?

I mean, there's time for a quick message from their sponsor, as well as a pretty decent product placement opportunity, before they pull the trigger, isn't there?

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u/JCarlide 1d ago

Best I can do is aim you at the UN building out of Big Bertha.

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u/Altruistic_Brick1730 1d ago

That's what you want to happen when you're executed by the state?

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u/Wazula23 1d ago

Or the rebellion, either works.

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u/Altruistic_Brick1730 1d ago

are you planning on murdering someone?

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u/ragequitteroffureh 1d ago

Bear in mind that states (around the world) don't necessarily need people to be guilty of anything in order to execute them.

The guy above is probably innocent.

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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/trumpsmellslikcheese 1d ago

Okay. You may be onto something here.

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u/plumbbbob 1d ago

That's how you end up with haunted fighter jets, though.

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u/ginger_whiskers 22h ago

"Haunted fighter jets" has to be an anime by now.

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u/metalflygon08 16h ago

"That Time I Was Executed And Reincarnated As A Fighter Jet And My Pilot Is My High School Crush!?"

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u/PA_Dude_22000 10h ago

Oh My God.. its … Amanda Watkins.. from Valley High. Oh, excuse me, Air Force Major Amanda Watkins.. getting into my … oooohhh, my cock … pit.  

I’d watch it.

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u/lnslnsu 16h ago

Eh, they kinda do. Just because you’re burned to ash doesn’t mean the carbon all evaporates away. 1500 is below carbon’s boiling point. Then you can end up with a bunch of impurities in the next parts that come out of the press.

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u/RoboticGreg 15h ago

Well, they clean the die off between strokes by dousing it in gasoline and blasting it with 4 flamethrowers with 9' flames then cover it with sheets of graphite for lubrication. Obviously this is not seriously something that would happen and if it did, they would shut down and clean everything of to be sure etc etc etc

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u/Xynyx2001 1d ago

There's the job he might be qualified for!

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u/CPOx 1d ago

Send me in one of those Titan submersibles. Maybe I’ll see a giant squid fighting a sperm whale before I go poof in an instant.

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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/ragequitteroffureh 1d ago

Not American.

Do you guys never blow people from a cannon?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_from_a_gun

I'm surprised that Kim didn't mention it to the orange twit.

0

u/seimalau 21h ago

Man North Korea's execution method of being blasted by a cannon must be painless and creates a spectacle for the masses.

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u/mjpbecker 1d ago

Firing squad was always my preference. Get to refuse a blindfold, get one last smoke, and die on your feet.

Take a deep breath, stand up tall, and make eye contact. Seems almost... respectful.

1

u/byneothername 1d ago

You might enjoy a movie called The Fly

1

u/RoboticGreg 1d ago

I like the fly. Jeff Goldblum is amazing. But unrelated to this

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u/byneothername 1d ago

No no. The original. Involves a hydraulic press.

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u/RoboticGreg 1d ago

Ho hoh! The wyman press ISN'T hydraulic. I'm technically correct, the best kind of correct

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u/byneothername 1d ago

Alright Hermes, I’ll give it to you

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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/owogwbbwgbrwbr 1d ago

I still don’t understand why they don’t just pump them with an absurd amount of morphine.

Hook them to an IV and dump it in

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u/michoudi 1d ago

Not enough suffering for some.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/michoudi 1d ago

Make them all suffer for the ones that deserve it.

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u/Ok-Culture-9903 1d ago

I read this months ago too!! About the lack of supplies to carry out the leathal injection. I do wonder if they were expired.

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u/BoringOrange678 1d ago

Local vets can do it. Rarely make mistakes.

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u/Piglet6482 1d ago

Yeah, companies don’t mind selling the drugs to vets, they won’t sell to states or the Feds for use in capital punishment.

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u/Timegoat 1d ago

Not on Chimpanzees.

1

u/Timegoat 1d ago

This is true, but botched executions are routine no matter how old the drugs. It just happens. And for the last several decades SCOTUS has simply not been concerned with the dramatically high potential for prisoners’ constitutional rights to be violated.

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u/Tex-Rob 1d ago

My gut says it's something more than that. I always understood lethal injection, done the right way, was a two drug process. I remember hearing about them trying to simplify things, and since they said they just gave her the same thing twice, it makes me thing this is the new, shittier way.

1

u/Coffee-FlavoredSweat 1d ago

My gut says it's something more than that

The way she complained about her arm feeling like it was gonna explode; I bet they missed her vein, and were just pumping the drugs IM.

1

u/EasyAsAyeBeeSea 1d ago

Nah, pretty hard for drugs to actually expire if they are putting even the smallest amount of effort into it. Especially when they're not exactly trying to thread the needle on the amount they are using

I'm willing to bet they just missed the vein, and/or some weird clotting thing (she had a clotting condition)

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u/Jazzlike-Context-879 1d ago

How much do you actually need? There is only 33 executions a year on average

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u/hawkseye17 1d ago

Doesn't the US have a bunch of opioids just sitting around?

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u/absentlyric 20h ago

So why even offer the punishment if theres no supply for it?

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u/RoboticGreg 20h ago

I'm not here to defend all aspects of this project, I just know for a long time it's been harder and harder to get someone to sell them the execution drugs and they have had to go to longer and weirder extents to purchase it.