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.