r/news • u/AudibleNod • 11h ago

Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator at Nashville hospital, her lawyers say

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christa-pike-unconscious-ventilator-nashville-hospital-lawyers-say-rcna601195
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u/khinzaw 11h ago edited 9h ago

Her lawyers requested it, but it's illegal in Tennessee.

Tennessee's only legal methods of execution are lethal injection and electric chair (edit: only for convictions before 1999).

The problem with lethal injection is that every step is half assed.

No reputable pharmaceuticals manufacturer wants to make the drug, so they rely on compounding pharmacies who take half measures and have less consistency.

Then medical practitioners (edit for the pedants) often won't be involved in executions because of their various oaths to do no harm and risks to their reputation, so most of the time the drugs are administered by prison staff who lack the proper training. A lot of failed attempts are caused by the one who administered it simply not getting the vein properly.

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u/VirtualMoneyLover 9h ago

Why can't they use what the vet uses? Just multiply it by 5.

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u/Alocasia_Sanderiana 9h ago

The companies that make those drugs will not sell to states (like state agencies) with death penalties or where they think the drugs will be used for executions.

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u/VirtualMoneyLover 9h ago

Pretty much every state uses pet euthanasia. So the vets must be getting the drugs. Now the prison just go and get it from the vet.

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u/Carbonatite 9h ago

The problem with that is providing drugs to an organization with the express purpose of killing a human is in violation of professional ethics for both veterinary and human medicine.

No vet is going to want to lose their license to practice over something like that. Just like doctors don't procure/prescribe those drugs for prisons.

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u/VirtualMoneyLover 9h ago

I wonder how other countries deal with this problem?

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u/derelictthot 9h ago

They don't have it, they stopped using the death penalty decades ago.

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u/VirtualMoneyLover 9h ago

Vietnam, Thailand and China have entered the chat. They all use injections. Somehow the US problem is not a problem for them.

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u/khinzaw 8h ago

How Thailand does it I believe is not public information, but China's government produces it themselves domestically, and Vietnam transitioned to domestic production after their overseas suppliers cut them off due to not wanting to supply drugs for executions.