47 minutes of pain

[Darmalus]

I wonder if it would be cheaper to just hunt down and hire a few sociopaths who wouldn't be bothered by bloodily killing people than this squeamish song and dance we go through.

I'm pro death penalty, but also anti-suffering. Either rehabilitate people or dispose of them, don't just warehouse them for decades until they die of old age or emerge completely out of date and useless to society. And I'm reasonably certain we could rehabilitate most criminals.

How do you justify the death penalty in light of recent studies that show at least 4.1% of all inmates sentenced to death are most likely innocent? http://rt.com/usa/155472-death-row-inma ... ent-study/

Given the sheer amount of people we lock away and sentence to death that's not an insignificant number.

Since I don't demand perfection from the system, that doesn't bother me. We can do better, and should strive to do better. But I'd rather rehabilitate most and get them out living their lives asap, then just dispose of the irreparable ones.

[Irbis]

I honestly don't know how people got the idea that lethal injection was a more humane means of execution than previous methods. At least with a hanging or a firing squad, the means exist to ensure it's over within a couple of minutes. The suffering can end quickly.

You know that it is possible for people to actually survive several gunshot wounds for a while or have neck strong enough to not die immediately?

That's why you needed qualified executioner to perform hangings - if the noose entangles certain way under your jaw, the result is extremely painful, prolonged death that was extremely unsettling even to hardened audience of medieval public executions.

That and because I think it's rather inhumane to use a method of execution whereby the deceased spends his or her last 30 seconds of life potentially staring at their own decapitated body. Brain function doesn't stop when decapitated, it lasts until the oxygen within the brain is used up.

Wouldn't blood pressure loss mean pretty much instant unconsciousness though? IIRC that's why guillotine was argued to be more humane.

Anyway, if we debate painless methods, why not use say a freezer (or a tank of very cold water)? Hypothermia is pretty quick and painless, at least compared to all of the above ideas. Or, if you want to be really cheap and sure of quick painless death, 5$ plus a bit of string to pull the pin from safe distance will get you this.

I wonder if it would be cheaper to just hunt down and hire a few sociopaths who wouldn't be bothered by bloodily killing people than this squeamish song and dance we go through.

Why sociopaths? There are literally dozens of examples in the last century from first world countries alone that patriotic flag-waving, law-abiding soldiers and intelligence officers can do pretty shitty things to others for a living and not bat an eye after returning home to their loving family. You just need to label victims with some neat labels, like "subhumans", "terrorists", "communists" or the like

[Simon_Jester]

I honestly don't know how people got the idea that lethal injection was a more humane means of execution than previous methods. At least with a hanging or a firing squad, the means exist to ensure it's over within a couple of minutes. The suffering can end quickly.

You know that it is possible for people to actually survive several gunshot wounds for a while or have neck strong enough to not die immediately?

That's why you needed qualified executioner to perform hangings - if the noose entangles certain way under your jaw, the result is extremely painful, prolonged death that was extremely unsettling even to hardened audience of medieval public executions.

With respect to hangings you are absolutely right. With a firing squad, "the means to ensure it's over" involves the other part of the traditional firing squad, which is sometimes forgotten- an officer who walks over and shoots the condemned in the head if the eleven-round volley didn't kill him.

Which goes back to the observation someone else made, that the botched execution described here would have been vastly more humane if someone had simply bashed the man's head in rather than leaving him to writhe on a gurney for almost an hour.

[bilateralrope]

If the state has decided that it is going to execute someone, why not give the condemned a choice in how they are to die ?
Maybe they choose a firing squad. Maybe hanging. Maybe they choose to be locked in a secure room with a loaded pistol so they can pull the trigger themselves.

I thought I was being overly cynical when I suggested that the companies supplying the lethal injection drugs didn't know what they were being used for. Turns out that is exactly what caused the shortage of death penalty drugs in the first place. Then the drug sourcing methods got worse.

Why are high-ranking prison officials from America’s death penalty states showing up with wads of cash at under-regulated pharmacies, swapping briefcases in the desert and rifling through odd inventories of untested anesthetics? Why are correctional facilities being dragged into court for refusing to disclose the compounds used to put inmates to death? And why is the state of Tennessee set to plug in its mothballed electric chair for the first time in nearly a decade? David J. Sams/Getty

Since the Supreme Court lifted its four-year moratorium on capital punishment in 1976, lethal injection has been the weapon of choice for the vast majority of correctional systems, with proponents touting it as a painless and humane way to go. Of the 1,377 executions that have taken place over the past four decades, 1,202 prisoners have been put to death with some variation of the standard, three-step cocktail: A paralytic (which paralyzes the prisoner), an anesthetic (which induces unconsciousness) and potassium chloride (which kills by shutting down the heart). By blurring the line between executioner and doctor, the method has helped dull the barbaric edge of state-sponsored death.

But by relying on sophisticated pharmaceuticals, state correctional systems also stake their business on third-party suppliers that do not always deliver—either because they no longer want their name associated with the practice or because they didn’t know they were supplying the drugs in the first place.

Death rows across America are running on fumes, with drug inventories dwindling and expiration dates voiding batch after batch. “States are now buying drugs from illegal sources, ordering new ones from compounding pharmacies, or trading with other states,” says Jennifer Moreno, a staff attorney with the Death Penalty Clinic at University of California Berkeley School of Law.

The crisis started in early 2011, when the U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Hospira announced that it would no longer manufacture Pentothal (sodium thiopental), the mainstay anesthetic used by executioners to numb the pain of potassium chloride shutting down the heart. The halt came as a final response to what Hospira classified as drug “misuse” among American prisons—officials had continued to use Pentothal for executions against the company’s wishes. As the sole U.S. supplier of the drug, Hospira left virtually all death rows without a steady supplier of lethal injection agents—a distribution opportunity no other domestic manufacturer was ready (or willing) to seize.

With inventory expiration dates inching closer, states began to look for alternatives outside the traditional supply chain. But a good vial of sodium thiopental is hard to find. After a scramble that included bartering among states and, according to some legal experts, dipping into the Indian black market, a set of federal court decisions around the safety of these questionably sourced drugs spurred the Obama administration to step in. In the spring and summer of 2011, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized stockpiles of sodium thiopental in several states, citing “questions about how the drug was imported.”

That same summer, the Valby, Denmark–based company Lundbeck announced it was overhauling its U.S. distribution of Nembutal, a brand name for the short-acting anesthetic pentobarbital. It turned out that death penalty states unable to secure a steady supply of sodium thiopental had simply switched to that.

Pharmaceutical distribution follows a notoriously complex model, and manufacturers rarely have the resources (or the incentive) to follow their products to the bottom of the chain. It wasn’t until the European rights group Reprieve brought to light a set of overlooked buyers—death rows in the U.S.—that Lundbeck realized it had been supplying means of death rather than life. In response, the company opted to restructure the supply of Nembutal by designating a single authorized distributor. “This restricted distribution process was put in place after Lundbeck learned of the misuse of Nembutal among U.S. prisons,” Matt Flesch, a spokesman for Lundbeck, explains. “We strongly opposed this misuse, as Lundbeck is committed to improving people’s lives, and using our products to end lives contradicts everything we’re in business to do.”

Maya Foa, acting director of Reprieve’s Death Penalty team, says that many other U.S. and overseas companies are now following suit. “The tide is certainly changing, and it certainly doesn’t look like any manufacturer worth its salt will want to be seen supplying drugs for executions in the USA,” she wrote in an email to Newsweek. “Over a dozen companies have put distribution controls in place on products that could be used in capital punishment, and there are just a couple that are yet to do so.”

With drug alternatives and supplier options running out, state-sponsored death has come to rely largely on loopholes and secrecy. It’s a kind of regulatory and judicial shell game in which correctional systems scramble to score viable alternatives from domestic sources without disclosing the source nor the acquired drug. It’s a practice aimed at shielding the supplier and the drug from both legal scrutiny and the type of renewed policy activism exercised by Reprieve in Europe.

Some states have been able to keep executions going by furtively trading supplies with other death penalty states. California, after combing the nation for drugs, got hooked up by correctional officers in Arizona, according to email correspondence obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union. “You guys in AZ are life savers,” Scott Kernan, undersecretary for operations for California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, wrote in a thank-you note to Arizona Department of Corrections deputy director Charles Flanagan. “Buy you a beer next time I get that way.”

However, most death rows now rely on a class of suppliers known as compounding pharmacies. In the world outside of death row, compounding pharmacies typically offer made-to-order drugs for patients who need their medication customized. According to Moreno, this type of drug synthesis falls outside the regulatory scope of the Food and Drug Administration, as it is intended for specific prescriptions backed by a solid doctor-patient relationship. “That leaves it to the state to regulate—and that’s not happening,” she explains. By turning a blind eye to these transactions, “they’re basically violating state law, and perhaps federal law as well, in order to provide drugs for the department of correction.”

But drug acquisition from compounding pharmacies has led to even more problems for correctional officials, who now find themselves under the scrutiny of a judiciary that doesn’t care for secrecy within public agencies. The drugs have also come under fire, with a a number of inmates showing signs of distress during their final moments. “I feel my whole body burning,” said Michael Lee Wilson as a combination of Vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride entered his bloodstream on January 9, 2014. The drugs were allegedly provided by an Oklahoma compounding pharmacy; the state’s Department of Corrections has not released information confirming a specific source, despite criticism and pressure from civil rights activists.

The dependence on these untested, undisclosed compounds, and the secrecy surrounding it, has forced America’s remaining death penalty states to pursue one of two policy outcomes. Legislatures can adopt progressive measures that help dismantle death rows and restructure sentences for capital offenders—or, they can keep the practice going by dusting off old statutes and bringing even older execution methods out of retirement.

In February, Washington’s Governor Jay Inslee imposed a moratorium on executions, citing concerns over unequal application and imperfect procedure. “There are too many flaws in the system,” he said in a statement. “And when the ultimate decision is death, there is too much at stake to accept an imperfect system.”

Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado cited similar grounds in May 2013 when he issued an executive order granting reprieve for Nathan Dunlap, who was sentenced to death in 1996 after shooting four people to death at a Chuck E. Cheese. It is unclear how the decision may come to influence the state’s upcoming trial of the Aurora movie theater shooter, James Holmes, whose prosecution is expected to seek the death penalty in October.

Other states have been less inclined to yield to judicial review and increased pressure from activism. Missouri, rather than disclosing their drugs and their suppliers, has taken up arms against defense lawyers by invoking state statutes limiting public access to correctional procedure. By considering their compounding pharmacies parts of the lethal injection team, prisons are able to give their drug suppliers the same privacy protection as executioners, deflecting judicial moves meant to reveal these sources.

In Tennessee, the General Assembly recently passed a bill that would add the electric chair as an alternative for correctional facilities running low on lethal injection drugs. The measure is now headed for approval from Governor Bill Haslam. The last person to die by electrocution in that state was Daryl Holton, who was executed in 2007 for the murder of his three young sons and their half-sister. Holton requested the method; though Tennessee death rows have not been allowed to enforce death by electrocution in more than half a century, inmates are given their choice.

While public approval of capital punishment has hit an all-time low, 55 percent of Americans remain in favor of the practice. However, more and more regulatory entities and professional groups are reaching out to educate the public on an issue they say has been shrouded in bureaucratic secrecy for a long time. “What appears as humane is theater alone,” Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology at Emory University School of Medicine, wrote in a recent op-ed criticizing the current perception of lethal injection.

The only entity capable of imposing some type of unifying policy regarding drug acquisition, disclosure, and capital punishment in general may be the Supreme Court, which has so far opted to leave the matter with lower courts. Until the justices agree to step in, the standoff between death penalty states, the judiciary, and overseas regulators is likely to drag on. “Correctional systems forget that they’re a public agency, and that there needs to be transparency,” Moreno tells Newsweek. “But the states aren’t going to become transparent on their own.”

Even if I ignore my objections to the death penalty in general, I fail to see how lethal injections can be part of a justice system. Not when the drugs are being sourced by illegal and/or secret means.

[Grumman]

Is there a reason why something like the captive bolt gun used to slaughter animals could not be used? Causing trauma directly to the brain seems like a more effective and thus more humane method than shooting him in the chest a few times first.

[Broomstick]

There is a part of the population who would have psychological issues with a condemned man being "slaughtered like cattle". Which gets back to if you're that squeamish why are you killing people?

[Mr. Coffee]

Goddamnit, would you retards knock it off with the "Any reason why we can't use (Insert Obviously Retarded Idea here) for executions". The resident biologist told you dumbfucks a humane and painless method (hypoxia), and I've said twice now a method of going about it that's so simple even a dipshit high-school dropout prison guard can't fuck it up. So shut the fuck up about bleeding them out (Hey, I know, let's just ask France if they've got an old guilittine laying about we can borrow and use that instead!), robot hangmen (When the Robot apocalypse comes I hope your last), boltguns (Fucking really?) and other stupid shit already.

I'm really starting to wonder if some of you even read the threads you participate in or if you just black out and come to seeing posts under your login names.

[Thanas]

Is there a reason why something like the captive bolt gun used to slaughter animals could not be used? Causing trauma directly to the brain seems like a more effective and thus more humane method than shooting him in the chest a few times first.

Because those things frequently misfire and/or are mishandled if not used properly, thereby causing gruesome injuries but not instantaneous death. Seriously, have any of you ever visited a slaughterhouse and watched the process?

Should not be an issue with competent people handling the guns but then again the same should be true for hanging and other methods of executions yet they also get botched up.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Goddamnit, would you retards knock it off with the "Any reason why we can't use (Insert Obviously Retarded Idea here) for executions". The resident biologist told you dumbfucks a humane and painless method (hypoxia), and I've said twice now a method of going about it that's so simple even a dipshit high-school dropout prison guard can't fuck it up. So shut the fuck up about bleeding them out (Hey, I know, let's just ask France if they've got an old guilittine laying about we can borrow and use that instead!), robot hangmen (When the Robot apocalypse comes I hope your last), boltguns (Fucking really?) and other stupid shit already.

I'm really starting to wonder if some of you even read the threads you participate in or if you just black out and come to seeing posts under your login names.

With some of this shit, they might as well ponder about the possibility of putting them in a giant trash compactor, or using a decompression chamber to crank up the pressure to 200 ATMs and then hit the "purge" button. Jesus.

If the death penalty is to be used (something I am opposed to on principle for all current capital crimes), do it right. Hypoxia is hands-down the best way. It is painless unless you are stupid enough to use CO2, you dont have to worry about dosages (all you have to do is get partial O2 pressure below a certain point, and everyone dies), reasonably quick, and administration can be tailored to fit a large number of other needs. You can ritualize it using a mask and regulator system, you can pump in nitrogen while they sleep (or while they are walking around, they wont notice until they pass out and even if they do know, one of the symptoms of hypoxia is euphoria so they wont care).

It is Perfect.

[General Zod]

Since I don't demand perfection from the system, that doesn't bother me. We can do better, and should strive to do better. But I'd rather rehabilitate most and get them out living their lives asap, then just dispose of the irreparable ones.

I don't demand perfection, but I do have a problem with more than 200 innocent people being executed by the state. Especially when a lot of them are sent away on flimsy and circumstantial evidence thanks to dirty prosecution or incompetent attorneys.

[Grumman]

Is there a reason why something like the captive bolt gun used to slaughter animals could not be used? Causing trauma directly to the brain seems like a more effective and thus more humane method than shooting him in the chest a few times first.

Because those things frequently misfire and/or are mishandled if not used properly, thereby causing gruesome injuries but not instantaneous death. Seriously, have any of you ever visited a slaughterhouse and watched the process?

No, I have never seen a bolt gun misfire. That is why I was asking a question. Thank you for not being a complete fuckwit like Mr. Coffee and actually providing an informative answer.

[Mr. Coffee]

Is there a reason why something like the captive bolt gun used to slaughter animals could not be used? Causing trauma directly to the brain seems like a more effective and thus more humane method than shooting him in the chest a few times first.

Because those things frequently misfire and/or are mishandled if not used properly, thereby causing gruesome injuries but not instantaneous death. Seriously, have any of you ever visited a slaughterhouse and watched the process?

No, I have never seen a bolt gun misfire. That is why I was asking a question. Thank you for not being a complete fuckwit like Mr. Coffee and actually providing an informative answer.

Don't want me being a dick? It's easy. Just read the thread next time and when a fucking biologist (Alyrium over there) tells you "x is the best method of killing someone" just accept that he's most likely right instead of making obviously retarded suggestions that you could have seen just how retarded it was if you'd just googled it.

Also, making dipship passive-agressive remarks invoking my name will always make me want to call someone a fuckhead. So you're two for two, wanna go for the hattrick or will you be a bright lad and let it go?

[Thanas]

Guys, I don't want this thread to dissolve into shit, so take a few steps back please.

[Channel72]

Okay, so hypoxia seems to be the ideal solution.

Is there any reason (besides stupidity/incompetence) that states have historically chosen lethal injection?

I think the reason is likely cultural - executions have traditionally been quick, theatrical affairs. If all goes according to plan, one moment you're alive, you blurt out some bad-ass last words, then the executioner flips a switch/pulls a lever/fires a gun etc., and then you're dead within a few seconds or minutes. This is perfect for theatrical purposes - the victim's families get to watch the murderer die and feel satisfied.

With hypoxia, there's nothing theatrical. You basically just sit there watching a guy fall asleep. Not very cathartic.

Let's be honest - our society is still not that enlightened. We still demand some theatrics in our justice system.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Okay, so hypoxia seems to be the ideal solution.

Is there any reason (besides stupidity/incompetence) that states have historically chosen lethal injection?

I think the reason is likely cultural - executions have traditionally been quick, theatrical affairs. If all goes according to plan, one moment you're alive, you blurt out some bad-ass last words, then the executioner flips a switch/pulls a lever/fires a gun etc., and then you're dead within a few seconds or minutes. This is perfect for theatrical purposes - the victim's families get to watch the murderer die and feel satisfied.

With hypoxia, there's nothing theatrical. You basically just sit there watching a guy fall asleep. Not very cathartic.

Let's be honest - our society is still not that enlightened. We still demand some theatrics in our justice system.

It actually is the theatricality aspect. When gas chambers were still in regular use, they used hydrogen cyanide gas, administered through a complicated process involving dropping potassium cyanide into a vessel filled with sulfuric acid that was placed there by way of a tube. The gas is visible, and spectators (victims family etc) can see the death through a viewing port.

However, if they fuck up their reaction kinetics, the death can be pretty damn slow, and death by slow cyanide poisoning is NOT a good way to die.

[montypython]

Okay, so hypoxia seems to be the ideal solution.

Is there any reason (besides stupidity/incompetence) that states have historically chosen lethal injection?

I think the reason is likely cultural - executions have traditionally been quick, theatrical affairs. If all goes according to plan, one moment you're alive, you blurt out some bad-ass last words, then the executioner flips a switch/pulls a lever/fires a gun etc., and then you're dead within a few seconds or minutes. This is perfect for theatrical purposes - the victim's families get to watch the murderer die and feel satisfied.

With hypoxia, there's nothing theatrical. You basically just sit there watching a guy fall asleep. Not very cathartic.

Let's be honest - our society is still not that enlightened. We still demand some theatrics in our justice system.

It actually is the theatricality aspect. When gas chambers were still in regular use, they used hydrogen cyanide gas, administered through a complicated process involving dropping potassium cyanide into a vessel filled with sulfuric acid that was placed there by way of a tube. The gas is visible, and spectators (victims family etc) can see the death through a viewing port.

However, if they fuck up their reaction kinetics, the death can be pretty damn slow, and death by slow cyanide poisoning is NOT a good way to die.

It really ticks me off about people talking about 'humane' executions when even the North Korean methods would have been far more humane in this situation, I mean we euthanize dangerous animals but are too vengeance-minded for quick and cleaner methods like CO poisoning? People really need to be reminded that executions are at best a necessary evil and not a chance to celebrate as a matter of course.

[Scrib]

Yeah I always wondered why they used 3 drugs (at great expense from what I understand) to a huge dose of morphine. Hell, go over to the Dignitas clinic, ask what barbiturates mix they use and administer that. Clean and humane.

You know, I was going to make some snide comment about the US government and some corporate shadiness behind the bloat but apparently real life did it for me.

It actually is the theatricality aspect. When gas chambers were still in regular use, they used hydrogen cyanide gas, administered through a complicated process involving dropping potassium cyanide into a vessel filled with sulfuric acid that was placed there by way of a tube. The gas is visible, and spectators (victims family etc) can see the death through a viewing port.

However, if they fuck up their reaction kinetics, the death can be pretty damn slow, and death by slow cyanide poisoning is NOT a good way to die.

Just to be clear: you're saying that they did this in lieu of better, less flashy methods (of delivering the same or similar poison)? We know this for a fact? Because this is one of those things I don't really want to believe unless forced to.

[mr friendly guy]

I think most people I debated know I am for capital punishment in certain cases, although not the way it seems to be wielded in America.

However I don't think we should botch up executions like this, because frankly we are better than him. Even if you are sadistic, keep in mind this botched execution will detract from the fact that this guy was a piece of shit who broke into a house, shot his victim because he couldn't convince her not to "rat out on him" and then buried her while she was still alive.

[Simon_Jester]

Just to be clear: you're saying that they did this in lieu of better, less flashy methods (of delivering the same or similar poison)? We know this for a fact? Because this is one of those things I don't really want to believe unless forced to.

It sounds like he's saying that this was done in the early days of use of gas-chamber poisoning. Back then, public hangings were well within living memory- come to think of it, the last public hanging appears to have been in the 1930s at the earliest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainey_Bethea

On the other hand, medical science was also in an earlier state, and coming up with reliable, effective means of humanely killing someone would be more challenging because we knew less about which ways to die really were painless.

[Broomstick]

However, if they fuck up their reaction kinetics, the death can be pretty damn slow, and death by slow cyanide poisoning is NOT a good way to die.

Just to be clear: you're saying that they did this in lieu of better, less flashy methods (of delivering the same or similar poison)? We know this for a fact? Because this is one of those things I don't really want to believe unless forced to.

Whether there were "better" methods is debatable for someone anti-death penalty, but that pretty much is how it was done. Death by gas chamber is still a legal method of execution in a half dozen US states even today, though if I recall it's either as a backup if for some reason lethal injection is off the table or if the condemned requests that method.

The botched gas executions can't simply be laid at the food of early 20th Century technology - there were notable nasty executions in the early 1980's and 1990's. Men desperately gasping for air for prolonged periods, one of them spent a good 10 minutes gasping, beating his head against a metal pole nearby, while howling and moaning the whole time. Poison gas execution might in theory be quick/humane/painless/whatever but in practice it's all too often been really agonizing. This sort of thing did lead to lethal injection in the hopes such scenes would no longer play out.

Most recent execution by lethal gas in the US was in 1999. Apparently that one went as planned.

Personally, I was quite happy to grow up in a non-death-penalty state and wish the whole mess would be ended.

[Scrib]

I know that that was how it was done. I meant the claim that theatricality was the reason that method was used instead of others. If that is the case one just needs to provide a better alternative available at the time to make the point.

[Simon_Jester]

If the state had wanted to be theatrical, they'd have stuck with public hangings.

[Eternal_Freedom]

There is a part of me that is baffled that the US continued to use gas chambers for so long after all the details of the Holocaust became known. I mean, the US government executes people in a depressingly similar way to how Nazi Germany exterminated Jews (and others).

If gas chambers had stopped being used by the fifties I could understand, but 50 years? That just doesn't make sense.

Just so we're clear I'm for the death penalty in certain circumstances, but not like that. It's just wrong on a visceral level.

[Scrib]

You're assuming that Americans give a fuck about killing criminals or those specific optics. Now, that is not to say that Americans aren't anti-death penalty, just that that connection (bad people dying by gas, innocent Jews dying by gas) doesn't necessarily connect because fuck the bad guys, tough on crime etc.

And, quite frankly, it doesn't matter if it was wrong on a visceral level because it was similar to Nazi Germany. The question was:"if the testimony of the effects of gas were suitably horrific, why didn't they stop?"

[Broomstick]

I know that that was how it was done. I meant the claim that theatricality was the reason that method was used instead of others. If that is the case one just needs to provide a better alternative available at the time to make the point.

I think there are a LOT of mixed motives involved the death penalty as it currently stands in the US. There's the distaste for "public spectacle", the desire for a "transparent" government, a need to witness the event as a legal proceeding, a desire to be humane and civilized, squeamishness about blood and suffering, yet also, yes, a thirst for revenge.

There is a part of me that is baffled that the US continued to use gas chambers for so long after all the details of the Holocaust became known. I mean, the US government executes people in a depressingly similar way to how Nazi Germany exterminated Jews (and others).

If gas chambers had stopped being used by the fifties I could understand, but 50 years? That just doesn't make sense

Well, it WAS an efficient way to kill people - when it worked properly. I also think the Nazis and their gas chambers being on another continent mitigated some of the horror for the average American.