Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2014 May 1

= May 1 =

Problems with lethal injections in the U.S.A.
I have been reading for a while now about the problems experienced with lethal injections used for executions in the United States. I am puzzled because vetinary surgeons have been competently putting animals 'to sleep' for years in a quick, safe, and painless manner. Surely to do that to a human would only be a matter of adjusting the dosage correctly. This is so obvious that I know it must have been considered. Does anybody know why this can't be done? Thank you Gurumaister (talk) 15:26, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Note in the article Animal euthanasia that drugs like pentobarbital are used, and that's what used to be used on humans as well, until its manufacturers decided to ban sales of it to prisons. Hence the prisons are having to use relatively untested drugs, and as the recent Oklahoma story indicates, there may be some glitches. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:54, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * (ec) In recent years, it has been difficult for the remaining death-penalty states to legally acquire drugs for use in lethal injections. European regulations forbid the sale of pharmaceuticals for use in lethal injections, for instance, so if domestic supplies dry up then state executioners are out of luck.  (Remarkably, there are some things that are too unethical for even a pharmaceutical company to do, or be seen doing.  Some U.S. manufacturers also decline to sell drugs for executions&mdash;either because they can't stomach it, or because it would hurt their sales in other jurisdictions.)  To take some examples from the recently botched execution of Dennis McGuire in Ohio, the last U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental (Ohio's usual execution drug of choice) shut down production in 2011.  Ohio's backup stocks of pentobarbital had expired in 2009.  That left the state to wing it using whatever drugs they had at hand, and they did a more-than-usually barbaric job of it.
 * Attempting to conduct animal research with the principal aim of improving methods to execute humans wouldn't fly with any credible research institution's research ethics board (even assuming you could find a researcher who wanted to do the study). Meanwhile, medical doctors are barred by their own rules from participating in or advising on execution strategies as it would be a gross breach of their ethical obligations. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:57, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * We could always go back to the electric chair. Or, a standard knockout drug followed up by a fatal shot of some kind after the subject is unconscious. The folks in Europe are trying to coerce the US states into abandoning the death penalty altogether. But where there's a will, there's a way. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:00, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
 * In what jurisdiction is refusal to do business "coercion"? Does a shop advertising "no shoes, no shirts, no service" coerce me to get dressed? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:18, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Why not just get the jury foreperson to shoot the convict in the face? DuncanHill (talk) 16:03, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I doubt he would want to stick around the courthouse waiting for the ten-plus years appeal process to complete. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:05, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Fair point, and they might be hard to trace after all that time. How about getting the judge who dismisses the final appeal to do it? DuncanHill (talk) 16:11, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I think you'd run into a separation of powers problem: the judiciary ought not to carry out executive functions. AlexTiefling (talk) 16:17, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Fine. Have the Governor of the state do it (or the President, for federal cases). With an axe. - EronTalk 16:49, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * In the Oklahoma guys, the condemned man had buried his victim alive. If the US were to adopt the idea of doing to the perp what the perp did to the victim, some government official would need a backhoe and a shovel. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:57, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I haven't seen anyone suggest doing to the murderer what they had done to the victim. DuncanHill (talk) 18:01, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * "...to let the punishment fit the crime, the punishment fit the crime..." (W.S. Gilbert) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:09, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Meanwhile, US support for the death penalty is declining, and increased critical attention to the practice in places like Oklahoma will only speed that decline. Marco polo (talk) 16:08, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I wonder why they don't just use a normally nonlethal drug in lethal quantities, like a massive insulin injection. StuRat (talk) 16:15, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The side-effects and time taken to die might (and I'm not familiar with the specifics for insulin) be regarded as cruel and unusual. I'm wondering why they don't use something akin to a guillotine. AlexTiefling (talk) 16:17, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * You'd still give the knock-out drug first, so side effects wouldn't be "cruel". As for the guillotine, that's bad in two ways: 1) the head may survive for a bit after, so pain can be experienced, and 2) one of the goals is to reduce the spectacle of the event, as death penalty opponents would love to spread pictures of gore all over to gain support for their side. StuRat (talk) 16:31, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * They wouldn't necessarily need to bring back the public square. Just set up a guillotine in the usual chamber, where witness and photography rules stay as they are. A bit of temporary pain seems to be normal in most methods. InedibleHulk (talk) 15:35, 2 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Surely the deterrent effect would be increased if people were made to watch gruesome killings with a warning "This will happen to you if you murder someone". DuncanHill (talk) 16:37, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Assuming, of course, the person being gruesomely killed by the state actually committed the murder in the first place. Sometimes, they haven't.  Then the lesson is "Don't look vaguely suspicious, or we'll torture you to death."  Not exactly the kind of message a civilized society wants to send about its leadership.  -- Jayron  32  16:47, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Capital punishment isn't very effective as a deterrent, because murderers tend not to be the type of people who careful weigh the pros and cons before committing a murder. However, it is effective at providing closure for the victims' families and for "removal from society".  That is, once executed, the chance that the criminal will commit any more crimes is considerably reduced.  With life imprisonment, there's still the possibility of parole, and even in the case of life without parole they could get out by escaping, being pardoned, a court ordering them released due to prison overcrowding, etc.  And they could also continue to torment the surviving victims from prison. StuRat (talk) 15:15, 2 May 2014 (UTC)


 * It might deter people from supporting capital punishment if they actually saw what it was really like. And feeling a sense of satisfaction at the killing of another human being is hardly the sort of thing the state should be encouraging. DuncanHill (talk) 15:37, 2 May 2014 (UTC)


 * "Closure" doesn't mean satisfaction, it means not having to relive painful memories when the murderer does interviews for the press, not having to go to parole hearings and argue that he should be kept in prison, etc. In short, it means it's finally over, and the victim's families can get on with their lives. StuRat (talk) 16:00, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * And when the executed is late shewn to be innocent? How would they feel then? And telling people that someone needs to be killed for them to get on with their lives is rather repulsive. DuncanHill (talk) 18:54, 2 May 2014 (UTC)


 * In this case they used only 100mg of the normal first drug, a benzodiazepine, which is not in short supply, rather than the normal 500mg. That seems more like a poor decision than a lack of the actually fatal drugs. μηδείς (talk) 17:05, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * To everyone and nobody in particular: WP:NOTFORUM WP:SOAPBOX, please. 88.112.50.121 (talk) 17:08, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I think the OP's question has been answered. The question was "Why don't they?" and the answer is "They used to, but they have to find substitutes now." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:51, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Surely the way forwards for states who want to kill people is to put them in a 100% nitrogen chamber? This kills people reasonably quickly, but as Michael Portillo demonstrated, it has the downside of making them incredibly happy first. This method has the advantage of being an element in great abundance, unpatentable and inexpensive. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:47, 2 May 2014 (UTC)


 * As a practical matter, I would think that any new method would require an extensive approval process by the courts, to ensure it does not violate the "cruel and unusual" rule. If lethal injection is no longer reliable, and if the courts say it must be stopped, then other methods will have to be vetted. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:12, 2 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Isn't the death penalty more expensive than life imprisonment? Bus stop (talk) 14:59, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * That link indicates so. The question becomes, do death-penalty proponents think it's worth the extra expense? So far, apparently, the answer is "Yes". Incidents like the Oklahoma fiasco might indeed get rolled in with issues like cost, and lead to suspension or abolition. But keep in mind that the increased cost has in part to do with reasonably ensuring that the alleged perp is in fact guilty and does in fact qualify for the death penalty. And even with that, once in a great while they get it wrong. The one good thing about incarceration is that, even if it takes 20-30 years to determine that an injustice was done (see Innocence Project), the convict at least has a second chance. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:53, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * You say "The one good thing about incarceration is that, even if it takes 20-30 years to determine that an injustice was done (see Innocence Project), the convict at least has a second chance." I can think of a second good thing about incarceration. That is that the person has a value to us. Think of Timothy McVeigh. Had he not been executed he might have chosen to shed light on exactly what led up to the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He may have done so only after decades of imprisonment. But now there is less chance we will ever find out who else was involved and in what sorts of ways. Even his psychological motivations would be interesting to know, and they might not become clear to him before years of maturing. Bus stop (talk) 16:17, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Can we put this thread to sleep now? As the survivor of a murder victim I really don't like the continuing provocation to join in debate here. μηδείς (talk) 16:58, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * May as well. The OP's question has been fully answered. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:56, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. μηδείς (talk) 19:09, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Memorabilia Football Repair
I have a Bobby Bowden autographed FSU football. It has lost some of it's air and I can't get the pump needle in it to pump it up. Do you have any suggestions as to where I might be able to have it repaired? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.242.169.110 (talk) 18:41, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Think you may need to speak with a conservation expert. If this football came into your possession with just air inflation then consider this. Air contains both oxygen and moister. Both help breakdown rubber compounds. Also it has atmospheric air on the outside attacking the bladder (or what ever Americans call the balloon thingy inside). Expensive commercial vehicle tyres (tires) are inflated with nitrogen to prolong their life -and their life is is not long.--Aspro (talk) 21:43, 1 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Moister moisture ? :-) StuRat (talk) 15:05, 2 May 2014 (UTC)


 * If it was really valuable, it might be worth putting it in a sealed chamber, filled with nitrogen. If less valuable, you might just apply some oil occasionally to keep it from drying out.  However, that oil might remove the signature, so be careful there. StuRat (talk) 15:08, 2 May 2014 (UTC)