[PauloPeter]

also for a visual on something similiar to number 25 see stephen kings, green mile.

[dankboosh]

I never really got the idea of a group of people watching an execution.

[petedeamon]

Hanging with a suitable drop is the most humane form of execution. I don't feel sorry for the condemned in the least. If one reads the crime they are paying for and the torture they inflicted on their victims, it isn't really an issue at all....Why keep them around?

[bigmikeymike]

Well, I suppose that doesn't make the people present any better than the one being executed. Not saying that the people on Death Row (lol DR) didn't put themselves in the situation.

But still, I remember something along the lines of "two wrongs don't make a right" being pounded into my head my whole life.

Shit, drop them off with a knife on a deserted island filled with ravenous animals, at least that way it's no one's "job" to be a hypocrite.

[Pyramid_Head]

Too many to sit and read, but great post.

[TheJewishYeti]

Great post. Love the detail

[Dynamo47]

I love it and find it kind of ironic. Let those animals feel some of the fear and the pain that their victims felt before they go to hell.

[luton loyal]

[Oswald2001]

Guillotine always worked wonderfully well.

[LT89]

I wouldn't have any problems with the death penalty for some of the most heinous crimes, if it could be said with absolute certainty that the perpetrator is actually the real perpretator. However, it's not uncommon for people to be convicted of crimes they didn't commit, even first degree murder, and to execute people if you can't absolutely guarantee they even did it? As long as convictions can't be made with 100% certainty, the death penalty should not be an option. Thankfully I live in a civilised country which abolished it 140 years ago.

However, if you do have to execute a person, at least do it the most humane way possible. There are alternative execution protocols for already existing methods such as lethal injection and gassing but which aren't used as efficiently as they can be. The biggest reason for botched lethal injections is because something with the IV goes wrong; trained proffessionals can't be used for ethical reasons so instead prison guards have to do who lack the knowledge and experience to administer IV drugs. My solution would be an intramuscular injection of 25mg Fentanyl, which is more than 25x the lethal dose, easily fits in 0.1ml and does not even sting or cause any suffering and very cheap as well.

The gas chamber is an efficient and effective method, but the gas currently used (hydrogen cyanide) is horribly inefficient. It is a very obnoxious and irritating gas so the condemned person always tries not to breathe it in desperately tring to hold their breath and often violently coughing when it is breathed in. It's not very toxic so large amounts have to be used but it is still toxic enough that there is a large risk for people outside the chamber so that expensive and stringent precautions have to be taken to ensure safety.

Instead of hydrogen cyanide being used in the gas chamber, a gas mask (like the ones used in ambulances/hospitals to administer oxygen) could be placed on the condemned person's face. They then administer an inert gas such as argon or nitrogen to the condemned person through the mask causing unconsciousness in less than a minute and death in less than 5 minutes. Its not toxic or even irritating but it replaces the oxygen in a persons body when breathed in causing oxygen starvation, so there isn't any risk for the witnesses to the execution even if the condemned wouldn't be in an airtight room which makes it much more practical. Oxygen starvation through inert gassing is actually a very pleasant death, and is definately the most humane, efficient, easiest and cheapest method of executing a person. The BBC did a very good program (BBC Horizon - How to kill a human being) on the methods still being used for capital punishment and the best alternative to it, they also came to the conclusion of inert gassing and the program's host, Michael Portillo, even experienced it himself to find out what it would feel like (without going all the way till the end ofcourse!).