Rev. Jeff Hood, Smith’s spiritual adviser, was at Smith’s side for the execution, and said prison officials in the room “were visibly surprised at how bad this thing went.”
“What we saw was minutes of someone struggling for their life,” Hood, attending his fifth execution in the last 15 months, told reporters. “We saw minutes of someone heaving back and forth. We saw spit. We saw all sorts of stuff from his mouth develop on the mask. We saw this mask tied to the gurney, and him ripping his head forward over and over and over again.”
All our technological advances as a society and this is the best we can do?
Everyone who would actually know what they are doing in executions (doctors, pharmaceutical companies, veteranarians) have looked at it and said “this is barbaric in concept, no matter how humanely you do it, we will have no part in it”. What you are left with is people without the relevent expertise, who do not have a problem with the barbarism, figuring out how to do it.
Or just shooting someone in the head with a high caliber rifle is probably better. Maybe it’s an urban legend, but I’ve heard the brain can survive for a few seconds after being beheaded. Best to just destroy the brain as instantly as possible.
All our technological advances as a society and this is the best we can do?
Everyone who would actually know what they are doing in executions (doctors, pharmaceutical companies, veteranarians) have looked at it and said “this is barbaric in concept, no matter how humanely you do it, we will have no part in it”. What you are left with is people without the relevent expertise, who do not have a problem with the barbarism, figuring out how to do it.
State sanctioned murder with torture included for free. They did it the conservative Christian way…
I also read that they starved him first so he won’t choke on the food if he vomits it out.
No, the best we can do is the guillotine, but people don’t like severed heads.
Or just shooting someone in the head with a high caliber rifle is probably better. Maybe it’s an urban legend, but I’ve heard the brain can survive for a few seconds after being beheaded. Best to just destroy the brain as instantly as possible.
It’s not the best we can do. It’s what sadistic people choose to do.