Why are lethal injection and electrocution our preferred ways to execute?

Question

I do not want to know about the process, I just want to know why we have stuck with these methods as opposed to others. What are the pros and cons of these methods ase they are the most commonly used today. If you can provide a source this would be helpful, thank you.

Answer 1

At the time the electric chair was used, it was considered the most humane method to execute someone. Now, lethal injection is used and consider more humane than "the chair", but some states still have electrocution as an alternate method of execution. With both, some people argue that they really are not humane, and the prisoner does suffer during the execution.

Another method that has been proposed, but so far has not been used anywhere, is nitrogen asphyxiation. It is similar to the "gas chamber", but instead of cyanide being used for the execution, pure nitrogen is pumped into the chamber. Since you already breathe over 75% nitrogen from the air, your body is already acclimated to breathing it, and your body does not try to "reject" it. Also, it since it is so abundant in the atmosphere, there is no harm from venting the gas out of the chamber.

Of course, this is all because of the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ("Cruel and Unusual Punishment"). Me, personally, I think that some crimes should involve a long and dragged out method of execution, where the prisoners suffers for as long as they made their victim suffer. But that's just me, and the "bleeding heart liberals" would never agree to that.

Answer 2

Because the government thinks these methods are humain.I think a 22 bullit would be more cost effective.

Answer 3

Seems to me all states use lethal injection only now.  

The pros is that it's effective.  The Cons?  No idea, except that it's not a horrible death.

Anyway, you can thank bleeding heart liberals for killers getting the right to a painless death.

Edit: I believe Ted Bundy was the last one to die by the electric chair in Florida.

Answer 4

The lethal injection is less painful for the condemned and less difficult for family members of the victims (of crime) to watch.

It is important to remember that just because a person is sentenced to die does not mean they are sentenced to a slow and PAINFUL death.

Electrocution is still used in Texas I think and is painful. It is also horrible to watch.

Answer 5

Lethal Injection is perceived to be the most current humane way to execute a person, before the lethal injection the electric chair held the spot for a long time. Some states had tried the Gas chamber but in the end the venting of the lethal gas became an issue with safety and the guards at the prison so it was ended, Hanging and firing squad where the other methods used in the 20 century

Answer 6

Lethal injection - too easy! they just go to sleep. No pain, just pass on to greener pastures! Electrocution - Not exactly swift, but painful! Actually hanging is swift! Not pretty, but you go bye bye in one fell swoop! Beheading! Too gross! Now I like the "hang, drawn and quartered method"!! Now there is a good way to really punish the criminal before he finally dies!!! But, it might upset some delicate stomachs!!! LOL! Personally, to really punish a criminal, is to let him live, breaking rocks for the rest of his rotten life, with only bread and water to sustain him! NO TV, no communication with anyone, kept in solitary confinement when he isn't breaking rocks!, no windows in his cell, no heat, no nothing. Putting these people to death is the easy way out!

Answer 7

Because they are the most merciful ways to kill someone...at least according to the courts.

The anti-death penalty people have realized that they can't legally ban the death penalty, so they started a campaign to make it impossible to execute anyone by making all the METHODS of execution illegal. They use the Constitutional prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishment" as their grounds for this.

In an honest world this wouldn't really stand up very well...but we are talking about the American judicial system here.  The "cruel and unusual punishment" clause was meant to ban things like being hung, drawn, and quartered, (google it for the gory details) or being burned at the stake.  The English had several very "interesting" forms of execution (one couple that tried to rob the Tower of London back in the reign of Henry VIII were chained to a wall at low tide and left there...the problem was that at high tide the wall was underwater, so as the tide came in they slowly drowned over an 8 hour period). These punishments were still on the books at the time of the revolutionary war. THAT is the sort of thing the Founding Fathers were looking to ban as cruel and unusual.

However there is a school of thought, it is actually the dominant school of thought in Americas law schools, that the Constitution is a "living document".  This is a nice way of saying "it means whatever the heck I want it to mean because I'm just smarter than James Madison ever was".   So cruel and unusual punishment has been stretched, and stretched, and stretched.  It started out meaning "you can't skin someone alive, or have them whipped to death" ... it now bans using interrogation techniques on captured terrorists that are about as strong as a fraternity initiation.

Now there really isn't a comfy and cozy way to kill a man, and that is what the anti-death penalty people are counting on. The only way that has stood up to the courts and this campaign of "lawfare" is lethal injection. That's why it is used.

EDIT  Electrocution is NOT used in Texas, we use lethal injection.  Florida used electrocution, but I think even they have moved to injection.