October 6, 2018 • 44 mins
Since the Supreme Court's ban on capital punishment was reversed, states have sought a humane method of killing sentenced criminals. They settled on lethal injection, but is this quasi-medical means of killing as quick and painless as we think?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, It's me Josh and for this week's s
Y s K selects have chosen how Lethal Injection Works. Uh,
in the holiday spirit. We released this around Christmas of
two thousand thirteen, and it can be a hard one
to listen to, but since whenever a person is executed,
the state is actually doing it on your behalf, since
(00:20):
you're a member of the public, it's probably best to
know what they're doing in your name. It's an eye
opening one and a sobering one, and I hope it
means a lot to you, because it did to me.
Welcome to Stuff you should Know from how Stuff Works
(00:43):
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and this Charles if you Chuck Bryant, and this is
stuff you should know the podcast. Greetings. This is not
a capital punishment show, although we will deal with that obviously,
(01:06):
but we at some point we'll probably do a full
episode on capital punishment. I would guess, don't you imagine,
because we have notice on it, and uh, we're gonna
touch on it here with legal injections. Yeah, and just
coming across some stuff on the electric electric chair that
to me seems like it deserves its own episode as well.
It's because it's some nuts. It sounds like we're cooking
up a sweet. Yeah, the Capital punishman sweet. We come
(01:30):
up with the best sweets, don't we. Well, it's a
big deal. You know, it's important. I agree to you,
you know, um Chuck. About fourteen hours ago, a guy
named Joseph Paul Franklin. I can't remember what he his
birth name was, but he legally changed his name to
Joseph Paul after in honor of Joseph Paul Gebel's, the
(01:51):
Nutzi propagandist. What a nice guy he must be to
change his name to that, right, So Missouri just executed
him at twelve oh one Wednesday. Member was today the
ninete one of those two, and actually hustler publisher Larry
Flint was making a big hubbub trying to keep the
(02:11):
man from being killed, which was somewhat ironic, although not
really if you followed Larry Flint's career, because he was
the man who supposedly shot Larry Flint and paralyzed him
for life. Supposedly was he not convicted of that. No,
he he confessed to it, and it was quite possible
the reason that he gave for doing it was because
um Hustler had had some um, some interracial spread that
(02:35):
the guy didn't like, and he was targeting interracial couples.
He shot a couple of black kids in Ohio, I
believe um. And he was killed in Missouri because he
randomly picked St. Louis out of the phone book and
went and found a synagogue and just sat outside and
took shots at people as they came out of a bar. Mitzvah.
(02:57):
So he's racist, he's an anti Semite. He also had
serious mental health issues as well. Um Andy shot Larry
flinty um, but he was executed. And the whole reason
that Larry Flint was creating this hubub about not killing
this guy. One Flint head of famous quote from the
last news cycle that he didn't think the government should
(03:17):
be in the business of killing people. So he's against
capital punishment anyway. You can say it like Larry Flint,
I don't do a very good Larry Flint. You put
some marbles in your mouth, you're gonna try. Um. So
he he just doesn't think that the death penalties a
good thing. Anyway. He's an abolitionist. You would say, um,
and then Secondly, he he filed a suit to have
(03:39):
the name of the supplier of the drug that was
going to be used in the lethal injection revealed unsealed
because it's secret and it's not supposed to be secret.
But as we'll find out, states recently have had to
scramble to come up with the drugs to execute prisoners
of the state. Yeah, there's a big thing going on
(04:01):
that we'll talk about. But that was the most recent
uh execution in the United States, makes thirty five for
the year, and all but one of those were lethal injections,
the other one being the electric chair. Yeah, it is
fast become the go to method for most states in
many countries. If you're gonna get capital punishment UH going,
(04:25):
then yeah, probably gonna do it by way of lethal
injection these days. Yeah, but it's also the newest one too,
And it came out of this um this well basically
what amounted to an abolitionist movement in the nineteen sixties
and seventies that sought to just get rid of the
death penalty. And that was the third major movement in
(04:46):
the United States since the late eighteenth century where people
were just trying to get rid of capital punishment altogether. Yeah,
they did halt at nineteen seventy two after Supreme Court
ruling firm in the Georgia. Uh, and they are remember
reading about this later. Obviously I didn't read nineteen seventy two.
(05:06):
I would have been very advanced one year old. But
they said it was cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment,
violating the eighth Amendment of the Constitution. And then but
four years later they reversed that and Greg versus Georgia,
and UM said, you know what, maybe that is cool
on your usual, so let's come up with a way
that's not. And they came up with lethal injection. Yeah.
(05:28):
And the reason why that cruel and unusual I had
a lot of traction was because, um, there were hangings before,
and hangings are very very messy, sting. If the news
isn't right, the head can pop right off, or if
the neck isn't broken, the person just hangs there and
suffocates for a minute or two and then dies. Um.
And then the electrocution is really really awful too. I
(05:50):
was reading a list of botched executions, and electrocutions are
very frequently botched. People their heads catch fire, blood comes out,
of their eyes. It's really all full stuff. So there
was this idea that the whole point of this it's retributive.
It's you did something so bad that we as a
society have decided that you can't live any longer. But
(06:14):
we as a society aren't as cruel as you are.
You know, the point isn't to make you suffer. It's
just to take your life and to do it in
the most humane way possible. Well, electrocution, hanging, gas chamber,
none of those really fit the bill. So somebody came
up with the idea of lethal injection. But this wasn't
the first time that was proposed that. The first time
was in the nineteenth century, I think, oh yeah, yeah.
(06:36):
There was a guy named Julius mount Brier, and he
was a doctor out in New York who said, you know,
this would work because it would be efficient, humane, and
it would keep the person from having UM some sort
of hero status developed around them that sometimes comes from
people who are hanged. But they went with electrocution instead. Well,
(06:57):
in two the US became the first country to use
lethal injection, and like we said, since then it's really
become predominant UM. I think the current number of states
that have the death penalty is thirty two as of today.
But it's tough because states are have been repealing it.
(07:18):
It's dropping like flies. I don't know about like flies,
but maybe like honey bees, right, and those are those
are states that have taken the possibility of capital punishment
off of their books. Right. So, Um, well, you know
thirty two or is the number that have the death penalty, right?
Thirty two have a death penalty, um. Not necessarily meaning
(07:42):
that they used that in the past year. Necessarily. There's
something called de facto abolition, which is basically like, yeah,
it's on our books, but we haven't used it in
so long that we might as well not even have
the death penalty. Um. So chuck, Like we said, lethal
injection is the it's the most frequently used method in
(08:04):
the United States, and it's fast becoming the same around
the world. China picked it up after the United States
and they replaced their shootings. Um. And that kind of
led to it seems like almost a domino effect throughout
Asia of other countries picking it up as well. Yeah,
the Philippines, Taiwan, uh, Guatemala there in Central America. Um,
(08:25):
they have all gone to lethal injection, and right now,
I have in two thousand twelve, fifty eight countries used
lethal injection, down from sixty seven UH and sixty three
INN and a hundred and forty countries of outlawed the
(08:45):
death penalty worldwide. So and like you said, states are
kind of starting to abolish it. Yeah, executions are down
in general in the United States last year there were
forty three. This year, like we said, there's been thirty
five and we're fast closing out the year. Um, but
lethal injection is the go to method of execution, and
(09:06):
so we're going to figure out how it works. That's right.
Right now, there are three thousand, one d and eight
people as of spring of this year on death row
or male of course, because you don't find a lot
of females on death row because they're smart enough to
not to kill other people generally speaking. Is that what
it is? Yeah, women are much smarter. Um. A lot
(09:30):
of these folks have been on death row for decades
waiting to die. Maybe they're working through the appeals process
because that all has to happen first. Um, some will
die on death row without ever going into an execution chamber. Yeah,
it happens. Some people commit or try to commit suicide
before they can be executed after their appeals run out. Sure,
(09:51):
there's a guy in Georgia who almost successfully killed himself.
He cut his karated artery um with what I wonder,
razor that guarded given him. I guess to shave with us.
Sensibly like the razor and the guy, they rushed into
the hospital, saved his life and then executed him a
week later. Wow, it's a funny country. Um. So you're
(10:15):
on death row, you've exhausted your appeals. Um, you're finally
going to get that execution order and a date will
be set in place for that execution. Um. At this point,
you're going to be moved from death row to a
place called death watch, and that is basically the that's
the last stop. That's your holding area for the last
days or weeks, right. Um. So, death watch is both
(10:37):
a physical place like it's it's frequently in the same
part of the prison that the execution chamber is located,
or it might be in another prison entirely. Some states
just maintain one execution chamber for the whole state, and
it's at a certain prison. So you'd be transferred to
that place. And then death watch also is supposedly they're
supposed to watch you so you don't commit suicide. Um,
(11:00):
and it's also your I think rights kind of open
up a little more. You're you get visits from people. Um.
You your treatment is a little better. I think you
you get a room with a view, as it were, um,
and you're you start the perforation of of dying, of
saying goodbye, and of coming to terms with the fact
(11:20):
that it's happening. Yeah, you know, the state of Texas
has these death watch rooms at um on highway exits,
most highway exits. You got your gas station, your subway,
and your yeah, your death watch room. I'm kidding, but
Texas executes a lot of people, it does. Texas bears.
They execute a lot. But they're not the only ones
that have no all sorts of weirdness going on. Apparently
(11:44):
two percent of counties account for like fifty to seventy
percent of executions in the United States. It just seems
like Texas comes up all the time when they're like
the last time this method was used or the first
time this method was used a Texas well. Texas was
the first one to usually the injection like you said exactly, Um,
and yeah, they kill a lot of people there. Yeah,
(12:04):
not picking on you Texas. I love you guys. No here,
I've got one Alabama. In Alabama. Uh it is um,
it takes a unanimous jury to hand down a life sentence,
but it takes ten of twelve to hand down a
death sentence. Really Yeah, and a judge can over rule um,
a jury a life sentence jury Yeah, and say no,
(12:26):
this person needs a death penalty and they do it frequently. Interesting.
We'll pick on Georgia two in a minute. Okay, Well
Georgia was the one that executed the guy after saving
his life after the suicide attempt. All right, great, Uh,
I just want to make sure we dolled out enough,
you know, embarrassment for each state. So, um, you're on
death watch. You can be visited more often, generally by
(12:48):
friends and family. We're in like the last twenty four
hours is now? Yeah, Um, your attorneys, spiritual advisors, you're
gonna get your last meal. That is not a fallacy.
Whatever you want, they'll prepare for you know that's not
necessarily true. Well, it depends. Generally they satisfy your desire.
But when does it not get satisfied. What state doesn't
do that? Really? Yeah, um, there was a legislation that
(13:12):
was passed after this one. This one inmate ordered a
meat Lever's pizza like twenty four tacos, like like this
awesome spread that Just reading it, I was like, oh man,
I'm kind of hungry for this reading about this this
man's last meal, and they didn't need any of it.
Even still, there's probably two dollars for the food, but
it caused enough outrage in the state legislature that they
(13:34):
passed the thing where it's like, you can have whatever
the prison cafeterias cooking that night, that's your last meal. Yeah.
There's a really great article in Lapham's Quarterly online for
free called Last Meal. Go check it out. It's just
basically this awesome history and contemporary evaluation of last meals.
That's pretty sad it is, but it's really interesting what
(13:56):
it says. Like there's a guy in Arkansas who was
executed in the nineties. His name was Verry Leaf fair Child,
and he pointed out that it doesn't make a lot
of sense to give a condemned person a last meal.
He said it was quote like putting gas in a
car that don't have no motor but like you have
no need to take in food because you have no
need to derive the energy from it any longer, because
(14:18):
you're about to lose your life. Well, it's not about
deriving energy, it's about enjoying one last thing, right. But
if you look at if you look at the capital
punishment system, that's it makes no sense. Yeah, it's it's interesting.
I say, go read the article little. I'm not getting
the point across very well. Well, I mean, I see
what he's saying, but it's not like you gotta fuel
(14:39):
up for the big day. It's like here, enjoy a steak. Yeah,
I know, I'm just saying like it flies in the
face of the rest of the criminal justice system. Oh well, sure,
enjoy the steak then, you know. And time was they
used to get you drunk, like beforehand, if you're going
to get hanged in London, like from the prison to
the gallows, they would stop and you you'd let you
(15:00):
drink as much as you want and and then would
take you super drunk and kill you. Yeah, that's interesting
because that could provide a more docile um victim or
a really weepy one which would be really like someone
who starts causing lots of trouble. You know, yeah, he
wants to fight one last time. Exactly right. But apparently
I read somewhere that they sedate criminals. Are they condemned
(15:23):
here first? So that's kind of like a modern incarnation
of taking them and getting them drunk, handing them a volume.
Yeah that's true, you know. Okay, so you've had your
last meal, which may or not be awesome depending on
where you live. Um, your warden and your chaplain are
going to visit. They're gonna stay with you till the
(15:43):
end unless you don't want them there. You can probably
refuse any kind of religious associations if you want. Um. Witnesses. Uh, well,
we'll get to all that. But the witnesses arrive at
this point. Um, they're kept away from you though. They
don't get to like walk by and say things to you. No.
As a matter of fact, most witnesses are required well
(16:03):
in Texas, they can take pot shots. Are you there?
Six shooters? Um? Sorry Texas? Uh. They the witnesses and
pretty much across the board I'm sure, are required to
be totally silent the whole time they leave. Are brought
into the to the execution area. Yeah, not like the
people outside of prisons who are making lots of noise
(16:25):
usually right the other protests or or kill them, kill them.
That's as ugly as this country gets. Man. When you
see the footage of people outside prisons a controversial executions,
it's pretty bad. Uh. And then their final preparations. They're
gonna give you clean clothes, uh, but you take a
(16:46):
last shower or shower get dressed. Uh, and then connect
you to the old e k g um, which is gonna,
you know, let everyone know if you're gone, if you're
still with them. Yeah, they hook the e k g
up to you. It's not hooked anything yet, but they've
got it like a you're wired exactly. And then what's
your showered and dressed and wired up with the knee
(17:10):
KG and the warden and the chaplain are hanging out
with you. Um. At the predetermined time they will start
to move you into the execution chamber and um. Meanwhile,
the witnesses are there. And let's talk about the witnesses,
Like the fact that there are witnesses at executions is
(17:31):
actually the modern incarnation of a very long tradition like
we used to have public executions in this country. Yeah,
like thousands of people would show up. Sometimes they would
charge admission. Uh, And eventually that stopped and only a
select number of people were allowed to witness. But well
they're still witnesses. You know. Have you read about the
last public execution? And there was I didn't either, Okay,
(17:55):
so I thought you're asking no, no, just about it. Um.
There's a guy named Rainey Bethia in Kentucky who was
hanging in nineteen thirty six for rape and murder I think, um,
and his execution was attended by twenty people. The big
reason was it's not because they knew it was the
last public execution. I think they decided to stop that.
After this execution, there was a Kentucky basketball game after. Um.
(18:18):
The sheriff was a woman, So this is going to
be the first execution in US history ever conducted by
a woman, and people wanted to go see how badly
she was going to screw this up. And even though
she didn't, the press still wrote that she'd fainted. Um,
that like everything had been botched or whatever. But that's
why everybody turned out. But there were charges from out
of town reporters that people were having hanging parties, that
(18:41):
they were drunk in the streets partying. That basically there
was just a sense of revelry that shouldn't attend uh
an execution, and that was the last draw for public
executions in this country. But it got it got the
the idea that you need to have other people witness
a death when this executing somebody, just to make sure
(19:01):
it's totally transparent. That was carried on with witnesses today
and executions. Yeah, I mean that's part of it too,
and part of it is also to give victims closure,
the families that is of victims. Uh, there will be
sometimes family members of the prisoner too, and they are
generally kept apart um, not not always generally. Yeah. Um,
(19:25):
the prison warden is going to be there. Uh, you're
gonna have medical people on hand of course to make
sure it all goes as planned, which is pretty controversial
as we'll find. Uh. You got your spiritual advisor, like
we talked about, You've got your guards, um, state selected
witnesses maybe, I mean there might be members of the
state government there to watch it all go down. Yeah,
(19:46):
you've got media there. Um. You also have what are
known as reputable citizens, and those are basically just average
everyday citizens that witness executions. Is it like a lottery
or something. No, it's like you kind tech your state
d O C. And say, hey, I wanna I want
to witness an execution, and they send you an application
for him. You explain why you have to be over eighteen.
(20:08):
You have to explain why you want to do this.
But apparently the pool is thin enough that they're not
real selective. As long as you don't say, like, because
I want to see them like bleed or something like that,
they they will let you do this. Um. And apparently
when there was a surgeon executions in the nineties Chuck Um,
(20:28):
departments of corrections were so hard up because a lot
of state law says you have to have six reputable
citizens or twelve reputable citizens, that their pool was running thin.
So departments of corrections were actually advertising looking for people
to witness executions newspapers. It's just law. It's just that
hold over from having the public be a part of
(20:51):
this state monopoly on violence. It's stupid, but so much
so that they're trying to force it now. Well, I
don't think it's a problem anymore. It was just in
the nineties, like they were killing everybody in the nineties. Yeah, alright,
so you've got your witnesses there. Um, your your execution
chambers may have um clear glass with a curtain pulled,
(21:12):
maybe a one way mirror where you can only see
into the executed, into the condemned. Um. It all depends
on your state, basically, but it's generally going to be
a pretty quiet thing no matter where you are. It's
a whole group of people that are just being utterly
silent watching you. Or if it's there's too many family members,
they might have a close circuit feed going on in
(21:34):
another room. Yeah, if it's like you know, if it's
not roomy, and apparently in Illinois, if you're a family member,
the only way you can witness it is via close
circuit TV in another room in Illinois. In Illinois, all right,
it's another state. That's a new one. We haven't mentioned Illinois. Yeah. Yeah,
we didn't really make fun of them though, I guess
they're execution chambers. Small. Yeah, you can make fun of
(21:56):
them their enemy seats in their nice state budget. Um,
you've got your timeline of events. It's all very much
scheduled like down to the minute. Um, you're gonna have
your person properly dressed, you're gonna escort them into the chamber.
I was thinking about this when I was reading this article, Chuck.
Imagine like just taking a shower too fast, and so
(22:19):
you just kind of have to sit there on the
edge of the bed with the warden and whatever spiritual
adviser they throw at you, waiting to go be executed.
That has to be the worst wait ever. Yeah, Like
I can't imagine it being much worse than that, because
they can't be like, wow, we'll just get this started early. No,
everything is on a very delineated schedule, and they're just
(22:42):
kind of have to sit there until the time comes
to go to the execution chamber to get started. I
just to take a long shower. That stuck out to me. Yeah, okay,
the longest shower of your life. Um, the saddest shower
of your life for sure. Uh. You might be rolled
in and like restrained beforehand and rolled in on a jernie.
Sometimes you're allowed to walk there yourself and then you're
(23:03):
restrained once you're in there, and at that point they
are going to go ahead and pre rig you with
the I V tubes UM to lead you in there,
and then those once you get in there and you're
strapped in, they will be fed into what's called an
anti room where the actual UH death cocktails await and
(23:26):
the executioner awaits. Yeah, it's like an enclosed room away
from the eyes of everybody, including the condemned and the witnesses.
But you have two tubes. Most states required two. There's
a backup to one to serve as a backup. At
this point, you have your final statement if you so choose.
They'll read that out loud on the news that night. Yeah,
(23:49):
to be careful what you say. You can go on
to UM. Are we giving advice to de throw a night.
It just seccurred to me that we UM. You can
go on to UH departments of actions websites and most
of them have last statements on there, and some of
them are what you'd expect summer eerie, I'm sure, UH.
And generally the head is unrestrained so they can look
(24:11):
around and stuff, although sometimes they do have like a
hood or a sheet. Again, it depends on the state
and how they do it. So the the condemned is
strepped into a gurney strapped down, but their heads under restraint.
They've got tubes leading into their h the ivy needles. Yeah. Um,
(24:32):
and it's ready to go. Yeah, I think, uh, now
it's a good time for message break and then we'll
get into the actual process after. Okay, So, like you said,
it's go, time for a solemn moment. Yeah. Um. For
(24:54):
a long time states, we're using something called a world
basically and like toronic lethal injection machine, which makes sense.
It was what co working came up with. Basically, it
was I'm sure, if not directly based on his model,
it was at least very similar to it. But then
they worried about mechanical failures, so they said, no humans
(25:15):
need to do this. I think they had mechanical failures.
I can imagine. Um. And so in some states you
have one executioner and others you have a couple of executioners.
And there again they're in this anti room where the
actual drugs are that the i V tubes are leading
to from the execution chamber into the anti room. Um.
(25:35):
And if you have a few different ones, a few
different executioners, they're all putting drugs into i V tubes,
but they none of the executioners know which one is
the real I V tube and which one's is leading
to a mannequin, and that isn't actually a mannequin. Uh
(25:57):
that that you know, that old trick. Like they used
to do the same thing with flipping the switch too.
I think they had like several switches firing squads. Yeah,
because they don't want the h the one any one
person to have that weight. They can always think. I
guess I had at chance that it was me, you know, alright,
So I guess we should move on to the drugs
(26:18):
that are used. Um, it used to almost always be
a three drug cocktail, but things are getting weird these days.
I've noticed. Originally it was three drugs. You would have
an anesthetic, paralyzing agent, and a toxic agent, and those
were used for years and years, and then due to
some circumstances, a bunch of different circumstances that converged where
(26:42):
in some cases down to one like Joseph Paul Franklin
was killed with just one drug. Well, I looked up
almost every single execution in two thousand thirteen used a
single drug pinto barber at all, which is an anesthetic. Yeah,
and it's basically a substitute when are in short supply
of other ones. But I did see that it's actually
(27:03):
illegal to use this drug this way, and the manufacturer
is Danish and was like, well, no, you can't use
our drug that way. Right. They started fighting, uh, people
who sold that drug to like state agencies exactly. Very
controversial and states were trying to get this stuff anyway
they could. So since it was banned for use by
(27:25):
correctional facilities for executions, the ultimate correction, the d A
was actually rating departments of corrections and taking their drugs. So, um,
because of this band, because of the drug maker. And
so first you had the drug maker, um that was
making pentethal, right yeah. And then people were like, well
(27:47):
how about this. We have propo fall, that's the anesthetic
pentethal is, right yeah, and so what they were replacing
it with was propofol, which is Michael Jackson's milk that
killed him. Did we hit it right this time? Yeah?
Okay um. And then the maker of propo fall said, uh, well,
how if you you can't use that to execute people,
that's not what we made this for. And they said, well,
(28:09):
t s, We're gonna use it anyway. And so the
maker said, if you use that to kill anybody, we're
gonna cut off supplies to the entire United States, including hospitals,
and you're gonna have an enormous problem on your hands.
And so all of the hospitals contacted the departments of
the corrections and said, do not use that, like, we
can't have a propo fall shortage. So now they're turning
(28:30):
to compounding pharmacies, which are generally regulated mostly by the state,
not so much by the Feds, and UM, trying to
get their hands anyway they can on some sort of
general anesthetic. Uh. And the anesthetic ideally, UM, if they
were using pentethal or peno barbatal barbaria UM, if you
(28:54):
were in a hospital and you were put under general anesthesia,
they would use about a hundred pegrams of this stuff
delivered over your ten to fifteen seconds, and you would
be out. It's an anesthetic. You wouldn't be asleep, you
wouldn't be unconscious. You are under general anesthesia, you're not
feeling anything, You're not anything. So that's a hundred milligrams
for just general anesthesia. When you're given a lethal injection
(29:17):
of penal barbitall, they give you five grams, five thousand milligrams,
not a hundred milligrams, five thousand milligrams of this stuff. Yeah,
and that's enough to kill you flat out. Um, And
proponents of lethal injection will say they don't feel anything
after that, right, and again, that should just be enough
to kill you, which is why a lot of states
(29:39):
are just using that one drug. Now. Um. In the
original lethal injection cocktail, that was step one. Once they
administered the anesthetic, they would flush the lines with saline solution,
and then um they would introduce the next one, which
is a paralyzing agent. Yeah. That's basically a the heaviest
(30:00):
duty muscle relaxant you could ever imagine, because it relaxes
your muscle so much that your die fragms and lungs
don't function any longer. Yeah, that's a serious muscle relaxing. Right,
So you just you stop breathing. So that's that's the
way to die number two. And that takes about one
to three minutes for that one to take effect fully.
(30:20):
So then that one's been kind of abandoned because it's
been criticized or the use of it's been criticized because
a lot of people point out that that's really for
the witnesses because without it, when somebody's dying, a lot
of times they will writhe, they will gasp for breath,
they will um, they're back while arch as much as
(30:41):
it can when it's strapped down to a gurney. When
you administer a paralyzing agent, none of that happens. So
the witnesses are like, oh, look, it looks like he
wanted to die. Look at what a peaceful death that
man just went through. So it's for the witnesses. And
then number two, it could also conceivably mask pain. So
if it's masking pain, then it's also masking a possibly
(31:03):
inhumane method of execution. So they kind of discontinued the
paralyzing agent um, but that was traditionally step two. And
then once that one was administered. So are you getting
the point here that like they're really going the extra
mile to make sure you're dead in the nineties through
lethal injection. Yeah, and you know what, I might as
(31:24):
well go ahead and get into this. We just put
our dog down two days ago and they did the
same thing with that. It's like paralyzing agent. Three different
things were injected into her. It's like the first go
to sleep thing, and then the second paralyzer and then
the final thing like she's gone. But hey, let's just
inject this just to make sure the hardest stopped. Was it? Okay,
(31:46):
so it was the toxic agent potassium chloride, I'm not sure.
I mean they said it was a trade concoction for
their company. Okay, so then it probably wasn't potassium chloride
because I don't think that that's proprietary. But in some states,
the use of potassium chloride the toxication, which is the
(32:06):
third one um, that's not even allowed for use on pets,
but they were using it on inmates because it induces
cardiac aresque because it could conceivably cause pain. Okay, yeah, interesting,
I'm sorry about your dog, buddy. That's right. I appreciate that,
And hey, thank you to everyone I put that on
the stuff you should know while and people were super
(32:26):
supportive and told a lot of their own stories of
their pets passing. So I think maybe at some point
I might put together a little like like you did
the pet costumes. I might do like a pet memorial
thing where people can send in that would be very nice,
memorialized or pets stuff you should know anyway. Um, I
did find it interesting though, A that I picked this topic. Yeah.
(32:47):
I kept wanting to send you stuff about it, like yeah, yesterday,
and I was like, and I picked it knowing. I
guess it was just this weird subliminal thing like maybe
I was trying to work through it or something. I
don't know, but I did find interesting the triple drug
Dale smilarities. I don't think it was the exact same stuff,
but it's the same process basically, all right, So, um
(33:27):
death from beginning to end five to eighteen minutes after
the execution order is given kind of just depends. Okay,
So that's ideally. Remember the execution order is when like
it's you've moved into the the execution chamber and the
(33:47):
warden says it's not ringing, the governor is not calling, right,
so um, that's when they start working on you, like
putting in the ivy tubes and all that does. Now,
remember the whole point of um execution the United States
criminal justice system is not to inflict pain or cause suffering.
(34:11):
It's simply to take that person's life and the most
humane efficient means possible. Right, So what happens if you
can't find a vein. That happens very frequently. There's all
there's a lot of cases of um, the condemned helpfully
UM saying we'll try this vein over here. I think
this one, this one feels pretty good. Try this one.
(34:33):
Like helping these people like stick them to put these
lethal drugs in them. Sure, um so. And that particularly
is the case with IVY drug users who have lots
to collapse veins. UM. It's also chucked part of the
problem when you don't have experienced medical personnel, which is
one of the big controversies of lethal injection because if
(34:55):
you notice, it has a lot of the trappings of
a medical proceed but it completely flies in the face
of medicine because the hippocratic oaths says, first, do no harm. Well,
carrying out or even assisting in an execution is doing harm.
So the American Medical Association tried to pass the resolution saying, UM,
(35:16):
we're going to take the license of anybody who's involved
in an execution, and all the states said, no, you
can't do that. We're going to protect the doctor's licenses
because we need these people. And that's kind of a
conundrum you know, like, do you not have anything to
do with an execution and let some prison guard try
to find a vein and stick this person for sixty
(35:38):
minutes and prolong the point from okay, start executing to
death so this person is more aware and anxious and
thinking about it. Or do you kind of throw your
hippocratic oath to the side and help this person's execution
go as painlessly and humanely as possible. Yeah, finding a
veins not too tough though. I was reading like, watched um,
(36:00):
watched uh executions and that's that's the number one that
they can't find a vein where they feeding these people,
you know, because they're not using heroin in prison, are they? No?
But I think if you used heroin for a significant
portion of your life, your veins are collapsed forever. Yeah,
I don't think they grow back. So it's generally though
(36:24):
a prison guard or somebody that works with the prison though,
that actually administers it. Right, Yeah, okay, that's what thought.
And plus also there's another thing too, if if they're
not good at um delivering the drugs, if they're not
practiced at that um, the flow of the drugs, if
you push it in too fast, can cause a lot
of pain and suffering. That's one right, that's another one too,
(36:46):
which is another reason why, Um, some states require that
medical staff be on hand to assist with these things.
I mean, there's really no humane way to put someone,
you know, so that's that's kill somebody, Like you can't
affixiate someone with feathers. Okay, No, And it's true. But
I was looking around like, Okay, if lethal injection isn't
(37:07):
even considered humane, which a lot of people say, like,
it's not there, it's possibly there's a lot of pain. Um.
One of the drugs that's being used these days is
called medazzy lamb, and it's a sedative. It's not an anesthetic.
So if you put somebody out with it, that doesn't
mean that they can't feel pain any longer. Um. But
that's due to this shortage of pental barbitrall um. People
(37:30):
are using that. So they're saying, wait, we're using untested drugs.
These people are possibly feeling excruciating pain, but you can't
tell because we're using a paralyzing agent. What There's got
to be another way to do this, And some people
recently have been speaking up and saying heroin I know,
but I think, uh, there's probably a few seconds when
(37:52):
you're introducing the pento barbital where they're like, all right, yeah, um, no,
it's called inert gas asphyxiation. Okay, So when you suffocate, um,
apparently the pain and discomfort is caused by not being
able to expel CEO two. Um. With inert gas ex asphyxiation,
(38:15):
you are inhaling gas. It's not oxygen, say, pure nitrogen gas,
but you're still capable of exhaling CEO two, which means
that the whole process should be painless, right, and unconsciousness
takes effect in a couple of seconds, death a few
more seconds after that. So they think it's possible that
they may have figured out a the most humane method
(38:39):
of capital punishment around inert gas asphyxiation. How do they
like practicing that? No? But I suspect that if if
this kind of reform thing continues going on, we'll see
inert gas chambers pretty soon. Yeah. You know, the old
firing squad is instantaneous. Probably it's done right. Yeah, but
(39:01):
it rarely is done right. That's the thing. What do
you mean rarely it's done right? Give me a statistic. Well, Okay, Um,
how many shooting firing squads percentage wise aren't done properly?
So I would probably say the vast majority. Really yeah, Um,
you're trying to again, if you're doing something humanly and efficiently,
(39:22):
you want to remove human error. So um, finding a
vein introducing the drug at a proper rate, like all
of these things are subject to human error, right, shooting
a bullet at somebody from fifty feet or whatever. That's
get all kinds of human error involved in it. I
would say, go read a And I'm not an activist.
(39:43):
I'm not being an activist here. Um, go read this
article called um on the possible pain from various methods
of execution. I believe it's what it's called. There's a
guy in the eighties who basically went around and said,
let me get all the evidence I possibly hand from
the different types of execution that people are put through
(40:04):
to figure out how much pain and how frequently they
feel pain, how much they feel as well. And he
came up with this amazing study. And firing squads are
not they're bloody, they're not they're not good. Well, I
know they're bloody, but I didn't know that they were
butched so that people lived most of the time after
(40:25):
being shot by eight dudes in the head. But that's
another thing. They don't aim for the head a lot
of times. Only one guy has a bullet where the
aims the chest, chest, so you're shot through the heart.
Is that like all countries across the border. I don't know.
I'm curious. I'm just saying I would say, go read
that study. My money's on inert gas. Inert gas definitely,
not on firing squads. The guillotine. Well, that came out
(40:47):
of that one reform movement from the late eighteenth century.
That's as instant as it gets. No, it's not. Do
you not remember our Yeah, we said it's possible that
the head is alive for a couple of seconds. Four seconds.
I feel like I don't even know you right now.
I got one last one, all right? Um, So there
(41:09):
is a huge disparity and the death penalty as a
whole um among races. So it turns out of capital
cases feature a black or Hispanic defendant and then um
with victims. There's a big race disparity too. Uh, in
death penalty cases in the United States. I think either
(41:31):
last year in the last few years, seventy percent of
the victims have been whitecent have been black, six percent
have been Hispanic. For the victims, so it's um disproportionately
doled out against people who have killed white people than
it is to people who have killed black or Hispanic people.
And other was like two percent or something like that. Interesting,
(41:54):
you got anything else? I got nothing else? So lethal injection, man,
that was a weird one. Huh uh, Well, I mean
this is touchy stuff, you know. Uh. If you want
to learn more about lethal injection, um, you can type
that into the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
And since I said search bar, it's time for a listener, mate,
(42:15):
I'm going to call this what a long strange trip
has been because that's what Whitney called it. Hey guys,
I'm Whitney and I'm a twentysomething band teacher from Provo, Utah.
My husband, also a band teacher, introduced me to your
show in two thousand nine when he was commuting one
hour each way to Park City every day. When I
started my current job last year, I started listening to
you guys after I realized how crappy radio was and
(42:38):
I exhausted the music on my iPod. I started one
on episode one, and just today caught up with a
werewolf podcast. Yeah not bad. I was excited and sad
all at the same time. We heard that a lot. Actually,
I know you get lots of emails and you're probably
sick of them, but I felt like I had to
write once I caught up. During the last school year,
I had my first child, started my new job, and
(43:00):
moved twice, the second move being into our first home.
Needless to say, with all this change, I started to
get pretty stressed and even depressed. On top of all this,
I teach beginning band to six and seventh grade kids.
My job is very exciting. I love it, but I
can get frustrated and even develop road rage at times.
Stupid kids. Your podcast was my sanity through all this, dudes.
(43:24):
I was able to focus my mind on exciting things
like Barbie dolls and serial killers, and it all made
my day a little bit brighter. So I just want
to say how much I appreciate all the podcasts. I
feel like I'm learning, keeping my mind, engage, and enjoying
your banter. And I think my eighteen month old daughter
also enjoys since she's heard your voices since she was
just a tiny thing. I hope you keep making them.
(43:45):
Whitney Werner, thanks a lot, Whitney from probo Utah band
Teaching and we are shaping young minds, eighteen month old minds. Yeah,
in utero even we've heard people for some reason play us.
Forget teaching your kids line language, just have them listen
to Stuff you should Know exactly. Yeah. Uh, if you
want to let us know how we have helped your
(44:07):
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com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(44:32):
Does it how stuff works dot com
Hi everyone, It's me Josh and for this week's s
Y s K selects have chosen how Lethal Injection Works. Uh,
in the holiday spirit. We released this around Christmas of
two thousand thirteen, and it can be a hard one
to listen to, but since whenever a person is executed,
the state is actually doing it on your behalf, since
(00:20):
you're a member of the public, it's probably best to
know what they're doing in your name. It's an eye
opening one and a sobering one, and I hope it
means a lot to you, because it did to me.
Welcome to Stuff you should Know from how Stuff Works
(00:43):
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and this Charles if you Chuck Bryant, and this is
stuff you should know the podcast. Greetings. This is not
a capital punishment show, although we will deal with that obviously,
(01:06):
but we at some point we'll probably do a full
episode on capital punishment. I would guess, don't you imagine,
because we have notice on it, and uh, we're gonna
touch on it here with legal injections. Yeah, and just
coming across some stuff on the electric electric chair that
to me seems like it deserves its own episode as well.
It's because it's some nuts. It sounds like we're cooking
up a sweet. Yeah, the Capital punishman sweet. We come
(01:30):
up with the best sweets, don't we. Well, it's a
big deal. You know, it's important. I agree to you,
you know, um Chuck. About fourteen hours ago, a guy
named Joseph Paul Franklin. I can't remember what he his
birth name was, but he legally changed his name to
Joseph Paul after in honor of Joseph Paul Gebel's, the
(01:51):
Nutzi propagandist. What a nice guy he must be to
change his name to that, right, So Missouri just executed
him at twelve oh one Wednesday. Member was today the
ninete one of those two, and actually hustler publisher Larry
Flint was making a big hubbub trying to keep the
(02:11):
man from being killed, which was somewhat ironic, although not
really if you followed Larry Flint's career, because he was
the man who supposedly shot Larry Flint and paralyzed him
for life. Supposedly was he not convicted of that. No,
he he confessed to it, and it was quite possible
the reason that he gave for doing it was because
um Hustler had had some um, some interracial spread that
(02:35):
the guy didn't like, and he was targeting interracial couples.
He shot a couple of black kids in Ohio, I
believe um. And he was killed in Missouri because he
randomly picked St. Louis out of the phone book and
went and found a synagogue and just sat outside and
took shots at people as they came out of a bar. Mitzvah.
(02:57):
So he's racist, he's an anti Semite. He also had
serious mental health issues as well. Um Andy shot Larry
flinty um, but he was executed. And the whole reason
that Larry Flint was creating this hubub about not killing
this guy. One Flint head of famous quote from the
last news cycle that he didn't think the government should
(03:17):
be in the business of killing people. So he's against
capital punishment anyway. You can say it like Larry Flint,
I don't do a very good Larry Flint. You put
some marbles in your mouth, you're gonna try. Um. So
he he just doesn't think that the death penalties a
good thing. Anyway. He's an abolitionist. You would say, um,
and then Secondly, he he filed a suit to have
(03:39):
the name of the supplier of the drug that was
going to be used in the lethal injection revealed unsealed
because it's secret and it's not supposed to be secret.
But as we'll find out, states recently have had to
scramble to come up with the drugs to execute prisoners
of the state. Yeah, there's a big thing going on
(04:01):
that we'll talk about. But that was the most recent
uh execution in the United States, makes thirty five for
the year, and all but one of those were lethal injections,
the other one being the electric chair. Yeah, it is
fast become the go to method for most states in
many countries. If you're gonna get capital punishment UH going,
(04:25):
then yeah, probably gonna do it by way of lethal
injection these days. Yeah, but it's also the newest one too,
And it came out of this um this well basically
what amounted to an abolitionist movement in the nineteen sixties
and seventies that sought to just get rid of the
death penalty. And that was the third major movement in
(04:46):
the United States since the late eighteenth century where people
were just trying to get rid of capital punishment altogether. Yeah,
they did halt at nineteen seventy two after Supreme Court
ruling firm in the Georgia. Uh, and they are remember
reading about this later. Obviously I didn't read nineteen seventy two.
(05:06):
I would have been very advanced one year old. But
they said it was cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment,
violating the eighth Amendment of the Constitution. And then but
four years later they reversed that and Greg versus Georgia,
and UM said, you know what, maybe that is cool
on your usual, so let's come up with a way
that's not. And they came up with lethal injection. Yeah.
(05:28):
And the reason why that cruel and unusual I had
a lot of traction was because, um, there were hangings before,
and hangings are very very messy, sting. If the news
isn't right, the head can pop right off, or if
the neck isn't broken, the person just hangs there and
suffocates for a minute or two and then dies. Um.
And then the electrocution is really really awful too. I
(05:50):
was reading a list of botched executions, and electrocutions are
very frequently botched. People their heads catch fire, blood comes out,
of their eyes. It's really all full stuff. So there
was this idea that the whole point of this it's retributive.
It's you did something so bad that we as a
society have decided that you can't live any longer. But
(06:14):
we as a society aren't as cruel as you are.
You know, the point isn't to make you suffer. It's
just to take your life and to do it in
the most humane way possible. Well, electrocution, hanging, gas chamber,
none of those really fit the bill. So somebody came
up with the idea of lethal injection. But this wasn't
the first time that was proposed that. The first time
was in the nineteenth century, I think, oh yeah, yeah.
(06:36):
There was a guy named Julius mount Brier, and he
was a doctor out in New York who said, you know,
this would work because it would be efficient, humane, and
it would keep the person from having UM some sort
of hero status developed around them that sometimes comes from
people who are hanged. But they went with electrocution instead. Well,
(06:57):
in two the US became the first country to use
lethal injection, and like we said, since then it's really
become predominant UM. I think the current number of states
that have the death penalty is thirty two as of today.
But it's tough because states are have been repealing it.
(07:18):
It's dropping like flies. I don't know about like flies,
but maybe like honey bees, right, and those are those
are states that have taken the possibility of capital punishment
off of their books. Right. So, Um, well, you know
thirty two or is the number that have the death penalty, right?
Thirty two have a death penalty, um. Not necessarily meaning
(07:42):
that they used that in the past year. Necessarily. There's
something called de facto abolition, which is basically like, yeah,
it's on our books, but we haven't used it in
so long that we might as well not even have
the death penalty. Um. So chuck, Like we said, lethal
injection is the it's the most frequently used method in
(08:04):
the United States, and it's fast becoming the same around
the world. China picked it up after the United States
and they replaced their shootings. Um. And that kind of
led to it seems like almost a domino effect throughout
Asia of other countries picking it up as well. Yeah,
the Philippines, Taiwan, uh, Guatemala there in Central America. Um,
(08:25):
they have all gone to lethal injection, and right now,
I have in two thousand twelve, fifty eight countries used
lethal injection, down from sixty seven UH and sixty three
INN and a hundred and forty countries of outlawed the
(08:45):
death penalty worldwide. So and like you said, states are
kind of starting to abolish it. Yeah, executions are down
in general in the United States last year there were
forty three. This year, like we said, there's been thirty
five and we're fast closing out the year. Um, but
lethal injection is the go to method of execution, and
(09:06):
so we're going to figure out how it works. That's right.
Right now, there are three thousand, one d and eight
people as of spring of this year on death row
or male of course, because you don't find a lot
of females on death row because they're smart enough to
not to kill other people generally speaking. Is that what
it is? Yeah, women are much smarter. Um. A lot
(09:30):
of these folks have been on death row for decades
waiting to die. Maybe they're working through the appeals process
because that all has to happen first. Um, some will
die on death row without ever going into an execution chamber. Yeah,
it happens. Some people commit or try to commit suicide
before they can be executed after their appeals run out. Sure,
(09:51):
there's a guy in Georgia who almost successfully killed himself.
He cut his karated artery um with what I wonder,
razor that guarded given him. I guess to shave with us.
Sensibly like the razor and the guy, they rushed into
the hospital, saved his life and then executed him a
week later. Wow, it's a funny country. Um. So you're
(10:15):
on death row, you've exhausted your appeals. Um, you're finally
going to get that execution order and a date will
be set in place for that execution. Um. At this point,
you're going to be moved from death row to a
place called death watch, and that is basically the that's
the last stop. That's your holding area for the last
days or weeks, right. Um. So, death watch is both
(10:37):
a physical place like it's it's frequently in the same
part of the prison that the execution chamber is located,
or it might be in another prison entirely. Some states
just maintain one execution chamber for the whole state, and
it's at a certain prison. So you'd be transferred to
that place. And then death watch also is supposedly they're
supposed to watch you so you don't commit suicide. Um,
(11:00):
and it's also your I think rights kind of open
up a little more. You're you get visits from people. Um.
You your treatment is a little better. I think you
you get a room with a view, as it were, um,
and you're you start the perforation of of dying, of
saying goodbye, and of coming to terms with the fact
(11:20):
that it's happening. Yeah, you know, the state of Texas
has these death watch rooms at um on highway exits,
most highway exits. You got your gas station, your subway,
and your yeah, your death watch room. I'm kidding, but
Texas executes a lot of people, it does. Texas bears.
They execute a lot. But they're not the only ones
that have no all sorts of weirdness going on. Apparently
(11:44):
two percent of counties account for like fifty to seventy
percent of executions in the United States. It just seems
like Texas comes up all the time when they're like
the last time this method was used or the first
time this method was used a Texas well. Texas was
the first one to usually the injection like you said exactly, Um,
and yeah, they kill a lot of people there. Yeah,
(12:04):
not picking on you Texas. I love you guys. No here,
I've got one Alabama. In Alabama. Uh it is um,
it takes a unanimous jury to hand down a life sentence,
but it takes ten of twelve to hand down a
death sentence. Really Yeah, and a judge can over rule um,
a jury a life sentence jury Yeah, and say no,
(12:26):
this person needs a death penalty and they do it frequently. Interesting.
We'll pick on Georgia two in a minute. Okay, Well
Georgia was the one that executed the guy after saving
his life after the suicide attempt. All right, great, Uh,
I just want to make sure we dolled out enough,
you know, embarrassment for each state. So, um, you're on
death watch. You can be visited more often, generally by
(12:48):
friends and family. We're in like the last twenty four
hours is now? Yeah, Um, your attorneys, spiritual advisors, you're
gonna get your last meal. That is not a fallacy.
Whatever you want, they'll prepare for you know that's not
necessarily true. Well, it depends. Generally they satisfy your desire.
But when does it not get satisfied. What state doesn't
do that? Really? Yeah, um, there was a legislation that
(13:12):
was passed after this one. This one inmate ordered a
meat Lever's pizza like twenty four tacos, like like this
awesome spread that Just reading it, I was like, oh man,
I'm kind of hungry for this reading about this this
man's last meal, and they didn't need any of it.
Even still, there's probably two dollars for the food, but
it caused enough outrage in the state legislature that they
(13:34):
passed the thing where it's like, you can have whatever
the prison cafeterias cooking that night, that's your last meal. Yeah.
There's a really great article in Lapham's Quarterly online for
free called Last Meal. Go check it out. It's just
basically this awesome history and contemporary evaluation of last meals.
That's pretty sad it is, but it's really interesting what
(13:56):
it says. Like there's a guy in Arkansas who was
executed in the nineties. His name was Verry Leaf fair Child,
and he pointed out that it doesn't make a lot
of sense to give a condemned person a last meal.
He said it was quote like putting gas in a
car that don't have no motor but like you have
no need to take in food because you have no
need to derive the energy from it any longer, because
(14:18):
you're about to lose your life. Well, it's not about
deriving energy, it's about enjoying one last thing, right. But
if you look at if you look at the capital
punishment system, that's it makes no sense. Yeah, it's it's interesting.
I say, go read the article little. I'm not getting
the point across very well. Well, I mean, I see
what he's saying, but it's not like you gotta fuel
(14:39):
up for the big day. It's like here, enjoy a steak. Yeah,
I know, I'm just saying like it flies in the
face of the rest of the criminal justice system. Oh well, sure,
enjoy the steak then, you know. And time was they
used to get you drunk, like beforehand, if you're going
to get hanged in London, like from the prison to
the gallows, they would stop and you you'd let you
(15:00):
drink as much as you want and and then would
take you super drunk and kill you. Yeah, that's interesting
because that could provide a more docile um victim or
a really weepy one which would be really like someone
who starts causing lots of trouble. You know, yeah, he
wants to fight one last time. Exactly right. But apparently
I read somewhere that they sedate criminals. Are they condemned
(15:23):
here first? So that's kind of like a modern incarnation
of taking them and getting them drunk, handing them a volume.
Yeah that's true, you know. Okay, so you've had your
last meal, which may or not be awesome depending on
where you live. Um, your warden and your chaplain are
going to visit. They're gonna stay with you till the
(15:43):
end unless you don't want them there. You can probably
refuse any kind of religious associations if you want. Um. Witnesses. Uh, well,
we'll get to all that. But the witnesses arrive at
this point. Um, they're kept away from you though. They
don't get to like walk by and say things to you. No.
As a matter of fact, most witnesses are required well
(16:03):
in Texas, they can take pot shots. Are you there?
Six shooters? Um? Sorry Texas? Uh. They the witnesses and
pretty much across the board I'm sure, are required to
be totally silent the whole time they leave. Are brought
into the to the execution area. Yeah, not like the
people outside of prisons who are making lots of noise
(16:25):
usually right the other protests or or kill them, kill them.
That's as ugly as this country gets. Man. When you
see the footage of people outside prisons a controversial executions,
it's pretty bad. Uh. And then their final preparations. They're
gonna give you clean clothes, uh, but you take a
(16:46):
last shower or shower get dressed. Uh, and then connect
you to the old e k g um, which is gonna,
you know, let everyone know if you're gone, if you're
still with them. Yeah, they hook the e k g
up to you. It's not hooked anything yet, but they've
got it like a you're wired exactly. And then what's
your showered and dressed and wired up with the knee
(17:10):
KG and the warden and the chaplain are hanging out
with you. Um. At the predetermined time they will start
to move you into the execution chamber and um. Meanwhile,
the witnesses are there. And let's talk about the witnesses,
Like the fact that there are witnesses at executions is
(17:31):
actually the modern incarnation of a very long tradition like
we used to have public executions in this country. Yeah,
like thousands of people would show up. Sometimes they would
charge admission. Uh, And eventually that stopped and only a
select number of people were allowed to witness. But well
they're still witnesses. You know. Have you read about the
last public execution? And there was I didn't either, Okay,
(17:55):
so I thought you're asking no, no, just about it. Um.
There's a guy named Rainey Bethia in Kentucky who was
hanging in nineteen thirty six for rape and murder I think, um,
and his execution was attended by twenty people. The big
reason was it's not because they knew it was the
last public execution. I think they decided to stop that.
After this execution, there was a Kentucky basketball game after. Um.
(18:18):
The sheriff was a woman, So this is going to
be the first execution in US history ever conducted by
a woman, and people wanted to go see how badly
she was going to screw this up. And even though
she didn't, the press still wrote that she'd fainted. Um,
that like everything had been botched or whatever. But that's
why everybody turned out. But there were charges from out
of town reporters that people were having hanging parties, that
(18:41):
they were drunk in the streets partying. That basically there
was just a sense of revelry that shouldn't attend uh
an execution, and that was the last draw for public
executions in this country. But it got it got the
the idea that you need to have other people witness
a death when this executing somebody, just to make sure
(19:01):
it's totally transparent. That was carried on with witnesses today
and executions. Yeah, I mean that's part of it too,
and part of it is also to give victims closure,
the families that is of victims. Uh, there will be
sometimes family members of the prisoner too, and they are
generally kept apart um, not not always generally. Yeah. Um,
(19:25):
the prison warden is going to be there. Uh, you're
gonna have medical people on hand of course to make
sure it all goes as planned, which is pretty controversial
as we'll find. Uh. You got your spiritual advisor, like
we talked about, You've got your guards, um, state selected
witnesses maybe, I mean there might be members of the
state government there to watch it all go down. Yeah,
(19:46):
you've got media there. Um. You also have what are
known as reputable citizens, and those are basically just average
everyday citizens that witness executions. Is it like a lottery
or something. No, it's like you kind tech your state
d O C. And say, hey, I wanna I want
to witness an execution, and they send you an application
for him. You explain why you have to be over eighteen.
(20:08):
You have to explain why you want to do this.
But apparently the pool is thin enough that they're not
real selective. As long as you don't say, like, because
I want to see them like bleed or something like that,
they they will let you do this. Um. And apparently
when there was a surgeon executions in the nineties Chuck Um,
(20:28):
departments of corrections were so hard up because a lot
of state law says you have to have six reputable
citizens or twelve reputable citizens, that their pool was running thin.
So departments of corrections were actually advertising looking for people
to witness executions newspapers. It's just law. It's just that
hold over from having the public be a part of
(20:51):
this state monopoly on violence. It's stupid, but so much
so that they're trying to force it now. Well, I
don't think it's a problem anymore. It was just in
the nineties, like they were killing everybody in the nineties. Yeah, alright,
so you've got your witnesses there. Um, your your execution
chambers may have um clear glass with a curtain pulled,
(21:12):
maybe a one way mirror where you can only see
into the executed, into the condemned. Um. It all depends
on your state, basically, but it's generally going to be
a pretty quiet thing no matter where you are. It's
a whole group of people that are just being utterly
silent watching you. Or if it's there's too many family members,
they might have a close circuit feed going on in
(21:34):
another room. Yeah, if it's like you know, if it's
not roomy, and apparently in Illinois, if you're a family member,
the only way you can witness it is via close
circuit TV in another room in Illinois. In Illinois, all right,
it's another state. That's a new one. We haven't mentioned Illinois. Yeah. Yeah,
we didn't really make fun of them though, I guess
they're execution chambers. Small. Yeah, you can make fun of
(21:56):
them their enemy seats in their nice state budget. Um,
you've got your timeline of events. It's all very much
scheduled like down to the minute. Um, you're gonna have
your person properly dressed, you're gonna escort them into the chamber.
I was thinking about this when I was reading this article, Chuck.
Imagine like just taking a shower too fast, and so
(22:19):
you just kind of have to sit there on the
edge of the bed with the warden and whatever spiritual
adviser they throw at you, waiting to go be executed.
That has to be the worst wait ever. Yeah, Like
I can't imagine it being much worse than that, because
they can't be like, wow, we'll just get this started early. No,
everything is on a very delineated schedule, and they're just
(22:42):
kind of have to sit there until the time comes
to go to the execution chamber to get started. I
just to take a long shower. That stuck out to me. Yeah, okay,
the longest shower of your life. Um, the saddest shower
of your life for sure. Uh. You might be rolled
in and like restrained beforehand and rolled in on a jernie.
Sometimes you're allowed to walk there yourself and then you're
(23:03):
restrained once you're in there, and at that point they
are going to go ahead and pre rig you with
the I V tubes UM to lead you in there,
and then those once you get in there and you're
strapped in, they will be fed into what's called an
anti room where the actual UH death cocktails await and
(23:26):
the executioner awaits. Yeah, it's like an enclosed room away
from the eyes of everybody, including the condemned and the witnesses.
But you have two tubes. Most states required two. There's
a backup to one to serve as a backup. At
this point, you have your final statement if you so choose.
They'll read that out loud on the news that night. Yeah,
(23:49):
to be careful what you say. You can go on
to UM. Are we giving advice to de throw a night.
It just seccurred to me that we UM. You can
go on to UH departments of actions websites and most
of them have last statements on there, and some of
them are what you'd expect summer eerie, I'm sure, UH.
And generally the head is unrestrained so they can look
(24:11):
around and stuff, although sometimes they do have like a
hood or a sheet. Again, it depends on the state
and how they do it. So the the condemned is
strepped into a gurney strapped down, but their heads under restraint.
They've got tubes leading into their h the ivy needles. Yeah. Um,
(24:32):
and it's ready to go. Yeah, I think, uh, now
it's a good time for message break and then we'll
get into the actual process after. Okay, So, like you said,
it's go, time for a solemn moment. Yeah. Um. For
(24:54):
a long time states, we're using something called a world
basically and like toronic lethal injection machine, which makes sense.
It was what co working came up with. Basically, it
was I'm sure, if not directly based on his model,
it was at least very similar to it. But then
they worried about mechanical failures, so they said, no humans
(25:15):
need to do this. I think they had mechanical failures.
I can imagine. Um. And so in some states you
have one executioner and others you have a couple of executioners.
And there again they're in this anti room where the
actual drugs are that the i V tubes are leading
to from the execution chamber into the anti room. Um.
(25:35):
And if you have a few different ones, a few
different executioners, they're all putting drugs into i V tubes,
but they none of the executioners know which one is
the real I V tube and which one's is leading
to a mannequin, and that isn't actually a mannequin. Uh
(25:57):
that that you know, that old trick. Like they used
to do the same thing with flipping the switch too.
I think they had like several switches firing squads. Yeah,
because they don't want the h the one any one
person to have that weight. They can always think. I
guess I had at chance that it was me, you know, alright,
So I guess we should move on to the drugs
(26:18):
that are used. Um, it used to almost always be
a three drug cocktail, but things are getting weird these days.
I've noticed. Originally it was three drugs. You would have
an anesthetic, paralyzing agent, and a toxic agent, and those
were used for years and years, and then due to
some circumstances, a bunch of different circumstances that converged where
(26:42):
in some cases down to one like Joseph Paul Franklin
was killed with just one drug. Well, I looked up
almost every single execution in two thousand thirteen used a
single drug pinto barber at all, which is an anesthetic. Yeah,
and it's basically a substitute when are in short supply
of other ones. But I did see that it's actually
(27:03):
illegal to use this drug this way, and the manufacturer
is Danish and was like, well, no, you can't use
our drug that way. Right. They started fighting, uh, people
who sold that drug to like state agencies exactly. Very
controversial and states were trying to get this stuff anyway
they could. So since it was banned for use by
(27:25):
correctional facilities for executions, the ultimate correction, the d A
was actually rating departments of corrections and taking their drugs. So, um,
because of this band, because of the drug maker. And
so first you had the drug maker, um that was
making pentethal, right yeah. And then people were like, well
(27:47):
how about this. We have propo fall, that's the anesthetic
pentethal is, right yeah, and so what they were replacing
it with was propofol, which is Michael Jackson's milk that
killed him. Did we hit it right this time? Yeah?
Okay um. And then the maker of propo fall said, uh, well,
how if you you can't use that to execute people,
that's not what we made this for. And they said, well,
(28:09):
t s, We're gonna use it anyway. And so the
maker said, if you use that to kill anybody, we're
gonna cut off supplies to the entire United States, including hospitals,
and you're gonna have an enormous problem on your hands.
And so all of the hospitals contacted the departments of
the corrections and said, do not use that, like, we
can't have a propo fall shortage. So now they're turning
(28:30):
to compounding pharmacies, which are generally regulated mostly by the state,
not so much by the Feds, and UM, trying to
get their hands anyway they can on some sort of
general anesthetic. Uh. And the anesthetic ideally, UM, if they
were using pentethal or peno barbatal barbaria UM, if you
(28:54):
were in a hospital and you were put under general anesthesia,
they would use about a hundred pegrams of this stuff
delivered over your ten to fifteen seconds, and you would
be out. It's an anesthetic. You wouldn't be asleep, you
wouldn't be unconscious. You are under general anesthesia, you're not
feeling anything, You're not anything. So that's a hundred milligrams
for just general anesthesia. When you're given a lethal injection
(29:17):
of penal barbitall, they give you five grams, five thousand milligrams,
not a hundred milligrams, five thousand milligrams of this stuff. Yeah,
and that's enough to kill you flat out. Um, And
proponents of lethal injection will say they don't feel anything
after that, right, and again, that should just be enough
to kill you, which is why a lot of states
(29:39):
are just using that one drug. Now. Um. In the
original lethal injection cocktail, that was step one. Once they
administered the anesthetic, they would flush the lines with saline solution,
and then um they would introduce the next one, which
is a paralyzing agent. Yeah. That's basically a the heaviest
(30:00):
duty muscle relaxant you could ever imagine, because it relaxes
your muscle so much that your die fragms and lungs
don't function any longer. Yeah, that's a serious muscle relaxing. Right,
So you just you stop breathing. So that's that's the
way to die number two. And that takes about one
to three minutes for that one to take effect fully.
(30:20):
So then that one's been kind of abandoned because it's
been criticized or the use of it's been criticized because
a lot of people point out that that's really for
the witnesses because without it, when somebody's dying, a lot
of times they will writhe, they will gasp for breath,
they will um, they're back while arch as much as
(30:41):
it can when it's strapped down to a gurney. When
you administer a paralyzing agent, none of that happens. So
the witnesses are like, oh, look, it looks like he
wanted to die. Look at what a peaceful death that
man just went through. So it's for the witnesses. And
then number two, it could also conceivably mask pain. So
if it's masking pain, then it's also masking a possibly
(31:03):
inhumane method of execution. So they kind of discontinued the
paralyzing agent um, but that was traditionally step two. And
then once that one was administered. So are you getting
the point here that like they're really going the extra
mile to make sure you're dead in the nineties through
lethal injection. Yeah, and you know what, I might as
(31:24):
well go ahead and get into this. We just put
our dog down two days ago and they did the
same thing with that. It's like paralyzing agent. Three different
things were injected into her. It's like the first go
to sleep thing, and then the second paralyzer and then
the final thing like she's gone. But hey, let's just
inject this just to make sure the hardest stopped. Was it? Okay,
(31:46):
so it was the toxic agent potassium chloride, I'm not sure.
I mean they said it was a trade concoction for
their company. Okay, so then it probably wasn't potassium chloride
because I don't think that that's proprietary. But in some states,
the use of potassium chloride the toxication, which is the
(32:06):
third one um, that's not even allowed for use on pets,
but they were using it on inmates because it induces
cardiac aresque because it could conceivably cause pain. Okay, yeah, interesting,
I'm sorry about your dog, buddy. That's right. I appreciate that,
And hey, thank you to everyone I put that on
the stuff you should know while and people were super
(32:26):
supportive and told a lot of their own stories of
their pets passing. So I think maybe at some point
I might put together a little like like you did
the pet costumes. I might do like a pet memorial
thing where people can send in that would be very nice,
memorialized or pets stuff you should know anyway. Um, I
did find it interesting though, A that I picked this topic. Yeah.
(32:47):
I kept wanting to send you stuff about it, like yeah, yesterday,
and I was like, and I picked it knowing. I
guess it was just this weird subliminal thing like maybe
I was trying to work through it or something. I
don't know, but I did find interesting the triple drug
Dale smilarities. I don't think it was the exact same stuff,
but it's the same process basically, all right, So, um
(33:27):
death from beginning to end five to eighteen minutes after
the execution order is given kind of just depends. Okay,
So that's ideally. Remember the execution order is when like
it's you've moved into the the execution chamber and the
(33:47):
warden says it's not ringing, the governor is not calling, right,
so um, that's when they start working on you, like
putting in the ivy tubes and all that does. Now,
remember the whole point of um execution the United States
criminal justice system is not to inflict pain or cause suffering.
(34:11):
It's simply to take that person's life and the most
humane efficient means possible. Right, So what happens if you
can't find a vein. That happens very frequently. There's all
there's a lot of cases of um, the condemned helpfully
UM saying we'll try this vein over here. I think
this one, this one feels pretty good. Try this one.
(34:33):
Like helping these people like stick them to put these
lethal drugs in them. Sure, um so. And that particularly
is the case with IVY drug users who have lots
to collapse veins. UM. It's also chucked part of the
problem when you don't have experienced medical personnel, which is
one of the big controversies of lethal injection because if
(34:55):
you notice, it has a lot of the trappings of
a medical proceed but it completely flies in the face
of medicine because the hippocratic oaths says, first, do no harm. Well,
carrying out or even assisting in an execution is doing harm.
So the American Medical Association tried to pass the resolution saying, UM,
(35:16):
we're going to take the license of anybody who's involved
in an execution, and all the states said, no, you
can't do that. We're going to protect the doctor's licenses
because we need these people. And that's kind of a
conundrum you know, like, do you not have anything to
do with an execution and let some prison guard try
to find a vein and stick this person for sixty
(35:38):
minutes and prolong the point from okay, start executing to
death so this person is more aware and anxious and
thinking about it. Or do you kind of throw your
hippocratic oath to the side and help this person's execution
go as painlessly and humanely as possible. Yeah, finding a
veins not too tough though. I was reading like, watched um,
(36:00):
watched uh executions and that's that's the number one that
they can't find a vein where they feeding these people,
you know, because they're not using heroin in prison, are they? No?
But I think if you used heroin for a significant
portion of your life, your veins are collapsed forever. Yeah,
I don't think they grow back. So it's generally though
(36:24):
a prison guard or somebody that works with the prison though,
that actually administers it. Right, Yeah, okay, that's what thought.
And plus also there's another thing too, if if they're
not good at um delivering the drugs, if they're not
practiced at that um, the flow of the drugs, if
you push it in too fast, can cause a lot
of pain and suffering. That's one right, that's another one too,
(36:46):
which is another reason why, Um, some states require that
medical staff be on hand to assist with these things.
I mean, there's really no humane way to put someone,
you know, so that's that's kill somebody, Like you can't
affixiate someone with feathers. Okay, No, And it's true. But
I was looking around like, Okay, if lethal injection isn't
(37:07):
even considered humane, which a lot of people say, like,
it's not there, it's possibly there's a lot of pain. Um.
One of the drugs that's being used these days is
called medazzy lamb, and it's a sedative. It's not an anesthetic.
So if you put somebody out with it, that doesn't
mean that they can't feel pain any longer. Um. But
that's due to this shortage of pental barbitrall um. People
(37:30):
are using that. So they're saying, wait, we're using untested drugs.
These people are possibly feeling excruciating pain, but you can't
tell because we're using a paralyzing agent. What There's got
to be another way to do this, And some people
recently have been speaking up and saying heroin I know,
but I think, uh, there's probably a few seconds when
(37:52):
you're introducing the pento barbital where they're like, all right, yeah, um, no,
it's called inert gas asphyxiation. Okay, So when you suffocate, um,
apparently the pain and discomfort is caused by not being
able to expel CEO two. Um. With inert gas ex asphyxiation,
(38:15):
you are inhaling gas. It's not oxygen, say, pure nitrogen gas,
but you're still capable of exhaling CEO two, which means
that the whole process should be painless, right, and unconsciousness
takes effect in a couple of seconds, death a few
more seconds after that. So they think it's possible that
they may have figured out a the most humane method
(38:39):
of capital punishment around inert gas asphyxiation. How do they
like practicing that? No? But I suspect that if if
this kind of reform thing continues going on, we'll see
inert gas chambers pretty soon. Yeah. You know, the old
firing squad is instantaneous. Probably it's done right. Yeah, but
(39:01):
it rarely is done right. That's the thing. What do
you mean rarely it's done right? Give me a statistic. Well, Okay, Um,
how many shooting firing squads percentage wise aren't done properly?
So I would probably say the vast majority. Really yeah, Um,
you're trying to again, if you're doing something humanly and efficiently,
(39:22):
you want to remove human error. So um, finding a
vein introducing the drug at a proper rate, like all
of these things are subject to human error, right, shooting
a bullet at somebody from fifty feet or whatever. That's
get all kinds of human error involved in it. I
would say, go read a And I'm not an activist.
(39:43):
I'm not being an activist here. Um, go read this
article called um on the possible pain from various methods
of execution. I believe it's what it's called. There's a
guy in the eighties who basically went around and said,
let me get all the evidence I possibly hand from
the different types of execution that people are put through
(40:04):
to figure out how much pain and how frequently they
feel pain, how much they feel as well. And he
came up with this amazing study. And firing squads are
not they're bloody, they're not they're not good. Well, I
know they're bloody, but I didn't know that they were
butched so that people lived most of the time after
(40:25):
being shot by eight dudes in the head. But that's
another thing. They don't aim for the head a lot
of times. Only one guy has a bullet where the
aims the chest, chest, so you're shot through the heart.
Is that like all countries across the border. I don't know.
I'm curious. I'm just saying I would say, go read
that study. My money's on inert gas. Inert gas definitely,
not on firing squads. The guillotine. Well, that came out
(40:47):
of that one reform movement from the late eighteenth century.
That's as instant as it gets. No, it's not. Do
you not remember our Yeah, we said it's possible that
the head is alive for a couple of seconds. Four seconds.
I feel like I don't even know you right now.
I got one last one, all right? Um, So there
(41:09):
is a huge disparity and the death penalty as a
whole um among races. So it turns out of capital
cases feature a black or Hispanic defendant and then um
with victims. There's a big race disparity too. Uh, in
death penalty cases in the United States. I think either
(41:31):
last year in the last few years, seventy percent of
the victims have been whitecent have been black, six percent
have been Hispanic. For the victims, so it's um disproportionately
doled out against people who have killed white people than
it is to people who have killed black or Hispanic people.
And other was like two percent or something like that. Interesting,
(41:54):
you got anything else? I got nothing else? So lethal injection, man,
that was a weird one. Huh uh, Well, I mean
this is touchy stuff, you know. Uh. If you want
to learn more about lethal injection, um, you can type
that into the search bar at how stuff works dot com.
And since I said search bar, it's time for a listener, mate,
(42:15):
I'm going to call this what a long strange trip
has been because that's what Whitney called it. Hey guys,
I'm Whitney and I'm a twentysomething band teacher from Provo, Utah.
My husband, also a band teacher, introduced me to your
show in two thousand nine when he was commuting one
hour each way to Park City every day. When I
started my current job last year, I started listening to
you guys after I realized how crappy radio was and
(42:38):
I exhausted the music on my iPod. I started one
on episode one, and just today caught up with a
werewolf podcast. Yeah not bad. I was excited and sad
all at the same time. We heard that a lot. Actually,
I know you get lots of emails and you're probably
sick of them, but I felt like I had to
write once I caught up. During the last school year,
I had my first child, started my new job, and
(43:00):
moved twice, the second move being into our first home.
Needless to say, with all this change, I started to
get pretty stressed and even depressed. On top of all this,
I teach beginning band to six and seventh grade kids.
My job is very exciting. I love it, but I
can get frustrated and even develop road rage at times.
Stupid kids. Your podcast was my sanity through all this, dudes.
(43:24):
I was able to focus my mind on exciting things
like Barbie dolls and serial killers, and it all made
my day a little bit brighter. So I just want
to say how much I appreciate all the podcasts. I
feel like I'm learning, keeping my mind, engage, and enjoying
your banter. And I think my eighteen month old daughter
also enjoys since she's heard your voices since she was
just a tiny thing. I hope you keep making them.
(43:45):
Whitney Werner, thanks a lot, Whitney from probo Utah band
Teaching and we are shaping young minds, eighteen month old minds. Yeah,
in utero even we've heard people for some reason play us.
Forget teaching your kids line language, just have them listen
to Stuff you should Know exactly. Yeah. Uh, if you
want to let us know how we have helped your
(44:07):
life out or how we've influenced the development of your child,
it's a good one. You can tweet to us at
s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook,
dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know, You can send
us an email, and as always, check us out at
our awesome website. It's called Stuff you Should Know dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(44:32):
Does it how stuff works dot com
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