The debate over capital punishment is taking an interesting turn in Alabama this month and it may turn out to be a moment where those of us who don’t oppose the death penalty ask, ‘How did we not think of this before?’ Many states are having trouble obtaining the required cocktail of drugs to use in lethal injection cases because of activists in the pharmaceutical industry. States have abandoned both the electric chair and the gas chamber as being too “barbaric.” Firing squads still work and are available in some states, but many people similarly find them offputting. But now Alabama is looking at carrying out its next execution using nitrogen hypoxia. (Associated Press)

Alabama is seeking to become the first state to execute a prisoner by making him breathe pure nitrogen.

The Alabama attorney general’s office on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set an execution date for death row inmate Kenneth Smith. Alabama plans to put him to death by nitrogen hypoxia, an execution method that is authorized in three states but has never been used.

Nitrogen hypoxia is caused by forcing the inmate to breathe only nitrogen, depriving them of oxygen and causing them to pass out and die, according to the theory.

The method is fairly straightforward. You secure the prisoner in a space where all of the normal air has been pumped out and replaced with pure nitrogen. Nitrogen is colorless and odorless and you’re breathing a lot of it right now while reading this. It makes up the majority of the atmosphere. But without the 21% of the atmosphere made up of oxygen, people don’t last very long in it.

As you would expect, the AP is fretting over this, calling the solution “untested” and equating it to “human experimentation.” But that’s really not true. It’s untested on humans as a means of execution, but it’s been used on all manner of animals in the past and it’s quite effective. It should also be seen as “more humane” than the other methods I listed (assuming that’s a priority for you in cases of capital punishment).  Research done by Iowa State University on lab animals showed that all subjects became unconscious within one minute and died with no signs of pain.

Plenty of people have died from this effect over the years, though not via intentional execution. Pilots used to die from hypoxia on a regular basis, including one named Thomas Mantell who gained fame when he perished while pursuing a UFO in 1948. He was diverted from a routine training mission over Kentucky and ordered to investigate a large, bizarrely shaped object that had entered the airspace over Fort Knox. He climbed above 20,000 feet to get a look at it but his plane either didn’t have oxygen masks installed or he had run out. His plane crashed a few miles away, apparently after running out of fuel. He was believed to have passed out from hypoxia. (Rumors that he had been shot down by aliens did not prove convincing to most people.) There’s even a monument on the site of his crash.

So if you set up a confined space with some sort of restraining devices and install a method to flood it with nitrogen this should be effective. With a few modifications, you could probably use the existing lethal injection chamber. Of course, this still assumes that you actually want the most peaceful, painless exit from this mortal coil for those who have been deemed by a jury of their peers to be too much of a danger to others to remain in society. Personally, I’m not sure that sending someone off for what amounts to a nap they’ll never wake up from delivers that much of a disincentive for others to commit murder. If you really want to give pause to the gangbangers who are shooting up the cities and killing multiple people, it might be worth considering wheeling out Old Sparky from Georgia and lighting one of these shooters up on national television. That might give some of these shooters second thoughts.

Of course one of the problems with Old Sparky was that it could take out the local power grid, leaving everyone in the dark. But make sure you aren’t left in the dark and keep up with all of the news and commentary here by considering signing up for one of our VIP memberships. You’ll score yourself plenty of exclusive content and you can still save a significant amount by using the promo code SAVEAMERICA when signing up.