December 19, 2013 • 43 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):
Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome
to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and Minis Charles.
If you Chuck Bright and this is Stuffy should Know
(00:20):
the podcast. Greetings, This is not a Capital Punishment show,
although we will deal with that obviously, but we at
some point we'll probably do a full episode on Capital Punished.
I would guess, don't you imagine, because we have an
article on it, and uh, we're gonna touch on it
here with leagal injections. Yeah, and just coming across some
(00:42):
stuff on the electric electric Chair that to me seems
like it deserves its own episode as well. It's because
it's so nuts. It sounds like we're cooking up a
sweet Yeah, the Capital Christian. See we come up with
the best sweets, don't we. Well, it's a big deal.
You know, it's important I agree to cover, you know, know,
um Chuck. About fourteen hours ago, a guy named Joseph
(01:05):
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 Natzi propagandist. What
a nice guy ust to change his name to that, right,
So Missouri just executed him at twelve oh one Wednesday,
November it was today the nine, one of those two.
(01:29):
And actually Hustler publisher Larry Flint was making a big
hubub trying to keep the 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,
(01:50):
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 the guy didn't like, and he
was targeting in a racial couples. He shot a couple
of black kids in Ohio, I believe um. And he
(02:10):
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. So he's racist,
he's an anti semite. He also had serious mental health
issues as well. Um. Andy shot Larry Flint. Um. But
he was executed. And the whole reason that Larry Flint
(02:33):
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 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. He put some marbles in
your own you're gonna try. Um. So he he just
(02:54):
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 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
(03:16):
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 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
(03:37):
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 going, then probably gonna do
it by way of lethal injection these days. Yeah, and
but it's also the newest one too, And it came
out of this um this well, basically it amounted to
(04:00):
an abolitionist movement in the nineteen sixties and seventies that
saw it to just get rid of the death penalty.
And that was the third major movement in 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
(04:22):
Firman the Georgia. Uh. And they are remember reading about
this later. Obviously I didn't read nineteen seventy two. I've
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 in greg versus Georgia, and UM said,
(04:45):
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. 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. If the news isn't right, the
head can pop right off, or if the neck isn't broken,
(05:07):
the person just hangs there and suffocates for a minute
or two and then dies. Um. And then electrocution is
really really awful too. I 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 awful stuff. So there was this idea that the
(05:27):
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 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,
(05:49):
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. The first
time was in the nineteenth century, I think. I yeah, yeah,
there was a guy named Julius mount Briar, and he
was a doctor out in New York who said, you know,
this would work because it would be efficient, humane, and
(06:11):
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,
in 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
(06:35):
death penalty is thirty two as of today. Yeah, but
it's tough because states are have been repealing it. 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
(06:55):
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
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
(07:16):
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
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
(07:39):
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,
they have all gone to lethal injection. And right now
I have in two thousand twelve, fifty eight countries used
lethal injection and down from sixty seven UH and sixty
(08:05):
three in and a hundred and forty countries of outlawed
the 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.
(08:25):
But lethal injection is the go to method of execution,
and so we're going to figure out how it works.
That's right. Right now. There are three thousand, one hundred
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
(08:46):
enough to not to kill other people generally speaking. Is
that what it is? Yeah, women are much smart. Um.
A lot of these folks have been on death row
for decades waiting to die. Maybe they're working through the
appeal process because that all has to happen first. Um,
some will die on death row without ever going into
(09:07):
an execution chamber. Yeah, it happens. Some people uh commit
or try to commit suicide before they can be executed
after their appeals run out. Sure, there's a guy in
Georgia who almost successfully killed himself. He cut his carotid
artery um with what I wonder, razor that guarded given
him I guess to shave with. Ostensibly the razor and
(09:29):
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 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,
(09:54):
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 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
(10:14):
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. 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
(10:35):
with a view, as it were, um, and you're you
start the preparation of of dying and saying goodbye and
of coming to terms with the fact that it's happening. Yeah,
you know, the state of Texas has these death watch
rooms that um on highway exits. Most highway exits, you
get your gas station, your subway, and your yeah, in
(10:56):
your death watch room. I'm kidding, but Texas execuse a
lot of be it does Texas bears. They execute a lot.
But they're not the only ones that have all sorts
of weirdness going on. Apparently 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
(11:16):
the time when they're like the last time this method
was used or the first time this method was used
Texas well, Texas was the first one to use lethal injection,
Like you said, um, and yeah, they kill a lot
of people there. 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
(11:38):
hand down a life sentence, but it takes ten of
twelve to hand down a death sentence. Yeah, and a
judge can over rule um, a jury a life sentence
jury yeah, and say no, 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 a
(12:00):
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 friends and family. We're
in like the last twenty four hours. If now, um,
your attorneys, spiritual advisors, you're gonna get your last meal.
(12:21):
That is not a fallacy. Whatever you want, they'll prepare
for you. No, 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 is a legislation that was passed after this one.
This one inmate ordered a meat Lover's pizza, like twenty
(12:43):
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
with the food. But it caused enough outrage in the
state legislature that they passed the thing where it's like
you can have whatever the prison cafeteria is cooking that night,
(13:04):
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 it says. Like there's a
guy in Arkansas who was executed in the nineties. His
(13:25):
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 you're about to lose
your life. Well, it's not about deriving energy. It's about
(13:46):
enjoying one last thing. But if you look at if
you look at the capital punishment system, that's it makes
no sense. 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 up for the big day. It's like, here,
enjoy a steak. Yeah, I know, I'm just saying like
(14:08):
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 they'd let you drink as much as you
want and and then would take you super drunk and
(14:28):
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 here first? So that's kind of like
(14:51):
a modern incarnation of taking him and getting him drunk,
handing him a volume. 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 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
(15:16):
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 in
Texas they can take pot shots. Are over there shooters, Um,
sorry Texas. Uh. They the witnesses and pretty much across
(15:37):
the board I'm sure, are required to be totally silent
the whole time they leave and are brought into the
to the execution area. Yeah, not like the people outside
of prisons who are making lots of noise. Usually the
other protest or or kill them, kill them. That's as
ugly as this country gets. Man. When you see the
(15:59):
footage of people out side prisons, it controversial executions, it's
pretty bad. Uh. And then their final preparations, they're gonna
give you clean clothes, Uh, but you take the last
showers or shower get dressed. Uh, and then connect you
to the old e K g um, which is gonna
(16:19):
you know, let everyone know if you're gone, if we're
still with them. Yeah, they hooked 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 n
e KG and the warden and the chaplain are hanging
out with you. Um, at the predetermined time, they will
(16:41):
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 actually
the modern incarnation of a very long tradition. Like we
used to have public executions in this country. Yeah, like
(17:02):
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
there was? I didn't either, Okay, so I thought you're
asking just about it. Um. There was a guy named
(17:23):
Rainey Bethia in Kentucky who was hanged 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, the sheriff
was a woman, So this is going to be the
(17:45):
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 they were
(18:06):
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 the states executing somebody, just to make sure it's
(18:26):
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 all, not always generally yea. Um, the prison warden
(18:51):
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 will find.
You got your spiritual advisor. Like we talked about unt
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, you've got media there. Um.
(19:12):
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 contact 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. You have to explain why
(19:33):
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 him
like bleed or something like that, they they will let
you do this. Um. And apparently when there was a
surge in executions in the nineties, chuck Um. Departments of
(19:53):
corrections were so hard up because a lot of state
law says you have to have six reputable citizens or
twelve beautiful citizens. That their pool was running thin, So
departments of corrections were actually advertising looking for people to
witness executions. It's just that hold over from having the
(20:14):
public be a part of 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
(20:35):
clear glass with a curtain pulled, 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 the whole group of
people that are just being utterly silent watching you, or
(20:55):
if it's there's too many family members, they might have
a close circuit feed going on in another room. Yeah,
if it's like, you know, 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, that'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
(21:17):
they're execution chambers. Small. Yeah, you can make fun of them,
the 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.
(21:40):
Imagine like just taking a shower too fast, and so
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 towards and that, because they
(22:00):
can't be like, wow, we'll just get this started early. No,
everything is on a very delineated schedule and they're just
gonna 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
(22:22):
in like restrained beforehand and rolled in on a journey.
Sometimes you're allowed to walk there yourself, and then you're
restrained once you're in there. And at that point they
are going to go ahead and pre rig you with
the ivy tubes um to lead you in there. And
then those once you get in there and you're strapped in,
(22:43):
they will be fed into what's called an anti room
where the actual uh death cocktails await and 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
(23:04):
serve as a backup. At this point, you have your
final statement if you so choose. M don't read that
out loud on the news that night. Yeah, do you
careful what you say? You can go on to Um,
are we giving advice to throw a night. It just
s occurred to me that we are. Um. You can
go on to UH Departments of corrections websites and most
(23:25):
of them have last statements on there. Some of them
are what you'd expect summer eerie, I'm sure. Uh. And
generally the head is unrestrained so they can look 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 strapped
into a gurney, strapped down, but their heads under restraint.
(23:48):
They've got tubes leading into their h the ivy needles. Um,
and it's ready to go. Yeah. I think now it's
a good time for message break and then we'll get
into the actual process after. Okay, so, like you said,
(24:10):
it's go, time for solemn moment. Yeah. Um. For a
long time states we're using something called a world basically
an electronic 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
(24:33):
mechanical failure. So they said, no humans 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 ivtubes are leading to from the execution chamber
(24:53):
into the anti room. Um. And if you have a
few different ones, a few different execution 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 is leading to a mannequin and that
(25:14):
isn't actually a mannequin. Uh that that you know, that
old trick. Like they used to do the same thing
with flipping the switch too. I think they have like
several switches firing squads. Yeah, because they don't want the
the one any one person to have that weight. They
can always think, I guess I had a chance that
it was me, you know, all right, So I guess
(25:37):
we should move on to the drugs 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
(25:59):
bun to different circumstances that converged were 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
barbett All, which is an anesthetic. Yeah, and it's basically
a substitute when they're in short supply of other ones.
(26:22):
But I did see that it's actually 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.
They started fighting 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
(26:43):
banned for use by 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. So first you had the drug
maker UM that was making pentethal right, and then people
(27:07):
were like well, how about this. We have propo fall
that's the anesthetic, right, 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 proper Fall said, uh, well,
if you you can't use that to execute people, that's
not what we made this for. And they said, well,
(27:29):
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 proper false shortage. So now they're turning
(27:50):
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 and on some sort
of general anesthetic. Uh. And the anesthetic ideally UM, if
they were using pentethal or penel barbital, pintel barbetalia, UM,
(28:14):
if you were in a hospital and you were put
under general anesthesia. They would use about a hundred milligrams
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 wouldnt 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
(28:37):
lethal injection of penal barbital, they give you five grams,
five thousand milligrams, not a hundred milligrams, five thousand milligrams
of this stuff, 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
(28:57):
enough to kill you, which is why a lot of
states 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
(29:20):
heaviest duty muscle relaxant you could ever imagine, because it
relaxes your muscle so much that your diaphragms 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 way
to die number two, and that takes about one to
three minutes for that one to take effect fully. So
(29:41):
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 it can.
(30:01):
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 inhumane method of execution.
(30:26):
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 in the nineties through lethal injection. Yeah,
and you know what, I might as well go ahead
and get into this. We just put our dog down
(30:47):
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? So it was the
toxic agent potassium chloride, I'm not sure. I mean they
(31:10):
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 toxic agent, which is the third
one um, that's not even allowed for use on pets,
(31:32):
but they were using it on inmates because it induces
cardiac aresque because it could conceivably cause pain. 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
supportive and told a lot of their own stories of
their pets passing. So I think maybe at some point
(31:53):
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 a
memorialized or pets stuff you should Know. Anyway, Um, I
did find it interesting though, a that I picked this topic. Yeah.
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
(32:15):
I was trying to work through it or something. I
don't know, but I did find interesting the triple drug
cocktails similarities. I don't think it was the exact same stuff,
but it's the same process basically. Alright, So, um, death
from beginning to end five to eighteen minutes after the
execution order is given kind of just depends. Okay, So
(32:37):
that's ideally. Remember the execution order is when like it's
you've moved into the the execution chamber and the warden
says it's not ringing, the governor is not calling. So um,
(32:58):
that's when they start working on you, like putting in
the IVY tubes and all that stuff. Now, remember, the
whole point of um execution the United States criminal justice
system is not to inflict pain or cause suffering. It's
simply to take that person's life in the most humane
efficient means possible. Right, So what happens if you can't
(33:21):
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, like helping
these people like stick them to put these lethal drugs
in them. Sure, um so. And that particularly is the
(33:43):
case with IVY drug users who have lots of 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 you notice, it has
a lot of trappings of a medical procedure, but it
(34:03):
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,
we're gonna take the license of anybody who's involved in
an execution, and all the states said, no, you can't
(34:24):
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 minutes
and prolong the point from okay, start executing to death
(34:46):
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 botched, um
botched uh executions And that's that's the number one that
(35:07):
they can't find a vein where they feeding these people,
you know, because they're not using heroin in prison, really know.
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
a prison guard or somebody that works for the prison though,
(35:29):
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,
which is another reason why, um, some states require that
(35:52):
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 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 even
considered humane, which a lot of people say, like it's not,
(36:13):
there's 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
are using that. So they're saying, wait, we're using untested drugs.
(36:36):
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
you're introducing the pento barbital where they're like, all right, yeah, um, No,
(36:59):
it's called inert gas asphyxiation. Okay, So when you suffer
kate um, Apparently the pain and discomfort is caused by
not being able to expel CEO two. UM. With inert
gasp asphyxiation, you are inhaling gas. It's not oxygen, say
(37:21):
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 of capital punishment around inert gas asphyxiation. They
(37:46):
like practicing that. No, but I suspect that if if
this kind of reformed 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
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,
(38:10):
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,
you want to remove human error. So, um, finding a vein,
introducing the drug at a proper rate, like, all of
(38:32):
these things are subject to human error. Right, Shooting a
bullet at somebody from fifty feet or whatever. Let's got
all kinds of human error involved in it. I would say,
go read a and I'm not an activist. I'm not
being an activist here. Um, go read this article called
um on the possible pain from various methods of execution.
(38:53):
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 can from the different
types of execution that people are put through 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,
(39:18):
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 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 the chest, so you're shot
through the heart. Is that like all countries across the border.
I don't know. I'm just saying I would say, go
(39:41):
read that study. My money's on inert gas. Inert gas
definitely not on firing squads. The guillotine well, that came
out 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 seconds, four seconds.
(40:03):
I feel like I don't even know you right now,
I got one last one, all right. Um, So there
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
(40:25):
with victims. There's a big race disparity too, uh in
death penalty cases in the United States. I think either
last year, in the last few years, seventy percent of
the victims have been white, percent have been black, six
percent have been Hispanic for the victims, so it's um
just proportionately doled out against people who have killed white
(40:48):
people than it is to people who have killed black
or Hispanic people, and other was like two percent or
something like that. Interesting, 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,
(41:09):
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. I'm gonna call this
what a long strange trip it's been, because that's what
Whitney called it. Hey, guys, I'm Whitney and I'm a
twentysomething band teacher from probo Utah. My husband, also a
band teacher, introduced me to your show in two thousand
(41:31):
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 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.
(41:52):
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 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
(42:13):
six and seventh grade kids. My job is very exciting.
I love it, but I can get frustrated and even
develop road range at times. Stupid kids, Your podcast was
my sanity through all this. Dudes, 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
(42:34):
I appreciate all of 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. 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
(42:57):
we've heard people for some reason play. It's forget teaching
your kids sign 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 life out
or how we've influenced the development of your child, it's
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Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
(43:18):
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us an email to Stuff Podcasts at Discovery dot com,
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(43:47):
new Toyota Corolla
Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome
to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and Minis Charles.
If you Chuck Bright and this is Stuffy should Know
(00:20):
the podcast. Greetings, This is not a Capital Punishment show,
although we will deal with that obviously, but we at
some point we'll probably do a full episode on Capital Punished.
I would guess, don't you imagine, because we have an
article on it, and uh, we're gonna touch on it
here with leagal injections. Yeah, and just coming across some
(00:42):
stuff on the electric electric Chair that to me seems
like it deserves its own episode as well. It's because
it's so nuts. It sounds like we're cooking up a
sweet Yeah, the Capital Christian. See we come up with
the best sweets, don't we. Well, it's a big deal.
You know, it's important I agree to cover, you know, know,
um Chuck. About fourteen hours ago, a guy named Joseph
(01:05):
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 Natzi propagandist. What
a nice guy ust to change his name to that, right,
So Missouri just executed him at twelve oh one Wednesday,
November it was today the nine, one of those two.
(01:29):
And actually Hustler publisher Larry Flint was making a big
hubub trying to keep the 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,
(01:50):
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 the guy didn't like, and he
was targeting in a racial couples. He shot a couple
of black kids in Ohio, I believe um. And he
(02:10):
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. So he's racist,
he's an anti semite. He also had serious mental health
issues as well. Um. Andy shot Larry Flint. Um. But
he was executed. And the whole reason that Larry Flint
(02:33):
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 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. He put some marbles in
your own you're gonna try. Um. So he he just
(02:54):
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 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
(03:16):
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 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
(03:37):
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 going, then probably gonna do
it by way of lethal injection these days. Yeah, and
but it's also the newest one too, And it came
out of this um this well, basically it amounted to
(04:00):
an abolitionist movement in the nineteen sixties and seventies that
saw it to just get rid of the death penalty.
And that was the third major movement in 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
(04:22):
Firman the Georgia. Uh. And they are remember reading about
this later. Obviously I didn't read nineteen seventy two. I've
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 in greg versus Georgia, and UM said,
(04:45):
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. 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. If the news isn't right, the
head can pop right off, or if the neck isn't broken,
(05:07):
the person just hangs there and suffocates for a minute
or two and then dies. Um. And then electrocution is
really really awful too. I 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 awful stuff. So there was this idea that the
(05:27):
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 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,
(05:49):
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. The first
time was in the nineteenth century, I think. I yeah, yeah,
there was a guy named Julius mount Briar, and he
was a doctor out in New York who said, you know,
this would work because it would be efficient, humane, and
(06:11):
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,
in 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
(06:35):
death penalty is thirty two as of today. Yeah, but
it's tough because states are have been repealing it. 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
(06:55):
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
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
(07:16):
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
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
(07:39):
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,
they have all gone to lethal injection. And right now
I have in two thousand twelve, fifty eight countries used
lethal injection and down from sixty seven UH and sixty
(08:05):
three in and a hundred and forty countries of outlawed
the 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.
(08:25):
But lethal injection is the go to method of execution,
and so we're going to figure out how it works.
That's right. Right now. There are three thousand, one hundred
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
(08:46):
enough to not to kill other people generally speaking. Is
that what it is? Yeah, women are much smart. Um.
A lot of these folks have been on death row
for decades waiting to die. Maybe they're working through the
appeal process because that all has to happen first. Um,
some will die on death row without ever going into
(09:07):
an execution chamber. Yeah, it happens. Some people uh commit
or try to commit suicide before they can be executed
after their appeals run out. Sure, there's a guy in
Georgia who almost successfully killed himself. He cut his carotid
artery um with what I wonder, razor that guarded given
him I guess to shave with. Ostensibly the razor and
(09:29):
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 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,
(09:54):
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 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
(10:14):
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. 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
(10:35):
with a view, as it were, um, and you're you
start the preparation of of dying and saying goodbye and
of coming to terms with the fact that it's happening. Yeah,
you know, the state of Texas has these death watch
rooms that um on highway exits. Most highway exits, you
get your gas station, your subway, and your yeah, in
(10:56):
your death watch room. I'm kidding, but Texas execuse a
lot of be it does Texas bears. They execute a lot.
But they're not the only ones that have all sorts
of weirdness going on. Apparently 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
(11:16):
the time when they're like the last time this method
was used or the first time this method was used
Texas well, Texas was the first one to use lethal injection,
Like you said, um, and yeah, they kill a lot
of people there. 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
(11:38):
hand down a life sentence, but it takes ten of
twelve to hand down a death sentence. Yeah, and a
judge can over rule um, a jury a life sentence
jury yeah, and say no, 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 a
(12:00):
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 friends and family. We're
in like the last twenty four hours. If now, um,
your attorneys, spiritual advisors, you're gonna get your last meal.
(12:21):
That is not a fallacy. Whatever you want, they'll prepare
for you. No, 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 is a legislation that was passed after this one.
This one inmate ordered a meat Lover's pizza, like twenty
(12:43):
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
with the food. But it caused enough outrage in the
state legislature that they passed the thing where it's like
you can have whatever the prison cafeteria is cooking that night,
(13:04):
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 it says. Like there's a
guy in Arkansas who was executed in the nineties. His
(13:25):
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 you're about to lose
your life. Well, it's not about deriving energy. It's about
(13:46):
enjoying one last thing. But if you look at if
you look at the capital punishment system, that's it makes
no sense. 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 up for the big day. It's like, here,
enjoy a steak. Yeah, I know, I'm just saying like
(14:08):
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 they'd let you drink as much as you
want and and then would take you super drunk and
(14:28):
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 here first? So that's kind of like
(14:51):
a modern incarnation of taking him and getting him drunk,
handing him a volume. 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 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
(15:16):
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 in
Texas they can take pot shots. Are over there shooters, Um,
sorry Texas. Uh. They the witnesses and pretty much across
(15:37):
the board I'm sure, are required to be totally silent
the whole time they leave and are brought into the
to the execution area. Yeah, not like the people outside
of prisons who are making lots of noise. Usually the
other protest or or kill them, kill them. That's as
ugly as this country gets. Man. When you see the
(15:59):
footage of people out side prisons, it controversial executions, it's
pretty bad. Uh. And then their final preparations, they're gonna
give you clean clothes, Uh, but you take the last
showers or shower get dressed. Uh, and then connect you
to the old e K g um, which is gonna
(16:19):
you know, let everyone know if you're gone, if we're
still with them. Yeah, they hooked 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 n
e KG and the warden and the chaplain are hanging
out with you. Um, at the predetermined time, they will
(16:41):
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 actually
the modern incarnation of a very long tradition. Like we
used to have public executions in this country. Yeah, like
(17:02):
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
there was? I didn't either, Okay, so I thought you're
asking just about it. Um. There was a guy named
(17:23):
Rainey Bethia in Kentucky who was hanged 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, the sheriff
was a woman, So this is going to be the
(17:45):
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 they were
(18:06):
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 the states executing somebody, just to make sure it's
(18:26):
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 all, not always generally yea. Um, the prison warden
(18:51):
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 will find.
You got your spiritual advisor. Like we talked about unt
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, you've got media there. Um.
(19:12):
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 contact 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. You have to explain why
(19:33):
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 him
like bleed or something like that, they they will let
you do this. Um. And apparently when there was a
surge in executions in the nineties, chuck Um. Departments of
(19:53):
corrections were so hard up because a lot of state
law says you have to have six reputable citizens or
twelve beautiful citizens. That their pool was running thin, So
departments of corrections were actually advertising looking for people to
witness executions. It's just that hold over from having the
(20:14):
public be a part of 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
(20:35):
clear glass with a curtain pulled, 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 the whole group of
people that are just being utterly silent watching you, or
(20:55):
if it's there's too many family members, they might have
a close circuit feed going on in another room. Yeah,
if it's like, you know, 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, that'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
(21:17):
they're execution chambers. Small. Yeah, you can make fun of them,
the 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.
(21:40):
Imagine like just taking a shower too fast, and so
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 towards and that, because they
(22:00):
can't be like, wow, we'll just get this started early. No,
everything is on a very delineated schedule and they're just
gonna 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
(22:22):
in like restrained beforehand and rolled in on a journey.
Sometimes you're allowed to walk there yourself, and then you're
restrained once you're in there. And at that point they
are going to go ahead and pre rig you with
the ivy tubes um to lead you in there. And
then those once you get in there and you're strapped in,
(22:43):
they will be fed into what's called an anti room
where the actual uh death cocktails await and 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
(23:04):
serve as a backup. At this point, you have your
final statement if you so choose. M don't read that
out loud on the news that night. Yeah, do you
careful what you say? You can go on to Um,
are we giving advice to throw a night. It just
s occurred to me that we are. Um. You can
go on to UH Departments of corrections websites and most
(23:25):
of them have last statements on there. Some of them
are what you'd expect summer eerie, I'm sure. Uh. And
generally the head is unrestrained so they can look 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 strapped
into a gurney, strapped down, but their heads under restraint.
(23:48):
They've got tubes leading into their h the ivy needles. Um,
and it's ready to go. Yeah. I think now it's
a good time for message break and then we'll get
into the actual process after. Okay, so, like you said,
(24:10):
it's go, time for solemn moment. Yeah. Um. For a
long time states we're using something called a world basically
an electronic 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
(24:33):
mechanical failure. So they said, no humans 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 ivtubes are leading to from the execution chamber
(24:53):
into the anti room. Um. And if you have a
few different ones, a few different execution 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 is leading to a mannequin and that
(25:14):
isn't actually a mannequin. Uh that that you know, that
old trick. Like they used to do the same thing
with flipping the switch too. I think they have like
several switches firing squads. Yeah, because they don't want the
the one any one person to have that weight. They
can always think, I guess I had a chance that
it was me, you know, all right, So I guess
(25:37):
we should move on to the drugs 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
(25:59):
bun to different circumstances that converged were 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
barbett All, which is an anesthetic. Yeah, and it's basically
a substitute when they're in short supply of other ones.
(26:22):
But I did see that it's actually 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.
They started fighting 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
(26:43):
banned for use by 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. So first you had the drug
maker UM that was making pentethal right, and then people
(27:07):
were like well, how about this. We have propo fall
that's the anesthetic, right, 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 proper Fall said, uh, well,
if you you can't use that to execute people, that's
not what we made this for. And they said, well,
(27:29):
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 proper false shortage. So now they're turning
(27:50):
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 and on some sort
of general anesthetic. Uh. And the anesthetic ideally UM, if
they were using pentethal or penel barbital, pintel barbetalia, UM,
(28:14):
if you were in a hospital and you were put
under general anesthesia. They would use about a hundred milligrams
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 wouldnt 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
(28:37):
lethal injection of penal barbital, they give you five grams,
five thousand milligrams, not a hundred milligrams, five thousand milligrams
of this stuff, 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
(28:57):
enough to kill you, which is why a lot of
states 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
(29:20):
heaviest duty muscle relaxant you could ever imagine, because it
relaxes your muscle so much that your diaphragms 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 way
to die number two, and that takes about one to
three minutes for that one to take effect fully. So
(29:41):
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 it can.
(30:01):
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 inhumane method of execution.
(30:26):
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 in the nineties through lethal injection. Yeah,
and you know what, I might as well go ahead
and get into this. We just put our dog down
(30:47):
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? So it was the
toxic agent potassium chloride, I'm not sure. I mean they
(31:10):
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 toxic agent, which is the third
one um, that's not even allowed for use on pets,
(31:32):
but they were using it on inmates because it induces
cardiac aresque because it could conceivably cause pain. 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
supportive and told a lot of their own stories of
their pets passing. So I think maybe at some point
(31:53):
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 a
memorialized or pets stuff you should Know. Anyway, Um, I
did find it interesting though, a that I picked this topic. Yeah.
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
(32:15):
I was trying to work through it or something. I
don't know, but I did find interesting the triple drug
cocktails similarities. I don't think it was the exact same stuff,
but it's the same process basically. Alright, So, um, death
from beginning to end five to eighteen minutes after the
execution order is given kind of just depends. Okay, So
(32:37):
that's ideally. Remember the execution order is when like it's
you've moved into the the execution chamber and the warden
says it's not ringing, the governor is not calling. So um,
(32:58):
that's when they start working on you, like putting in
the IVY tubes and all that stuff. Now, remember, the
whole point of um execution the United States criminal justice
system is not to inflict pain or cause suffering. It's
simply to take that person's life in the most humane
efficient means possible. Right, So what happens if you can't
(33:21):
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, like helping
these people like stick them to put these lethal drugs
in them. Sure, um so. And that particularly is the
(33:43):
case with IVY drug users who have lots of 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 you notice, it has
a lot of trappings of a medical procedure, but it
(34:03):
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,
we're gonna take the license of anybody who's involved in
an execution, and all the states said, no, you can't
(34:24):
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 minutes
and prolong the point from okay, start executing to death
(34:46):
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 botched, um
botched uh executions And that's that's the number one that
(35:07):
they can't find a vein where they feeding these people,
you know, because they're not using heroin in prison, really know.
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
a prison guard or somebody that works for the prison though,
(35:29):
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,
which is another reason why, um, some states require that
(35:52):
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 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 even
considered humane, which a lot of people say, like it's not,
(36:13):
there's 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
are using that. So they're saying, wait, we're using untested drugs.
(36:36):
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
you're introducing the pento barbital where they're like, all right, yeah, um, No,
(36:59):
it's called inert gas asphyxiation. Okay, So when you suffer
kate um, Apparently the pain and discomfort is caused by
not being able to expel CEO two. UM. With inert
gasp asphyxiation, you are inhaling gas. It's not oxygen, say
(37:21):
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 of capital punishment around inert gas asphyxiation. They
(37:46):
like practicing that. No, but I suspect that if if
this kind of reformed 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
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,
(38:10):
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,
you want to remove human error. So, um, finding a vein,
introducing the drug at a proper rate, like, all of
(38:32):
these things are subject to human error. Right, Shooting a
bullet at somebody from fifty feet or whatever. Let's got
all kinds of human error involved in it. I would say,
go read a and I'm not an activist. I'm not
being an activist here. Um, go read this article called
um on the possible pain from various methods of execution.
(38:53):
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 can from the different
types of execution that people are put through 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,
(39:18):
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 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 the chest, so you're shot
through the heart. Is that like all countries across the border.
I don't know. I'm just saying I would say, go
(39:41):
read that study. My money's on inert gas. Inert gas
definitely not on firing squads. The guillotine well, that came
out 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 seconds, four seconds.
(40:03):
I feel like I don't even know you right now,
I got one last one, all right. Um, So there
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
(40:25):
with victims. There's a big race disparity too, uh in
death penalty cases in the United States. I think either
last year, in the last few years, seventy percent of
the victims have been white, percent have been black, six
percent have been Hispanic for the victims, so it's um
just proportionately doled out against people who have killed white
(40:48):
people than it is to people who have killed black
or Hispanic people, and other was like two percent or
something like that. Interesting, 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,
(41:09):
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. I'm gonna call this
what a long strange trip it's been, because that's what
Whitney called it. Hey, guys, I'm Whitney and I'm a
twentysomething band teacher from probo Utah. My husband, also a
band teacher, introduced me to your show in two thousand
(41:31):
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 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.
(41:52):
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 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
(42:13):
six and seventh grade kids. My job is very exciting.
I love it, but I can get frustrated and even
develop road range at times. Stupid kids, Your podcast was
my sanity through all this. Dudes, 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
(42:34):
I appreciate all of 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. 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
(42:57):
we've heard people for some reason play. It's forget teaching
your kids sign 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 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
(43:18):
dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
us an email to Stuff Podcasts at Discovery dot com,
and as always, check us out at our awesome website
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(43:47):
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