We’ll Figure It Out

We're going to talk about the death penalty and euthanasia and the very different ways in which people on the left talk about these two topics.

And a lot of this was... motivated by the story about Krista Pike.

It was a woman from Tennessee who was sentenced to death, and her execution was botched.

This is the story from earlier this week from The Guardian.

When the prison warden asked Krista Pike if she had any last words, she said she was going to leave this world with love for those on her side and also the ones angry with her.

What followed was the second botched execution in Tennessee just this year, after two doses of the lethal injection failed to produce the desired effect.

Witnesses present in the chamber said Pike was still breathing despite the injections intended to kill her late on Wednesday, that nothing about the failed execution was normal, and that it was unprecedented.

For their part, officials said they followed every step of the approved protocol.

Pike was finally taken to the hospital after surviving the two attempts to execute her.

Current status of the woman convicted of murdering her classmate in 1995 is unknown.

John North, an investigative producer at WBIR television in Knoxville, and also a witness at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, said when he left the building, she was probably still alive.

All right.

Now, We see stories like this all the time about executions.

because the way that executions happen in the United States is through lethal injection.

There's no jurisdiction to my knowledge.

There might be some that on paper still have old rules on hand.

I think it was like Utah or something still allowed hanging technically or firing squad or something.

But lethal injection is the way that executions happen in the United States.

And so from what I can tell, There's sort of two different ways that lethal injections happen in the United States.

There's kind of the one drug method, the single drug protocol.

using pentobarbital or sodium thiopental.

My apologies if I'm mispronouncing some of this.

I'm just a lawyer trying to do scientific research.

Or a three-drug protocol.

Basically, you give someone a sedative, you give them a neuromuscular blocker, and then potassium electrolyte, potassium chloride, rather, administered to disrupt cardiac electrical activity.

We're going to talk about the death penalty and euthanasia and the very different ways in which people on the left talk about these two topics.

And a lot of this was... motivated by the story about Krista Pike.

It was a woman from Tennessee who was sentenced to death, and her execution was botched.

This is the story from earlier this week from The Guardian.

When the prison warden asked Krista Pike if she had any last words, she said she was going to leave this world with love for those on her side and also the ones angry with her.

What followed was the second botched execution in Tennessee just this year, after two doses of the lethal injection failed to produce the desired effect.

Witnesses present in the chamber said Pike was still breathing despite the injections intended to kill her late on Wednesday, that nothing about the failed execution was normal, and that it was unprecedented.

For their part, officials said they followed every step of the approved protocol.

Pike was finally taken to the hospital after surviving the two attempts to execute her.

Current status of the woman convicted of murdering her classmate in 1995 is unknown.

John North, an investigative producer at WBIR television in Knoxville, and also a witness at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, said when he left the building, she was probably still alive.

All right.

Now, We see stories like this all the time about executions.

because the way that executions happen in the United States is through lethal injection.

There's no jurisdiction to my knowledge.

There might be some that on paper still have old rules on hand.

I think it was like Utah or something still allowed hanging technically or firing squad or something.

But lethal injection is the way that executions happen in the United States.

And so from what I can tell, There's sort of two different ways that lethal injections happen in the United States.

There's kind of the one drug method, the single drug protocol.

using pentobarbital or sodium thiopental.

My apologies if I'm mispronouncing some of this.

I'm just a lawyer trying to do scientific research.

Or a three-drug protocol.

Basically, you give someone a sedative, you give them a neuromuscular blocker, and then potassium electrolyte, potassium chloride, rather, administered to disrupt cardiac electrical activity.