Missouri threatens return of gas chambers for death row inmates

[alp227]

The state of Missouri is threatening to resurrect the use of the gas chamber for executions, as an alternative to its dwindling supply of lethal-injection drugs.

The state's attorney general, Chris Koster, has warned that unless Missouri is allowed by the state supreme court to press ahead quickly with pending executions under its current lethal-injection protocol, its drug supplies will expire. In that case, the state might have to turn to the only other option open to it – the gas chamber.

"Unless the (supreme) court changes its current course, the legislature will soon be compelled to fund statutorily-authorised alternative methods of execution to carry out lawful judgments," Koster said. Under Missouri law only two forms of execution are permitted: "… by means of the administration of lethal gas or by means of the administration of lethal injection".

Koster's extraordinary statement, raising the possible return of the gas chamber, is a sign of the increasing fall-out on the 32 death-penalty states of the boycott on sales of medical drugs for use in executions. Drugs companies in America, Europe and Asia have refused on ethical grounds to sell their products to corrections departments, and the European Commission has imposed tough restrictions on the export of anaesthetics to the US.

full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/05/missouri-gas-chamber-executions-lethal-drugs

See also Kansas City Star from July 3: Missouri's attorney general hints at gas chamber’s return

[MrSlayer]

1. Dead is dead.

What's the difference really?

[Ed Suspicious]

2. Fucking freaky as hell. What kind of psychopath has the stones to not only decide someone has to

die, but also coldly and disconnectedly carry it out. What a sickness. God complex much?

[Rex]

3. Why not? Billionaires and politicians need not worry

they are so far above the law that this will never apply to them directly.

[BainsBane]

4. Hey, it worked for the Nazis.

[olddots]

5. I tell ya Albainia is looking better

[NaturalHigh]

6. Seriously? This isn't The Onion?

[Mr. David]

7. Here's a fucking suggestion, Koster...

Drop the death penalty altogether.

It's barbaric, and it doesn't exactly meet the definition of "eye to eye"....

In most cases, the death row is cruel and unusual punishment in itself...

I support LWOP than death row unless it's extreme case.

[Downwinder]

8. Ritualized human sacrifice.

Might as well slit their throats and let them bleed out on an alter.