Christa Pike, the Tennessee woman convicted of murdering Colleen Slemmer in 1995, was a dead woman walking Wednesday.
asserted
Pike → convict → 1995
Whether or when she will walk again remains to be seen.
asserted
walk → walk → ?
But, as of Thursday evening, she was alive, having survived the state's attempt to execute her via lethal injection.
asserted
she → survive → injection
Put differently, it did not go as planned.
asserted
it → Put → ?
Correctional staff administered a (supposedly) lethal dose of pentobarbital, a barbiturate, around 7:30 p.m. "
asserted
staff → administer → p.m.
My arm feels like it's about to burst open," Pike said, according to a reporter who was there to witness the execution.
uncertain
who → feel → execution
Pike thrashed and did not die.
asserted
Pike → thrash → ?
So staff closed the death-chamber curtain and administered another dose, after which she began loudly snoring and struggling for air.
asserted
she → close → air
Pike was subsequently transferred to a hospital, where she was intubated and put on a ventilator as medical personnel worked "to save [her] life," her attorneys wrote in a court filing yesterday.
asserted
attorneys → transfer → filing
That the state would try to rescue Pike moments after attempting to kill her captures how logically sound the government's general approach to capital punishment is.
asserted
approach → try → punishment
Which is to say, it does not make much sense at all, as the state has sought to sanitize something that—wherever you fall in the debate—can't be.
asserted
you → say → debate
Lethal injection was first authorized by Oklahoma in 1977 and first used in Texas in 1982.
asserted
injection → authorize → 1982
Its introduction was part of a tortured history of trying, in part, to increase the humanity of killing people.
asserted
introduction → try → people
Reservations specifically with the electric chair are easy to understand.
asserted
Reservations → understand → chair
The contraption made its debut in the late 1800s after New York Gov. David Hill, who said hanging had "come down to us from the dark ages," commissioned a report "to investigate…the most humane and practical method of carrying into effect the sentence of death."
asserted
hanging → make → death
The conclusion it came to: death by electricity
asserted
it → come → electricity
It takes several minutes to shock the heart into submission.
asserted
It → take → submission
In reality, the electric chair has become synonymous with torture, both for the condemned and for those condemned to watch.
asserted
chair → become → those
Graduating to lethal injection removed much of the latter—it is, of course, less of an assault on the eyes.
asserted
it → graduate → eyes
It looks like a medical procedure, something that could be routine were it not for the setting and the last words.
uncertain
it → look → setting
But in once again seeking to make killings humane, the government settled on a method that can still be intensely painful for the individual, as Pike's experience suggests.
uncertain
experience → seek → individual
It can cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars for one dose.
asserted
It → cost → dose
And it holds the unenviable distinction of having the highest botched-execution rate.
asserted
it → hold → rate
The overall rate of botched executions—taking into account all methods—was 3.15 percent.
asserted
rate → botch → methods
Gas came next at 5.4 percent, then hanging at 3.12 percent, then electrocution at 1.92 percent.
asserted
Gas → come → percent
Only one method has a perfect (as perverse as that sounds) record: firing squad.
asserted
that → have → record
It is also, ironically, the least-used approach, having been relied upon a mere 34 times over that 120-year period.
asserted
It → use → period
The obvious reason lays bare the core of this dilemma.
asserted
reason → lay → dilemma
Firing squads, perhaps more than any method, put the necessary brutality of the death penalty on full display.
asserted
squads → fire → display
You line someone up against a wall and shoot them in the heart.
asserted
You → line → heart
Unlike the electric chair, the process is rapid, potentially minimizing the condemned's suffering even as the spectacle may maximally disturb those who witness.
uncertain
who → minimize → those
Lethal injection dresses up the process in something different: clinical, gentle, civilized.
asserted
injection → dress → something
But the goal is the same: to kill someone.
asserted
goal → kill → someone
This debate, for more than a century, has focused on how to do that humanely.
asserted
debate → focus → that
It doesn't really exist.
asserted
It → exist → ?
Killing people is, by definition, at odds with the definition of that word—something that is true whether you're an abolitionist or a person who understandably views the ultimate penalty as a moral imperative for heinous acts against others.
asserted
who → kill → others
Pike received the humane option.
asserted
Pike → receive → option
In her case, it may result in "skin necrosis, permanent scarring, functional impairment, compartment syndrome, [and] chronic neuropathic pain" before the state perhaps comes to fetch her and do it all over again.
uncertain
state → result → it
One wonders how that is less barbaric.
asserted
that → wonder → ?
The Aporia
