I think you’re right. If psychological torture is torture - and if things alont the lines of sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, and so on amount to such - then the psychological experience of being condemned to death, then while in prison fighting through appeal after appeal after appeal for years and being condemened again and again but still having that small sliver of hope, then finally (for those who aren’t ruled innocent or insane somewhere in that process) being marched to your end, must be torture too. Compared to that, a few moments of pain at the very end seems so small as to be beside the point.

Any improvement is an improvement, but there keep on being these news stories about “aha, we have finally found the way to do this painlessly!” that repeatedly don’t end up panning out for one reason or another. Even this relatively small improvement in the lot of death row convicts seems totally illusive.