I heard something that sounded very odd on the radio yesterday: news that Florida's governor had expressed his "gratitude" that lethal injection was once again legal, and his intention of getting a death warrant out there as quickly as possible.
I oppose the death penalty, for somewhat idiosyncratic reasons. Some of those reasons are well captured by the passage in The Plague where Tarrou talks about his father.
When I was seventeen my father asked me to come to hear him speak in court. There was a big case on at the assizes, and probably he thought I'd see him to his best advantage. Also I suspect he hoped I'd be duly impressed by the pomp and ceremony of the law and encouraged to take up his profession. I could tell he was keen on my going, and the prospect of seeing a side of my father's character so different from that we saw at home appealed to me. Those were absolutely the only reasons I had for going to the trial. What happened in a court had always seemed to me as natural, as much in the order of things, as a military parade on the Fourteenth of July or a school speech day. My emotions on the subject were purely abstract, and I'd never given it serious thought.The only picture I carried away with me of that day's proceedings was a picture of the criminal. I have little doubt he was guilty--of what crime is no great matter. That little man of about thirty, with sparse, sandy hair, seemed so eager to confess everything, so genuinely horrified at what he'd done and what was going to be done iwth him, that after a few minutes I had eyes for nothing and nobody else. He looked like a yello owl scared blind by too much light. His tie was slightly awry, he kept biting his nails, those of one hand only, his right . . . I needn't go on, need I? You've understood--he was a living human being.
As for me, it came on me suddenly, in a flash of understanding; until then I'd thought of him only under his commonplace official designation, as 'the defendant." And though I can't say I quite forgot my father, soemthing seemed to grip my vitals at that moment and riveted all my attention on the little man in the dock. I hardly heard what was being said; I only knew that they were set on killing that living man, and an uprush of some elemental instinct, like a wave, had swept me to his side. And I did not really wak up until my father rose to address the court.
In his red gown he was another man, no longer genial or good-natured; his mouth spewed out long, turgid phrases like an endless stream of snakes. I realised he was clamoring for the prisoner's death, telling the jury that they owed it to society to find him guilty; he went so far as to demand that the man should have his head cut off. Not exactly in those words, I admit. 'He must pay the supreme penalty,' was the formula. But the difference, really, was slight, and the result the same. He had the head he asked for. Only of course it wasn't he who did the actual job. I, who saw the whole business through to its conclusion, felt a far closer, far more terrifying intimacy with that wretched man than my father can ever have felt.
Whether you are for or against the death penalty, an execution is a dire act. It seems odd to express gratitude that you can get back to it as quickly as possible.
On a related note, I have a stupid but well meant question: why are there so many problems with lethal injection? When my vet put my dog to sleep, he used a single shot which he assured me worked quickly and painlessly. Was he lying to me? And if he wasn't, what does my vet know that the State of Florida does not?
The dissenters in the opinion answer your question:
Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Souter joins, dissenting.
It is undisputed that the second and third drugs used in Kentucky's three-drug lethal injection protocol, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, would cause a conscious inmate to suffer excruciating pain. Pancuronium bromide paralyzes the lung muscles and results in slow asphyxiation. App. 435, 437, 625. Potassium chloride causes burning and intense pain as it circulates throughout the body. Id., at 348, 427, 444, 600, 626. Use of pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride on a conscious inmate, the plurality recognizes, would be "constitutionally unacceptable." Ante, at 14.
The constitutionality of Kentucky's protocol therefore turns on whether inmates are adequately anesthetized by the first drug in the protocol, sodium thiopental. Kentucky's system is constitutional, the plurality states, because "petitioners have not shown that the risk of an inadequate dose of the first drug is substantial." Ante, at 15. I would not dispose of the case so swiftly given the character of the risk at stake. Kentucky's protocol lacks basic safeguards used by other States to confirm that an inmate is unconscious before injection of the second and third drugs. I would vacate and remand with instructions to consider whether Kentucky's omission of those safeguards poses an untoward, readily avoidable risk of inflicting severe and unnecessary pain.
Okay, that's question one. Now how about questions two and three?
Quite apart from any problems with the procedure, it seems to me that there are two practical reasons to oppose the death penalty. (Which, I must say, I personally have no actual objection to in principle.)
First, there is the possibility of error. Consider, for example, the number of people who are currently being exonerated, sometimes after decades in prison, due to DNA evidence or for other reasons. Nothing can return their years of life to them. But at least there is some chance that the error can be acknowledged and something returned to them. With the death penalty, there is no such possibility.
Second, the cost to the tax payers of bringing someone from conviction to actual execution, including all the manditory appeals, etc., is actually greater than the cost of housing them in prison for life -- even if they end up being in prison for 70+ years. Is retribution really worth the cost?
There are two types of evil human beings. One type is, of course, the perpetrators of heinous crimes. The others are those who revel in killing the criminals and seek to enhance or gain power by having them killed.
The powerless and the cowards plead with the second kind to make the killing painless, as if the certain prospect of being killed is a minor pain compared to the pain caused by chemicals, swords, or gunshots.
I find these discussions nauseating to the core of my being.
Megan's last question does bring to mind one of my pet ideas. If we are going to have executions, have them administered by veterinarians. They are experienced in painless execution, and they appear to have no ethical bar to executing their patients.
Answers: http://www.slate.com/id/2181493/
Also: http://www.slate.com/id/2176196/
Megan asks:
"why are there so many problems with lethal injection?"
You know, there really aren't.
Lethal Injection: Current Controversies Resolved
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info, below
updated 1/08
Several issues have come up with regard to lethal injection.
Generally, they are:
1) The murderer experiencing pain during execution;
2) The ethics of medical professionals participating in executions; and
3) Proper training of execution personnel.
1) PAIN AND LETHAL INJECTION
The evidence, including the immediate autopsy of executed serial murderer/rapist Michael Ross, supports that there is no pain within the lethal injection process.
There is a concern that some inmates may be conscious, but paralyzed, during execution, because one of the three drugs used may have worn off, prior to death.
First, there is rare evidence this may have occurred. There is a lot of speculation.
Secondly, if properly administered, it cannot occur with the properties and amounts of the chemicals used and within the time frame of an execution.
Thirdly, no one has explained how the first drug could have worn off, within the time frame of execution. Or, how is it that the first drug was, somehow, improperly administered, but the second and third were not, when using the same lines and procedures?
An Associated Press reporter correctly stated that "there is little to support those claims except a few anecdotes of inmates gasping and convulsing and an article in the British medical journal Lancet." (AP, "Death penalty foes attack lethal-injection drug", 7/5/05)
The British Medical Journal, The Lancet, published an article critical of lethal injection (Volume 365, 4/16/05). A follow up article, by essential the same group of researchers, published a similar report in PLoS Medicine on 4/24/07.
The articles did not/could not identify one case where evidence existed than an inmate was conscious during execution.
The Lancet article identified 21 cases of execution where the level of "post mortem" (after death) sodium thiopental was below that used in surgery and, therefore, may suggest consciousness was possible.
A more accurate description would be all but impossible.
A "long after execution" post mortem measurement of sodium thiopental is very different from a moment of death measurement.
Dr. Lydia Conlay, chair of the department of anesthesiology, Baylor College of Medicine (Texas Medical Center, Houston) said the extrapolation of postmortem sodium thiopental levels in the blood to those at the time of execution is by no means a proven method. "I just don't think we can draw any conclusions from (the Lancet study) , one way or the other."
Actually, we can. The science is well known. Sodium thiopental is absorbed rapidly into the body. Long after execution blood testing of those levels means absolutely nothing with regard to the levels at the time of execution. Nothing.
The Lancet article did not dispute the obvious -- for executions, the sodium thiopental is administered in dosages roughly 10-20 times the amount necessary for sedation unconsciousness during surgical procedures.
Unconsciousness occurs within the first 30 seconds of the injection/execution process. The injection of the three drugs takes from 4-5 minutes. Death usually occurs within 6-7 minutes and is pronounced within 8-10 minutes.
The researchers also failed to note the much lower probability (impossibility?) that the murderer could be conscious, while all three drugs are coursing through the veins, concurrently.
Despite the Lancet article's presumptions and omissions, there is no scientific evidence that consciousness with pain has occurred with the amounts and methods of injecting those three chemicals within the execution period.
The AP article also stated that "They (death penalty opponents) also attack lethal injection by saying that the steps to complete it haven't been reviewed by medical professionals."
That is both deceptive and irrelevant.
The unchallenged reality is that medical professionals have both reviewed and implemented injection procedures for decades. The same procedures are used in executions. Criminal justice professionals have been trained in this application.
Does anyone not know this?
The chemicals used in lethal injection, as well as their individual and collective results, at the dosages used, are also well known by medical and pharmacology professionals. And this?
Dr. A. Jay Chapman, the former Oklahoma Medical Examiner, who created the protocol, consulted a toxicologist and two anesthesiologists. He states the obvious " ' . . .it didn't actually require much research because the three chemicals - a painkiller, a muscle-paralyzing agent and a heart-stopper - are well-known to physicians.' 'It is anesthetizing someone for a surgical procedure, but simply carried to an extreme.' 'If it is competently administered, there will be no question about this business of pain and suffering.' "("Lethal Injection Father Defends Creation", Paul Ellias, Associated Press, 5/10/07)
Further, lethal injection is not a medical procedure, but the culmination of a judicial sentence carried out by criminal justice professionals, the result of which is intended as death, the outcome of every case.
The follow up research/article is "Lethal Injection for Execution: Chemical Asphyxiation?"(Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine, 4/24/07). Dr. Koniaris was an author in both this and the Lancet article.
The question mark from the title says it all.
From the Conclusion:
" . . . our findings suggest that current lethal injection protocols "MAY" not reliably effect death through the mechanisms intended, indicating a failure of design and implementation. "IF" thiopental and potassium chloride fail to cause anesthesia and cardiac arrest, potentially aware inmates "COULD" die through pancuronium-induced asphyxiation." (Underline, quote , caps and color change are mine, for emphasis)
In other words, the authors tell us they cannot prove this has ever happened. They are speculating.
Skip the speculation: Some Reality
From Hartford Courant, "Ross Autopsy Stirs Execution Debate----Results Cited To Counter Talk Of Pre-Death Pain", August 11, 2005
The below is a paraphrase of parts of that article, including some exact quotes.
Results of the autopsy done on serial killer Michael Ross are being cited by several prominent doctors to refute a highly publicized article that appeared in The Lancet, the British medical journal, in April, 2005.
Critics of the Lancet article say it does not account for postmortem redistribution of the anesthetic - thiopental. The redistribution, the critics say, accounts for the lower levels of thiopental on which Dr. Koniaris based his Lancet article conclusions that the levels of anesthetic were inadequate. The Ross autopsy results document this redistribution, bolstering the critics' assertions.
Dr. H. Wayne Carver II, Connecticut's chief medical examiner, was aware of the controversial Lancet article before performing the Ross autopsy. As a result, he took the additional step of drawing a sample of Ross's blood 20 minutes after he was pronounced dead at 2:25 a.m. May 13. Carver took a subsequent sample during the autopsy, which began about 7 hours later, at 9:40 a.m.
The 1st sample showed a concentration of 29.6 milligrams per liter of thiopental; the second sample showed a concentration of 9.4 milligrams per liter. The 1st sample was drawn from Ross' right femoral artery, and the second from his heart, which can account for some of the discrepancy. But Dr. Mark Heath, a New York anesthesiologist and one of the numerous doctors who have signed letters to The Lancet challenging the Koniaris article, said it clearly substantiates the postmortem redistribution of the thiopental.
Dr. Jonathan Groner, a pediatric surgeon from Ohio said he interviewed a number of forensic toxicologists before adopting the view that thiopental in a corpse leaves the blood and is absorbed by the fat, causing blood samples taken hours after death to be an unreliable marker of the levels of thiopental in the body at the time of death.
Groner described the Ross autopsy results as "a powerful refutation" of the Lancet-Koniaris study.
Dr. Ashraf Mozayani, a forensic toxicologist with the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office in Texas, said the level of thiopental "drops quite a bit" after death. Even in the living, Mozayani said, thiopental levels decline rapidly after administration of the drug. She cited one study in which a patient was administered 400 milligrams of thiopental intravenously. After two minutes the concentration in the blood was measured at 28 milligrams, but dropped to 3 milligrams concentration 19 minutes after the anesthetic was injected.
Mozayani said the declining concentration of thiopental cited in the Ross autopsy report "make sense."
On The Lancet article, she said, "I don't think they have the whole story - the postmortem redistribution and all the other things they have to consider for postmortem testing."
NOTE: I think they had and knew the whole story. They just didn't include it in their report(s).
The Veterinary sidetrack
Opponents of the death penalty, as well as other uninformed or deceptive sources, have been stating that even vets do not use the paralytic agent in the euthanasia of animals. This is a perversion of the veterinary position, which actually provides support, however unintended, for the human execution process.
Some fact checking is in order -- www(dot)avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/euthanasia.pdf
NOTE: That said, it would be much easier to have only a one drug - anesthesia - execution and I am not sure why it isn't being done, with the possible exceptions that I have read that may result in 1) much longer execution time; 2) a deep coma, not death, but without the obvious follow up that more anesthesia could be administered to induce death and 3) much more movement, twitching and jerking, by the inmate.
2. THE MEDICAL/ETHICAL DILEMMA
Medical groups cite that there is an ethical conflict for participation in the lethal injection process, because medical professionals have a requirement to "do no harm".
Those ethical codes pertain to the medical profession, only, and to patients, only. Judicial execution is not part of the medical profession and death row inmates are not patients.
Doctors and nurses can be police and soldiers and can kill, when deemed appropriate, within those lines of duty and without violating the ethical codes of their medical profession. Similarly, medical professionals do not violate their codes of ethics, when acting as technical experts, for executions, in a criminal justice procedure.
Physicians are often part of double or triple blind studies where there is hope that the tested drugs may, someday, prove beneficial. The physicians and other researchers know that many patients, taking placebos or less effective drugs, will suffer more additional harm or death because they are not taking the subject drug or that the subject drug will actually harm or kill more patients than the placebo of other drugs used in the study.
Physicians knowingly harm individual patients, in direct contradiction to their "do no harm" oath.
For the greater good, those physicians sacrifice innocent, willing and brave patients. Of course, there have been medical experiments without consent and, even, today, they continue ("Critical Care Without Consent", Washington Post, May 27, 2007; Page A01).
The greater good is irrelevant, from an ethical standpoint, if "Do no harm" means "do no harm". Physicians knowingly make exceptions to their "do no harm" requirement, every day, within their profession, where that code actually does apply. And, they should. There are obvious moral and ethical nuances and we should consider and pay attention to them, as is done within the medical profession.
The "do no harm" has no ethical effect in a non medical context, because this ethical requirement is for medical treatments, only, and for patients, only.
For those who distort the Hippocratic oath, I would suggest they read the original, classic versions, which only prohibits abortion and euthanasia., two practices commonly accepted by many physicians.
The acknowledged anti death penalty editors of The Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine agree. They write:
"Execution by lethal injection, even if it uses tools of intensive care such as intravenous tubing and beeping heart monitors, has the same relationship to medicine that an executioner's axe has to surgery." ("Lethal Injection Is Not Humane", PLoS, 4/24/07)
The PLoS Medicine editors have made the same point many of us have been making - similar acts and similar equipment do not establish any equivalence or connection.
There is no ethical connection between medicine and lethal injection. Therefore, there is no ethical prohibition for medical professionals to participate in executions.
To put it clearly: The execution of death row inmates is not equivalent or connected to the treatment of patients.
Is this a mystery?
Obviously, execution is not a medical treatment, but a criminal justice sanction. The basis for medical treatment is to improve the plight of the patient, for which the medical profession provides obvious and daily exceptions. The basis for execution is to carry out a criminal justice sentence where death is the sanction.
Justice, deterrence, retribution, just punishments, upholding the social contract, saving innocent life, etc., are all recognized as aspects of the death penalty, all dealing with the greater good.
Are murderers on death row willing participants? Of course. They willingly committed the crime and, therefore, willingly exposed themselves to the social contract of that jurisdiction.
Lethal injection is not a medical procedure. It is a criminal justice sanction authorized by law. Therefore, there is no ethical conflict with medical codes of conduct and medical personal participating in executions.
Any participation in executions by medical professionals should be a matter for their own personal conscience. In fact, 20-40% of doctors surveyed would participate in the execution process.
A side note:
40,000 to 100,000 innocents die, every year, in the US because of medical misadventure or improper medical treatment. (1)
Do no harm? The doctor doth protest too much, methinks.
There is no proof of an innocent executed in the US since 1900.
3. PROPER TRAINING
In every state, there are hundreds or thousands of people trained for IV application of drugs or the taking of blood. Even many hard core drug addicts are proficient in IV application.
There are very few errors in lethal injections which can be attributed to personnel error. The simple fact is that, if necessary, non medical personnel can be properly trained to mix and administer the chemicals used in lethal injection. But, it isn't necessary.
It appears that some 500-1000 innocent patients die, every year, in the US, due to some type of medical misadventure, with anesthesia. (1)
I am unaware of evidence that shows criminal justice professionals are more likely to commit critical errors in the lethal injection process than are medical professionals in IV application.
Furthermore, even with errors in lethal injection, those cases resulted in the death of the inmate - the intended outcome for the guilty murderer.
In the errors of medical professionals, we are speaking of a large number of deaths and injuries to innocent patients - the opposite of the intended outcome.
1) see "Deaths from Medical Misadventure"at
www(dot)wrongdiagnosis.com/m/medical_misadventure/deaths.htm
and
"Health Grades Quality Study: Patient Safety in American Hospitals, July 2004"
www.(dot)healthgrades.com/media/english/pdf/HG_Patient_Safety_Study_Final.pdf
originally written May, 2005. Updated as merited.
copyright 2005-2008
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O'Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
Pro death penalty sites
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wj has two concerns:
1) a concern for innocents executed.
2)the cost of the death penalty
You may have been a little decieved on both points:
Innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.
The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents
Dudley Sharp, Justice Matters, contact info below
Often, the death penalty dialogue gravitates to the subject of innocents at risk of execution. Seldom is a more common problem reviewed. That is, how innocents are more at risk without the death penalty.
Living murderers, in prison, after release or escape or after our failures to incarcerate them, are much more likely to harm and murder, again, than are executed murderers.
This is a truism.
No knowledgeable and honest party questions that the death penalty has the most extensive due process protections in US criminal law.
Therefore, actual innocents are more likely to be sentenced to life imprisonment and more likely to die in prison serving under that sentence, that it is that an actual innocent will be executed.
That is. logically, conclusive.
16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, find for death penalty deterrence.
A surprise? No.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
Some believe that all studies with contrary findings negate those 16 studies. They don't. Studies which don't find for deterrence don't say no one is deterred, but that they couldn't measure those deterred.
What prospect of a negative outcome doesn't deter some? There isn't one . . . although committed anti death penalty folk may say the death penalty is the only one.
However, the premier anti death penalty scholar accepts it as a given that the death penalty is a deterrent, but does not believe it to be a greater deterrent than a life sentence. Yet, the evidence is compelling and un refuted that death is feared more than life.
"This evidence greatly unsettles moral objections to the death penalty, because it suggests that a refusal to impose that penalty condemns numerous innocent people to death." (1)
" . . . a serious commitment to the sanctity of human life may well compel, rather than forbid, (capital) punishment." (1)
"Recent evidence suggests that capital punishment may have a significant deterrent effect, preventing as many as eighteen or more murders for each execution." (1)
Some death penalty opponents argue against death penalty deterrence, stating that it's a harsher penalty to be locked up without any possibility of getting out.
Reality paints a very different picture.
What percentage of capital murderers seek a plea bargain to a death sentence? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
What percentage of convicted capital murderers argue for execution in the penalty phase of their capital trial? Zero or close to it. They prefer long term imprisonment.
What percentage of death row inmates waive their appeals and speed up the execution process? Nearly zero. They prefer long term imprisonment.
This is not, even remotely, in dispute.
Life is preferred over death. Death is feared more than life.
Furthermore, history tells us that "lifers" have many ways to get out: Pardon, commutation, escape, clerical error, change in the law, etc.
In choosing to end the death penalty, or in choosing not implement it, some have chosen to spare murderers at the cost of sacrificing more innocent lives.
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