Posted on 04/14/2005 12:58:28 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
As many as four of every 10 prisoners put to death in the United States might receive inadequate anesthesia, causing them to remain conscious and experience blistering pain during a lethal injection.
Researchers in Florida and Virginia drew this conclusion after reviewing levels of anesthetic in the blood of 49 inmates after they were executed.
"I approached this as a physician," said the study's lead author, Dr. Leonidas Koniaris, chairman of surgical oncology at the University of Miami. "We were asking: Is there a possibility of awareness during an execution? Is there a large degree of pain and suffering associated with it? And I think the answer we found is yes."
Of the inmates studied in a report published by the British journal The Lancet, 43 percent had concentrations of anesthetic in their blood — as measured by medical examiners during autopsies — that would indicate consciousness rather than sedation during an execution.
Koniaris, who says he does not oppose the death penalty, thinks the study warrants a moratorium on executions until a publicly appointed panel can review whether some inmates remain conscious during lethal injection.
"If that's the case, as a society we need to step back and ask whether we want to torture these people or not," he said.
Death penalty supporters dismissed the suggestion of a moratorium.
"Lethal injection represents the most humane possible means of punishing a brutal, heinous murderer," said Andy Kahan, Mayor Bill White's advocate for crime victims "Whether or not it is painful, one thing is for sure, it is certainly less painful than the excruciating and horrific death that the victim suffered at the hand of the defendant."
And Mike Viesca, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said his medical staff has assured him the combination of drugs used in a lethal injection renders a person incapable of feeling pain.
The anesthetic, sodium thiopental, is the first of three drugs given in the execution protocol used by Texas and most other death penalty states. The amount typically administered through an IV, 2 to 3 grams, is far more than the amount used to sedate surgical patients and, doctors say, should prove fatal by itself.
Yet, some death penalty critics say poorly trained executioners — most have no formal anesthesia training — could miss a vein or otherwise err in administering a dose. The anesthetic also could wear off during a prolonged execution, which typically last at least 8 minutes.
If the anesthetic somehow fails and an inmate regains consciousness, the second step of a lethal injection, administration of a muscle relaxant, paralyzes the muscles and lungs. The third drug given is potassium chloride, a toxic agent that stops the heart.
The implications of an ineffective anesthetic are, in the words of a Lancet editorial accompanying the article, troubling: "It would be a cruel way to die: awake, paralyzed, unable to move, to breathe, while potassium burned through your veins."
Argument for a stay The potential inhumanity of lethal injection is sometimes raised by lawyers trying to win a last-minute reprieve for their death-row clients.
In December 2003, Texas killer Kevin Lee Zimmerman had his execution stayed after his lawyers argued that the lethal-injection procedure masked severe pain and thus constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
The U.S. Supreme Court soon lifted its stay, and Zimmerman was executed six weeks later. Still, death penalty lawyers say courts may reconsider the issue if more evidence, such as that in the new study, is presented to suggest that executions are extremely painful.
The study reviews the blood records of inmates from Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Texas, the national leader in executions, refused to provide data for the study.
A critical question, the study authors admit, is whether measurements of the levels of sodium thiopental in the blood minutes or hours after death correlate with levels in the blood at the time of execution. However, they note that sodium thiopental levels remain stable in stored human blood.
A local anesthesiologist, Dr. Lydia Conlay, 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.
"It's an interesting and thought-provoking study," said Conlay who chairs the department of anesthesiology at Baylor College of Medicine. "I just don't think we can draw any conclusions from it, one way or the other. I just can't be sure what the numbers mean."
Some opponents of the death penalty say the public accepts lethal injection as a painless medical procedure because, with the IVs, it appears to be one.
"The bottom line is that the there's a real problem with the perception of how lethal injection goes down in the public, and what we believe really goes on," said Gary Clements, deputy director of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana, a group that represents death row inmates.
Lack of data and records The study's authors said this question of whether an inmate can feel pain ultimately can't be answered because of the unwillingness of states to maintain or share their execution data and records.
In addition to asserting that the TDCJ had no autopsy or toxicology reports for inmates executed by lethal injection, Texas officials told the researchers it did not even have records of how it created the protocol it uses for injections.
Another of the study's authors, University of Miami anesthesiologist Dr. David Lubarsky, said the research team would have greatly preferred to use blood data from inmates at the time of executions. But the data doesn't exist, or it wasn't provided, Lubarsky said.
"What we do have is data to suggest the process might be critically flawed," Lubarsky said. "It's now up to the corrections systems to show that, at the time of death, inmates are asleep. We should accept no less when we're killing people."
eric.berger@chron.com
Okay, let's get rid of lethal injection. Killers should be executed in the fashion that they killed their victims. Works for me!
"If it's going to be done - why not just triple, or quadruple the dose of the sedative then and kill them by overdose? Isn't that what they do for pets (or something like it)?"
As the rednecks say," that would be too damn simple".
Just strap the condemned in a chair and drop a big rock on his head from twenty feet up.
Or a bullet to back of head when not expecting it- even more humane...
Yes, by mimicry of a medical procedure, i.e., one meant to help, it perverts the skills of the executioners.
During debates on doctors and capital punishment, I've always said that I would pull the switch, or pull the trigger, but I would NEVER use my special skills to cannulate a vein and administer a lethal injection.
Execution should be done by a method that any of us could do, because the executioner is acting symbolically on behalf of all of us.
AMEN! ...and if I'm not mistaken the changes in what was and was not allowed for execution means was driven by the same issue in question on this post, what is and isn't cruel and unusual. Now you talk about cruel and unusual. I always thought the gas chamber was a good one. Do I breath or don't I , how long can I hold my breath? Meanwhile that cyanide is pouring out of the pot.
Then again the threat of "The Chair" maybe caused some people to contemplate before they did violence on their fellow man. Who knows, who cares, Each state must have the right to execute theirs as they see fit in any way they like including the so recently recognized and approved by the State of FL, "way to Euphoria".
Bump!
OK, clearly the reporter didn't do their research here. First off, I grew up in the '60's man, so I'm a drug expert. Ever heard of "skin popping"? It reduces the efficacy and immediacy of the drug effect, but it DOES still work. Secondly, a lethal or even near lethal dose of any kind of barbiturate (sodium pentothial) won't wear off in just eight minutes. No medicine that I am aware of wears off in just eight minutes.
Can you say agenda, boys and girls? Or shall we just pronounce it "ignorance"? Take your pick.
Why don't they just increase the dosage of anesthetic? They certainly can't be concerned about giving them a lethal dose.
That's my understanding of it...massive overdose of anasthetic. I've also never seen anything but them simply slumping over dead after a few seconds at most, and I've been with several pets when they were put to sleep. That's entirely too kind for rapists, murderers, etc. I'm thinking strap em down, give em the potassium, and let em spend their last few minutes howling.
It probably is just a ploy to eradicate any executions.
That assessment is right on.
...We were asking: Is there a possibility of awareness during an execution? Is there a large degree of pain and suffering associated with it? And I think the answer we found is yes."....You might wonder the same for their victims.......
Only 4 in 10? C'mon fellas, we can do better than that!
"Why not just triple or quadruple,the dose of the sedative?"That idea occured to me as well,but i'm not a highly trained MD.What do i know?:)
That's an excellent point. People are no longer executed for petty theft but only for the most horrible crimes: mass murder, murder-rape, murder-robbery, etc. The victims suffered terribly, in fear and probably agony, every second feeling like minute, a minute feeling like an hour. Blubbering over brutal killers is typical of the twisted "compassion" for the bad and indifference to the innocent that is so pervasive in this country in so many different ways.
A good stout piece of rope is good enough for a killer.
Hang 'em...hang 'em high.......
Ya here that, Mumia?
not enough
Good.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.