Posted on 04/14/2005 10:09:57 AM PDT by Sax
Health - HealthDay
U.S. Executions by Lethal Injection May Not Be Humane
1 hour, 3 minutes ago Health - HealthDay
THURSDAY, April 14 (HealthDay News) -- Prisoner executions by lethal injection in the United States may not be painless or humane, and may not even meet veterinary standards for putting down animals.
So claims a research letter in this week's issue of The Lancet.
The authors concluded that prisoners executed by lethal injection may have experienced awareness and unnecessary suffering as they died because they weren't properly sedated. Anesthesia during lethal injection is essential to minimize the prisoner's suffering.
Lethal injection involves sequential administration of sodium thiopental for anesthesia, pancuronium bromide to induce paralysis, and then potassium chloride to stop the heart and cause death. If anesthesia wasn't used, the condemned prisoner would suffocate and experience excruciating pain without being able to move.
Researchers at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine analyzed execution protocol information from Texas and Virginia, which account for about 45 percent of executions in the United States. They found that executioners had no training in anesthesia; the drugs were administered remotely with no monitoring of the anesthesia; and there was no data collection, no documentation of anesthesia, and no post-procedure peer review.
The authors also analyzed toxicology reports from 49 prisoners executed in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. In 43 of the 49 cases, the authors found blood concentrations of the anesthetic sodium thiopental were lower than that required for surgery. In 21 cases, the concentrations were low enough to be consistent with awareness on the part of the prisoner during execution.
"Our data suggest that anesthesia methods in lethal injection in the U.S. are flawed. Failures in protocol design, implementation, monitoring and review might have led to unnecessary suffering of at least some of those executed," lead researcher Leonidas Koniaris said in a prepared statement. His team believes current death row practices might not even meet standard veterinary guidelines for putting down animals.
"Because participation of doctors in protocol design or execution is ethically prohibited, adequate anesthesia cannot be certain. Therefore to prevent unnecessary cruelty and suffering, cessation and public review of lethal injection is warranted," Koniaris said.
More information
The Death Penalty Informaton Center has more on the various methods of prisoner execution in the United States.
Firing squad is too much a man's way to go for them.
YUP.. You are right, and the rope can be reused. Bullets are a one time shot.
Don`t tell me the ACLU is now going to start with this after they cheered about starving Terri Schiavo.
I don't get this. Do you have to be an electrician to pull the switch on an electric chair, or a carpenter to conduct a hanging? I object to the idea that this is a medical proceedure. I say give Bob the janitor a crash course on how to use a syringe and away we go..
Hang them in front of the prison populace, it'll help them keep recidivism in perspective.
This is the kind of research that really irks me. Can you imagine an objective study reaching the other alternative being published or even undertaken as a working assumption. It's like you'll NEVER see a study published that concludes that "fairies are inferior" or the "guns are good." Such findings are, simply, not permitted.
Oh, but killing Terri Schindler by dehydration and starvation is A-okay. Oh, I see.
I bet the ACLU types would have a huge fit if death row inmates were instead dehydrated and starved to death.
Plus ammo is expensive compared to rope that can be "recycled". If we want to make some of the greens happy we could even use hemp rope.
Oh, poor babies. I truely believe that the murderers should be put to death in exactly the same manner that they used to kill their victims. If they raped and strangled their victim then .......Stabbed then stab to death, throw a tied up person off of a bridge to drown then....
It works for me.
"If anesthesia wasn't used, the condemned prisoner would suffocate and experience excruciating pain without being able to move"
And the problem with this is???
Take a life, lose your life...
This is quite low on my "need to be concerned about" list...
I guess they'll just have go back to the painless method of starvation and dehydration, then.
Actually, they should be starved and dehydrated to death. It is a "wonderful" way to die according to Judge Herr Greer.
Great post (I really hadn't read your post when I made my comments.)
It would make a really hard ethical argument especially for those physicians that promote euthanasia if they were required to have a human administer lethal drugs.
ROTFLMAO
Frankly I miss Old Sparky. Nothing like a good jolt to end your day.
Not to mention beautiful, causing the starvee to glow.
It's hard to beat a good rope and a tall oak tree.
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