Posted on 08/10/2018 8:51:15 AM PDT by KingofZion
Tennessee executed Billy Ray Irick on Thursday night, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a final request to stay his execution. Convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of 7-year-old Paula Dyer, Irick is the state’s first inmate to be put to death since 2009. He was also the first to receive Tennessee’s controversial new three-drug cocktail.
Thursday’s lethal injection was made up of compounded midazolam, used to render a person unable to feel pain during an execution, a paralytic drug called vecuronium bromide, and compounded potassium chloride for the killing agent. Potassium chloride has been described by the Supreme Court as “chemically burning at the stake.”
In recent years, there have been numerous executions where witness accounts raised questions about whether the inmates were sufficiently anesthetized when the killing drugs were administered. These performances have raised questions about Midazolam’s effectiveness as a sedative in executions. Thursday’s application for a stay of execution followed a lower state court determination that the new combination of drugs may not be not chemically appropriate.
*** The request to delay was referred to the U.S. Supreme Court by Justice Elena Kagan. The only noted dissent was from Justice Sonia Sotomayor; the court’s order did not specify how the other justices would have voted. Irick’s is the first death-penalty case that’s come to the court since Justice Anthony M. Kennedy retired July 31, which left the court shorthanded.
“Although the Midazolam may temporarily render Irick unconscious, the onset of pain and suffocation will rouse him. And it may do so just as the paralysis sets in, too late for him to alert bystanders that his execution has gone horribly (if predictably) wrong,” wrote Sotomayor. The dissent echoes comments she made last year aimed at Midazolam in a case involving an Alabama inmate.
***MORE
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
May I suggest a 20mm AA gun? Kim says it works real good. ROR!
5.56mm
I have had it 5 times preop.
Two cataract removals, one knee scraping and a major repair job on my right foot. An X ray of that foot looks like an Ace Hardware ad. Those screws and plates sets off alarms in airports and going through gates at pro baseball. I have to take off my shoe and sock to show the scars to the TSA people or goons at the other gates to get through.
I had Versed one other time. My cataracts were replaced with accommodating lenses. After about 2 years, I developed floaters in both eyes. My doc/John scheduled me for a laser procedure to blast the floaters.
The anesthesiologist gave me a little Versed IV. Apparently, I was cheering whenever John blasted a floater. Finally, he told the anesthesiologist to increase my Versed IV.
The next thing I remembered, was being loaded into my wife’s car by one of the nurses. She was laughing and said that every one in the waiting room and rest of the surgery/recovery could hear me cheering John, until I got more Versed.
So, after they put you under initially, they could have taken you out and you would never have known right.
Absolutely. If you’ve never had it done to you, it’s not like going to sleep. Instead it’s like riding a time machine. They administer the drugs and the next thing you know, you’re in the recovery room. Like, “bang, zip.” No sensation of going to sleep and then waking up.
If we're lucky.
I tend to believe when people are executed, they should have a choice of how they die. Firing squad, hanging, lethal injection...just as long as it is quick and final.
We do a lot more painful things to patients all the time under midazolam sedation.... they have no complaints. Potassium infusion is not painful I know of several physicians over the years that suicided with iv potassium
Without the benefit of midazolam.... if the thought it painful they would have chosen a different way. This is a much more humane death than the condemned victims got... in ok with the way they are doing things
“Anesthesia was fine; all the pain came after the surgery.”
I can deal with the pain; I have a high threshold. What I can’t deal with is the puking.
Propofol is not a paralytic it is a sedative that can be used for general anesthesia at higher doses. One does not need to paralyze the lungs to intubate someone or put them on a ventilator - it can be done to a wide awake patient although not pleasant. Other than that your medical knowledge is impeccable
33 extra years. No wonder the death penalty is not a deterrent.
On the other hand, we could force feed condemned prisoners a castor bean or two.
Or go pick them a pretty mushroom... destroying angel mushrooms are abundant and free.
Same with a firing squad, quick, painless, horrible on your mind as the seconds tick away to trigger time.
OK Doc, you caught me ;)
After 15 years as an ICU then hospice nurse, you’d think I’d learn to check the PDR before specifying pharmaceutical classes when I’m spouting off :)
And.... hell will freeze over before anybody intubates ME unless I’m out cold. /LOL
Bingo. I was going to post the exact same thing. This isn’t rocket science. It’s cheaper by far and it stops all this nonsense.
Gee, I didn’t know Sotomayor was a medical doctor.
Let’s just bring in an abortionist to sever their spinal cord with a rusty pair of scissors and suck their limbs off with a high powered vacuum. Lefties say that is humane, right?
He might not be allowed to approach Hitler, but he can definitely give our regards to Bloato Boozo Kennedy.
Yes, there are ways to be efficient. When I’ve had to put my pets down, they give one shot to put them out and the second to stop the heart. It is painless, quick and kind.
We needn’t wish for the suffering of the criminal. I have nothing but contempt and anger for the bastards, but despite how heinous they are, we are not like the criminal. It is vengeful and beneath us.
AMEN!
The rotten SOB should have been EXECUTED 33 years ago.
Just effing kill them, who cares?
- an unwise nonLatina
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