DEATH PENALTY: U.S. Judges Reject Use of Lethal Injection

By Haider Rizvi Reprint | | Print |

Haider Rizvi

NEW YORK, Mar 20 2006 (IPS) - Despite strong opposition from the ruling Republican Party to those demanding the abolition of the death penalty, many judges in the United States seem increasingly willing to stop scheduled executions – at least temporarily.

Since the beginning of this year, court rulings have let as many as eight death row prisoners to live on, following legal arguments that the use of lethal injection as a method of execution causes pain and suffering. The appeals on behalf of the death row prisoners assert that the injection method is in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

It is not clear whether states which want to continue executions will have to resort to using the electric chair again. In one California case, the prosecutor said at a hearing that changes would be made in which drugs the state would use to ensure that prisoners “would not experience wanton or unnecessary pain.”

Still, those closely studying various aspects of capital punishment believe that growing legal challenges to the injection method are likely to have a positive impact on the campaign to abolish the death penalty.

“Over the past few years, public support for the death penalty has declined,” said Richard Dietor, executive director, Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, DC-based group that keeps track of death penalty cases. “The injection issue is just a part of that larger debate. It will be resolved only after stopping the death penalty.”

In his view, the death penalty will continue for many years in the U.S., but he is confident that the trend among the law community reflects that change is in the offing, because wrongful convictions have raised serious questions.

Last month, despite court orders, two anesthesiologists in California refused to observe an execution on the grounds that their professional ethics do not allow them to ensure whether, after being injected, a prisoner is unconscious or not. Judge Jeremy Fogel then ordered a licensed medical professional to do the job, but again was turned down. As a result, the prisoner’s death warrant expired.

The prisoner, Michael Morales, now is waiting the judge’s decision on his lawsuit arguing against the application of the injection method. Published reports suggest that Fogel had ordered the presence of a licensed medical professional in the Morales execution after studying the medical records of executed prisoners which raised “substantial” questions as to whether prisoners were still conscious after being injected with a paralyzing drug.

A similar case is pending in the U.S. Supreme Court, along with seven others in which the courts have granted a stay of appeals against executions by injections in Missouri, Maryland, Ohio, and Washington, DC.

On average, nearly 50 people are executed in the United States every year, according to the Death Penalty Center, which, however, points out that the numbers gradually are decreasing. In 2005 some 60 prisoners were put to death, down from 98 in 1999. So far this year only nine have been executed.

Currently, 38 states carry out the death penalty. All but one allow authorities to use lethal injections as a method of execution. Only the state of Nebraska still uses the electric chair. The U.S. is the only country that employs the electric chair, according to Amnesty International. China, Guatemala, Philippines and Thailand also use lethal injection to kill people.

The injection method was introduced to US prisons in 1977. Before that, for almost 100 years, jail wardens used electrocution as the main method of execution, according to historians. Prison authorities in the U.S. also have used gas chambers, firing squad in the last century, to.

Published studies explain that when the injection method is used, the prisoner is usually bound to a gurney and a member of the execution team positions several heart monitors on his skin.

“Two needles are then inserted into veins, usually in the arms. Long tubes connect the needle through a hole in a cement block wall to several intravenous drips,” according to “Perfecting death: When the state kills it must do so humanely,” a 1994 study authored by William Ecenbarger, an independent researcher.

The first is considered a harmless saline solution that is started immediately, Ecenbarger explains. Then, at the warden’s signal, a curtain is raised exposing the inmate to the witnesses in an adjoining room. After that, the inmate is injected with sodium thiopental, an anesthetic, which puts the inmate to sleep. Next flows Pavulon or Pancuronium Bromide, which paralyzes the muscle system and stops the prisoner’s breathing. Finally, the flow of potassium chloride stops the heart.

In the injection method some doctors participate, but only to confirm the death. None takes part in the killing since doing so is in violation of medical ethics. Studies suggest that an overwhelming majority of those facing the death penalty in the U.S. are either Black or Latino while prosecutors responsible for capital punishment happen to be around 98 percent white.