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Helping Karl
New York Times
June 2006
Doctors See Way to Cut Suffering in Executions
A flood of lawsuits challenging lethal injection as cruel and unusual has stalled executions in some states and may prompt others to abandon them. And a Supreme Court ruling last week made it easier for death-row prisoners to file such suits.
But medical experts say the current method of lethal injection could easily be changed to make suffering less likely. Even the doctor who devised the technique 30 years ago says that if he had it to do over again, he would recommend a different method.
Switching to an injection method with less potential to cause pain could undercut many of the lawsuits. But so far, in this chapter of the nation's long and tangled history with the death penalty, no state has moved to alter its lethal injection protocol.
At the core of the issue is a debate about which matters more, the comfort of prisoners or that of the people who watch them die. A major obstacle to change is that alternative methods of lethal injection, though they might be easier on inmates, would almost certainly be harder on witnesses and executioners.
With a different approach, death would take longer and might involve jerking movements that the prisoner would not feel but that would be unpleasant for others to watch.
"Policy makers have historically considered the needs of witnesses in devising protocols" for execution, said Dr. Mark Dershwitz, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Massachusetts who has testified about the drugs used in lethal injection.
"There's an innumerably long list of medications that can be given to cause someone to die," Dr. Dershwitz said. But, he added, the emphasis on ensuring a speedy death may have prevented states from considering all the options.
Deborah W. Denno, a Fordham University law professor who is an expert on execution methods, said speculation about whether any states would change their procedures was "the question of the moment." Professor Denno said some states might tinker with their procedures just enough to avoid court cases.
And Dr. Jay Chapman, a forensic pathologist who created the nation's first lethal injection protocol, in Oklahoma in 1977, said that were he to do it once more, he would not recommend the three-drug concoction now in widespread use.
Instead, Dr. Chapman said, an overdose of one drug, a barbiturate — the method veterinarians use to end the lives of sick animals — would painlessly cause prisoners to lose consciousness, stop breathing and die. "Hindsight is always 20/20," he said.
Even some opponents of the death penalty favor such a change in lethal injection technique, reasoning that if execution cannot be banned, it should at least be made more humane.
Dr. Chapman's original approach, still the policy in the federal prison system and in most of the 37 death-penalty states that use lethal injection, calls for an overdose of a barbiturate, sodium thiopental, which causes unconsciousness and in sufficient doses can also halt breathing. The sodium thiopental is followed by two other drugs: pancuronium bromide, or Pavulon, which causes paralysis and halts breathing as well, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart within seconds.
But opponents of lethal injection say that in some cases, the second and third drugs may cause severe suffering. They argue that the drugs may be mishandled because most doctors and nurses refuse to participate in executions, leaving the responsibility to people with less training.