Lethal Injection
Today, the Supreme Court convenes to hear a case brought by a group of Oklahoma inmates on whether use of the drug midazolam violates the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment. Below are five stories to bring you up to speed.
The New York Times covered the discussion among the justices:
[…] several of the conservative justices questioned whether the evidence warranted a reversal and, more broadly, expressed exasperation with shortages of more proven drugs that they said had been caused by opponents of capital punishment.
The Guardian ran an interview with Dr. Jay Chapman, the inventor of lethal injection in which he expressed doubts about capital punishment:
"I am ambivalent about the death penalty – there have been so many incidents of prosecutorial misconduct, or DNA testing that has proved a prisoner's innocence. It's problematic."
Yesterday, ProPublica (syndicated here on Digg) reported that Oklahoma's expert witness, Dr. Roswell Lee Evans, did his research on drugs.com; pointing to the larger trend of medical experts refusing to defend lethal injection.
A number of legal activists and medical professionals have expressed concern that Evans, a board certified psychiatric pharmacist and the dean of the Harrison School of Pharmacy at Auburn University in Alabama, has testified that he has never used midazolam on a patient and has, in fact, never personally induced anesthesia.
Pacific Standard explored the psychology of those who administer lethal injections or participate in a firing squad:
There's a funny fact about firing squads: People volunteer for them. When it comes to lethal injection though, it can be difficult to find an expert to with the right expertise to oversee the procedure.
If the Supreme Court rules that the drug is unconstitutional, the Washington Post reports, Oklahoma is prepared to use nitrogen gas as a backup method:
In Oklahoma, current law states that if lethal injection is deemed unconstitutional or is just not available, the electric chair is the backup option, while the firing squad is the third option. The new law makes nitrogen hypoxia the backup method, with the electric chair and firing squad serving as the third and fourth options, respectively.
