That's the title of Ty Alper's OpEd from the Oklahoman. He's associate director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
There's been lots of talk recently about Oklahoma's desire to switch to a drug used in animal euthanasia during its next scheduled execution, due to a national shortage of the drug it usually employs. Predictably, reaction to the state's move has been all over the map.
But one key point is getting lost in the shuffle: Even with this change, Oklahoma's lethal injection process is nothing like animal euthanasia. In fact, it would be illegal to euthanize an animal in Oklahoma the way the state intends to execute John Duty on Dec. 16.
Keep in mind the proposed switch is to the first drug in Oklahoma's three-drug lethal injection procedure. The first drug is an anesthetic, intended to ensure that the inmate does not experience the effects of the second drug, which paralyzes him, and the third drug, which stops the heart.
The decision to paralyze inmates before executing them with the third drug presents a fundamental problem. If the anesthetic is not delivered properly (and ample evidence suggests the danger of maladministration is real), the inmate will likely experience excruciating pain and suffering.
However, because he is paralyzed, he will be unable to cry out or even blink an eyelid to signal that the anesthesia has failed. The paralytic virtually ensures that the execution looks “peaceful” when it may have been anything but.
It is for this reason that 42 out of 50 states have banned the use of paralyzing agents in animal euthanasia. Oklahoma is one of nine states that has done so explicitly. State law prohibits — in animal euthanasia — the use of “curariform derivative drugs,” which is the technical term for paralyzing agents. The law, passed in 1981, allows any method of animal euthanasia that the Department of Agriculture approves, but singles out one class of drug as unacceptable under any circumstances: the precise kind of drug Oklahoma uses in lethal injection executions.
Earlier coverage from Oklahoma begins with this post.
The Sacramento Bee reports, "Drug shortage stirs death penalty debate in U.S. and beyond." It'b by Sam Stanton and Denny Walsh.
A shortage of one of the three drugs used in lethal injection executions has set off legal battles nationwide as states search for ways to put condemned inmates to death.
In the past week, courts in California, Arizona and Oklahoma have weighed in on the dispute, as has the government of Great Britain, where some states have sought supplies of the scarce drug – sodium thiopental.
California corrections officials have been ordered by a San Francisco Superior Court judge to release records by Tuesday that might show where they obtained a recently purchased supply of the drug.
"We want to know where they are buying this stuff, for how much, and what process they are using to acquire it," said Natasha Minsker, death penalty policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which sued to force release of the information.
Minsker said it is illegal to import the drug from outside the United States because any such supply would lack approval of the Food and Drug Administration. "This is a federal controlled substance, and we want to make sure what they're doing is legal," she said.
She said it is not clear whether California paid an exorbitant price for the scarce substance, whether it obtained the drug from a foreign source in violation of U.S. law, or whether the drug is the same as the one manufactured domestically.
The ACLU sued after the state failed to produce any information in response to a California Public Records Act request on Oct. 7.
"It's shocking that the people who run California's prisons are hiding the truth," she said. "Maximum transparency should be required when it comes to executions.
Related posts are in the lethal injection index.
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