Jurist Forum posts, "Behind the Hangman's Cloak," by Brandon L. Garrett, a University of Virginia Law professor, and the author of Convicting the Innocent. It was edited by Brent Nesbitt.
"We're going to close the blinds temporarily," the Oklahoma corrections officer told those in the witness room, when Clayton Lockett's execution started to go terribly wrong. None of those outside could see what happened during the almost 45 minute-long botched execution, and the "shuttered blinds" became a metaphor for the modern administration of the death penalty. Behind the curtain, "unknown drugs" and "untested protocols" were used "behind a wall of secrecy," said Lockett's lawyer Cheryl Pilate. Challenges to such secret protocols have been brought in a range of states, including Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Missouri and Texas; one federal judge in a recent dissent [PDF] argued the state cannot simply hide "behind the hangman's cloak." But following that botched execution the Oklahoma Court of Appeals approved a six-month stay of executions to at least review the matter.
Will we finally see what lies behind the hangman's cloak? Some even suggest that we shouldn't try. Boer Deng and Dahlia Lithwick, writing for Slate, make the provocative claim that it is death penalty opponents that have put states in a bind, with European companies refusing to supply the drugs used in executions, and doctors adopting the view that it violates the Hippocratic Oath to participate in capital punishment. Of course, the Eighth Amendment requires humane executions, whether or not the "market" can supply lethal drugs on the cheap. They also claim that lethal injection has "become more gruesome and violent in recent years."
Earlier coverage of Oklahoma's botched execution begins at the link. Also available, more from Brandon Garrett, and his book.
Comments