Post by MXB on Oct 21, 2006 8:38:03 GMT -5
When Jonathan Groner put his dog to sleep last August, he knew the procedure would be quick and painless. He said he trusted the veterinarian because she euthanized dogs every day, and thought the procedure would be humane since dogs lacked a perception of time. On the other hand, he thought there was no humane way to kill a human.
Since the botched execution of Joseph Clark, critics of Ohio's lethal injection protocol have been pointing toward the immanent risk of torture in the execution chamber if a licensed anesthesiologist is not present.
"A humane execution is the ultimate paradox," said Groner at his Columbus Children's Hospital office.
The doctor of pediatric surgery and an associate professor at the Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health said he was troubled to see how the rise in Ohio executions was accompanied by the belief that lethal injection procedures were painless and humane. He drew a parallel between lethal
injection and concentration camp euthanasia programs in Nazi Germany.
The dilemma is this: In order for Ohio to execute people without
"inflicting torture" the state would have to employ licensed doctors to administer the chemical cocktail. But since medical professionals are bound to an oath to do no harm, they are ethically unable to participate in executions. It's a vicious circle that Groner refers to as the "executioners' paradox." Ultimately, he believes Ohio may have no choice but to halt executions and review its stance on the death penalty.
The American Medical Association objects to physician participation in executions, stating that doctors shall not "assist, supervise, or contribute to the ability of another individual to directly cause the death of the condemned." The AMA also prohibits monitoring vital signs at an execution, including electrocardiograms.
Last June the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for challenges by thousands of death-row inmates who are now allowed to contest the deadly cocktail of chemicals used in executions. Four Ohio inmates (Richard Cooey, Jeffrey Hill, Arthur Tyler and Johnnie Baston) joined a lawsuit in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the state's lethal-injection protocol constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Their claim was fueled by the problem-plagued execution of Joseph Lewis Clark on May 2, when the state's execution team had to
close the public curtain after there were obvious problems.
Roughly four minutes into execution, Clark said he felt pain in his arm as the lethal drugs collected under his skin rather than flowing into his vein. He raised his head from the gurney five times to say, "It don't work." The execution took nearly 90 minutes, rather than the typical 10.
This is why Groner thinks the state should call off executions
altogether. "Do Ohioans really want to choose between torturing
inmates to death or putting executions in the hands of doctors?"
Groner wrote in an op-ed piece for The Toledo Blade. "This dilemma is inherent in lethal injection, because it puts killing in the hands of healers. The only way for Ohioans to avoid this untenable choice is to call for a moratorium on executions until capital punishment can be re-examined. "
The story of an anesthesiologist, who testified at a federal court
hearing in California on Sept. 28, is a case in point. Dr. Robert
Singler said he initially volunteered to accompany inmate Michael
Morales as he died, because he was confident that California's
three-drug protocol was humane. But he stood down on this offer after learning that he might have to direct prison staff to ensure Morales was unconscious before the second and third drugs were administered.
"I just didn't feel like getting painted as an executioner, " Singler said.
Medical Doctor Says Ohio is Torturing Prisoners
Dorian Hall, the supervisor of investigators for the Ohio public
defender's office, said she heard "loud, intense, guttural moans and groans, like someone was in agony" during Clark's execution. She testified at a Sept. 22 hearing to challenge Maryland's execution protocol, saying that the noises were audible through the walls andwindow after the staff had closed the curtain.
"Even one who strongly supports the death penalty, I'm sure, does not believe that the actual carrying out of the death penalty should result in a slow and torturous death," said Alan Konop, the Toledo attorney retained by Clark's family. When asked whether the Clark family planned to launch a lawsuit against the state of Ohio, Konop said the family was currently considering its legal options, but did not offer any details.
The three-step protocol for executing an Ohio prisoner includes:
•Strapping the prisoner to a wheeled stretcher and injecting him/her with anesthetic sodium pentothal. Without anesthesia the inmate would experience asphyxiation, a severe burning sensation, massive muscle cramping and cardiac arrest. The drug's purpose is to alleviate the pain and preserve the impression that lethal injection is a near-painless death.
•The prisoner, now unconscious, is injected with pancuronium bromide
(Pavulon), which paralyses muscles including the lungs and diaphragm.
Pavulon is commonly used to immobilize patients during surgical
procedures.
•The two drugs are followed by an injection of potassium chloride,
which causes cardiac arrest. This would also produce tremendous pain if given to a conscious inmate.
In 2005, a study published in the British medical journal, Lancet, gave credence to the claim that lethal injection was in fact
inflicting pain. The authors found that on the basis of the toxicology reports from six states, 43% of prisoners may have remained conscious after their dose of sedatives.
That means the prisoner would have slowly suffocated under the muscle-paralyzing drug, perhaps sufferingintense pain as the potassium chloride worked its way through the body.
"It would be a cruel way to die: awake, paralyzed, unable to move, to breathe, while potassium burned through your veins," concluded Lancet in an editorial that accompanied the study. The study's authors compared lethal injection protocols with ethical standards of the American Veterinary Medical Association, finding that in 19 states, including Ohio, these same neuromuscular blocking agents were prohibited when killing animals.
U.S. Justice John Paul Stevens asked the state's attorney why
Florida's legislature regulated how pets were euthanized but did not have a lethal injection protocol for humans. "Your procedure would be prohibited if applied to dogs and cats," he stated.
Twenty-three death-row prisoners have died by injection since Ohio resumed executions in 1999. And since 2004 Ohio has executed 15 prisoners, which is more than any other state but Texas.
In Youngstown, capital punishment is close to home. Most of the state's 195 death-row inmates are now housed at the Ohio State Penitentiary, a few miles East of downtown, and off of state Route 616. One day before the execution the prisoner is transported from Youngstown to the death house at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, in Lucasville.
Donald K. Allen, who runs a veterinary clinic on 4501 Market St., said he euthanises ill and elderly animals almost daily as part of his job.
He said he usually administers twice the required dosage of anesthesia to ensure that the dogs are really dead. When asked if the animal felt any pain, he was speculative. "I think they taste it," he said. "Because almost always, their tongues lick."
The Youngstown veterinarian, who supports the death penalty, said he didn't care much about whether death-row prisoners suffered during executions. "These people feel a sting and then they're gone," he said. The lethal injection controversy wasn't a legitimate reason to end the death penalty. "As far as people's characters go, I don't have a whole lot of faith that you're going to change them," he said.
When California held hearings on the lethal injection protocol last month, Columbia University Medical School anesthesiology professor, Mark Heath, testified that prisoners were still breathing several minutes after personnel had administered pancuronium bromide, the muscle-paralyzing drug. At that point the prisoners were supposed to be deeply sedated by the first drug to protect them from the pain of the third drug.
"If someone is breathing like that, they may not be in a deep plane of anesthesia. They may not even be unconscious, " Heath said.
Coincidentally, Ohio's public defender asked Heath to give his expert opinion for use in the lawsuit, Cooey v. Taft. In it, Heath pointed out that Ohio uses only 2 grams of the barbiturate pentothal, a dosethat's considerably lower than what is prescribed in many other lethal injection states.
Heath argued that Ohio's lethal injection protocol creates an
"unacceptable risk that the inmate will not be anesthetized to the
point of being unconscious and unaware of pain for the duration of the procedure."
Carol Weihrer of Reston, Virginia, believes she knows exactly what the experience is like. "I was fully awake and aware, for between forty minutes and two hours, while my right eye was surgically removed," she asserted in a written statement to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2004.
Weihrer testified that although anesthesiologists had given her a dose of sodium pentothal before the operation, they neglected to give her a longer-acting barbiturate. So she awoke on the operating table, paralyzed.
"I remember the intense pulling on my eye, the spine-chilling
instructions of the surgeon to the resident to `cut deeper here, pullharder; no pull harder, you really have to pull.' I remember fightingwith every ounce of energy and thought process I had to let thesurgical team know I was awake," Weihrer testified. "I rememberwondering if I were following the heat of the proverbial light toHeaven (since they had removed my eye) or whether I were lying on thecoals of Hell – and the most haunting to me, a person of great faith, to this day was the willingness to sell my soul just to get off that table."
Since the botched execution of Joseph Clark, critics of Ohio's lethal injection protocol have been pointing toward the immanent risk of torture in the execution chamber if a licensed anesthesiologist is not present.
"A humane execution is the ultimate paradox," said Groner at his Columbus Children's Hospital office.
The doctor of pediatric surgery and an associate professor at the Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health said he was troubled to see how the rise in Ohio executions was accompanied by the belief that lethal injection procedures were painless and humane. He drew a parallel between lethal
injection and concentration camp euthanasia programs in Nazi Germany.
The dilemma is this: In order for Ohio to execute people without
"inflicting torture" the state would have to employ licensed doctors to administer the chemical cocktail. But since medical professionals are bound to an oath to do no harm, they are ethically unable to participate in executions. It's a vicious circle that Groner refers to as the "executioners' paradox." Ultimately, he believes Ohio may have no choice but to halt executions and review its stance on the death penalty.
The American Medical Association objects to physician participation in executions, stating that doctors shall not "assist, supervise, or contribute to the ability of another individual to directly cause the death of the condemned." The AMA also prohibits monitoring vital signs at an execution, including electrocardiograms.
Last June the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for challenges by thousands of death-row inmates who are now allowed to contest the deadly cocktail of chemicals used in executions. Four Ohio inmates (Richard Cooey, Jeffrey Hill, Arthur Tyler and Johnnie Baston) joined a lawsuit in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the state's lethal-injection protocol constituted cruel and unusual punishment. Their claim was fueled by the problem-plagued execution of Joseph Lewis Clark on May 2, when the state's execution team had to
close the public curtain after there were obvious problems.
Roughly four minutes into execution, Clark said he felt pain in his arm as the lethal drugs collected under his skin rather than flowing into his vein. He raised his head from the gurney five times to say, "It don't work." The execution took nearly 90 minutes, rather than the typical 10.
This is why Groner thinks the state should call off executions
altogether. "Do Ohioans really want to choose between torturing
inmates to death or putting executions in the hands of doctors?"
Groner wrote in an op-ed piece for The Toledo Blade. "This dilemma is inherent in lethal injection, because it puts killing in the hands of healers. The only way for Ohioans to avoid this untenable choice is to call for a moratorium on executions until capital punishment can be re-examined. "
The story of an anesthesiologist, who testified at a federal court
hearing in California on Sept. 28, is a case in point. Dr. Robert
Singler said he initially volunteered to accompany inmate Michael
Morales as he died, because he was confident that California's
three-drug protocol was humane. But he stood down on this offer after learning that he might have to direct prison staff to ensure Morales was unconscious before the second and third drugs were administered.
"I just didn't feel like getting painted as an executioner, " Singler said.
Medical Doctor Says Ohio is Torturing Prisoners
Dorian Hall, the supervisor of investigators for the Ohio public
defender's office, said she heard "loud, intense, guttural moans and groans, like someone was in agony" during Clark's execution. She testified at a Sept. 22 hearing to challenge Maryland's execution protocol, saying that the noises were audible through the walls andwindow after the staff had closed the curtain.
"Even one who strongly supports the death penalty, I'm sure, does not believe that the actual carrying out of the death penalty should result in a slow and torturous death," said Alan Konop, the Toledo attorney retained by Clark's family. When asked whether the Clark family planned to launch a lawsuit against the state of Ohio, Konop said the family was currently considering its legal options, but did not offer any details.
The three-step protocol for executing an Ohio prisoner includes:
•Strapping the prisoner to a wheeled stretcher and injecting him/her with anesthetic sodium pentothal. Without anesthesia the inmate would experience asphyxiation, a severe burning sensation, massive muscle cramping and cardiac arrest. The drug's purpose is to alleviate the pain and preserve the impression that lethal injection is a near-painless death.
•The prisoner, now unconscious, is injected with pancuronium bromide
(Pavulon), which paralyses muscles including the lungs and diaphragm.
Pavulon is commonly used to immobilize patients during surgical
procedures.
•The two drugs are followed by an injection of potassium chloride,
which causes cardiac arrest. This would also produce tremendous pain if given to a conscious inmate.
In 2005, a study published in the British medical journal, Lancet, gave credence to the claim that lethal injection was in fact
inflicting pain. The authors found that on the basis of the toxicology reports from six states, 43% of prisoners may have remained conscious after their dose of sedatives.
That means the prisoner would have slowly suffocated under the muscle-paralyzing drug, perhaps sufferingintense pain as the potassium chloride worked its way through the body.
"It would be a cruel way to die: awake, paralyzed, unable to move, to breathe, while potassium burned through your veins," concluded Lancet in an editorial that accompanied the study. The study's authors compared lethal injection protocols with ethical standards of the American Veterinary Medical Association, finding that in 19 states, including Ohio, these same neuromuscular blocking agents were prohibited when killing animals.
U.S. Justice John Paul Stevens asked the state's attorney why
Florida's legislature regulated how pets were euthanized but did not have a lethal injection protocol for humans. "Your procedure would be prohibited if applied to dogs and cats," he stated.
Twenty-three death-row prisoners have died by injection since Ohio resumed executions in 1999. And since 2004 Ohio has executed 15 prisoners, which is more than any other state but Texas.
In Youngstown, capital punishment is close to home. Most of the state's 195 death-row inmates are now housed at the Ohio State Penitentiary, a few miles East of downtown, and off of state Route 616. One day before the execution the prisoner is transported from Youngstown to the death house at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, in Lucasville.
Donald K. Allen, who runs a veterinary clinic on 4501 Market St., said he euthanises ill and elderly animals almost daily as part of his job.
He said he usually administers twice the required dosage of anesthesia to ensure that the dogs are really dead. When asked if the animal felt any pain, he was speculative. "I think they taste it," he said. "Because almost always, their tongues lick."
The Youngstown veterinarian, who supports the death penalty, said he didn't care much about whether death-row prisoners suffered during executions. "These people feel a sting and then they're gone," he said. The lethal injection controversy wasn't a legitimate reason to end the death penalty. "As far as people's characters go, I don't have a whole lot of faith that you're going to change them," he said.
When California held hearings on the lethal injection protocol last month, Columbia University Medical School anesthesiology professor, Mark Heath, testified that prisoners were still breathing several minutes after personnel had administered pancuronium bromide, the muscle-paralyzing drug. At that point the prisoners were supposed to be deeply sedated by the first drug to protect them from the pain of the third drug.
"If someone is breathing like that, they may not be in a deep plane of anesthesia. They may not even be unconscious, " Heath said.
Coincidentally, Ohio's public defender asked Heath to give his expert opinion for use in the lawsuit, Cooey v. Taft. In it, Heath pointed out that Ohio uses only 2 grams of the barbiturate pentothal, a dosethat's considerably lower than what is prescribed in many other lethal injection states.
Heath argued that Ohio's lethal injection protocol creates an
"unacceptable risk that the inmate will not be anesthetized to the
point of being unconscious and unaware of pain for the duration of the procedure."
Carol Weihrer of Reston, Virginia, believes she knows exactly what the experience is like. "I was fully awake and aware, for between forty minutes and two hours, while my right eye was surgically removed," she asserted in a written statement to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2004.
Weihrer testified that although anesthesiologists had given her a dose of sodium pentothal before the operation, they neglected to give her a longer-acting barbiturate. So she awoke on the operating table, paralyzed.
"I remember the intense pulling on my eye, the spine-chilling
instructions of the surgeon to the resident to `cut deeper here, pullharder; no pull harder, you really have to pull.' I remember fightingwith every ounce of energy and thought process I had to let thesurgical team know I was awake," Weihrer testified. "I rememberwondering if I were following the heat of the proverbial light toHeaven (since they had removed my eye) or whether I were lying on thecoals of Hell – and the most haunting to me, a person of great faith, to this day was the willingness to sell my soul just to get off that table."