Post by sclcookie on May 31, 2006 2:36:03 GMT -5
Challenge to lethal injections could mean delayed executions
Capital punishment in the US is facing unprecedented legal challenges after years of revelations about inaccurate convictions and racial and class inequalities in the way the system is administered, legal experts say.
Lethal injection, the method used in 38 out of 39 states that have the death penalty, is the latest subject of lawsuits across the country after medical studies showed the drugs used in the procedure might inflict severe and unnecessary pain before death.
The Supreme Court is considering a challenge to lethal injections in a Florida case testing whether inmates can try to stop their execution at the last moment. Several justices criticised the method at a hearing in April. Justice Anthony Kennedy said states had at least a "minimal obligation" to use "the most humane method possible", and Justice John Paul Stevens said the thingytail of drugs used by Florida would have been prohibited for putting down cats and dogs.
That case will be decided within weeks, and could give inmates a new way to make eve-of-execution challenges that could significantly delay their execution and could force states to adopt more humane procedures.
Several justices appeared to have been swayed by a highly critical study published last year in the British medical journal The Lancet. Researchers found that the 3-drug thingytail used for executions could, if given at too low a dose, leave the subject conscious and in pain during the execution, but unable to express their pain due to the paralytic effect of the drugs.
Last week, the justices refused to hear a direct challenge to the lethal injection procedure from Tennessee, but that may only act as an invitation to the states to resolve the issue themselves.
One federal appeals court judge spoke recently of a "dysfunctional patchwork of stays and executions" in capital cases, and said the legal limbo was "intolerable".
In Texas, a state with one of the highest execution rates, there is upheaval in the courts over lethal injection. A Texas appeals court recently lifted the stay of execution it granted days earlier to an inmate challenging the lethal injection procedure, while a North Carolina court allowed such an execution to go forward using a brain wave monitor to see if the inmate was conscious. A California court is also addressing that state's drug protocol.
Some see the lethal injection question as only the latest in a system rife with problems.
According to Eric Freedman, constitutional law professor at Hofstra University School of Law, competency of counsel is at the heart of the issue. "If you have a competent lawyer, you almost never get the death penalty."
Prof Freedman represented Earl Washington, a mentally disabled black man charged in 1982 with the rape and murder of a white woman, who came within days of execution in Virginia before DNA evidence proved his innocence.
A flurry of US Supreme Court decisions in recent years has already gone some way towards reining in the practical administration of capital punishment. The court has issued rulings involving the competency of counsel, racial bias by juries and post-conviction challenges. Other recent rulings abolished the death penalty for juveniles and the mentally disabled.
The type of case the Supreme Court is accepting signals its willingness to police the administration of the death penalty while maintaining the practice, according to attorneys and advocates involved.
"The courts are not about to abolish the death penalty, but to reform it to try and correct and prevent mistakes that have been made," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
R. Neal Walker, director of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center in New Orleans concludes: "We are currently witnessing an unprecedented critique of the administration of capital punishment in the United States."
Prof Freedman goes even further: "My prediction is that the more scrutiny that is given to the actual workings of the death penalty . . . the more its flaws will become visible."
Death sentences are at their lowest level since capital punishment was reinstated in 1977. At the same time, however, overall support for the death penalty remains consistent, with 65 % of respondents to a March poll favouring execution for persons convicted of murder, according to the Pew Research Center.
(source: Financial Times)
Capital punishment in the US is facing unprecedented legal challenges after years of revelations about inaccurate convictions and racial and class inequalities in the way the system is administered, legal experts say.
Lethal injection, the method used in 38 out of 39 states that have the death penalty, is the latest subject of lawsuits across the country after medical studies showed the drugs used in the procedure might inflict severe and unnecessary pain before death.
The Supreme Court is considering a challenge to lethal injections in a Florida case testing whether inmates can try to stop their execution at the last moment. Several justices criticised the method at a hearing in April. Justice Anthony Kennedy said states had at least a "minimal obligation" to use "the most humane method possible", and Justice John Paul Stevens said the thingytail of drugs used by Florida would have been prohibited for putting down cats and dogs.
That case will be decided within weeks, and could give inmates a new way to make eve-of-execution challenges that could significantly delay their execution and could force states to adopt more humane procedures.
Several justices appeared to have been swayed by a highly critical study published last year in the British medical journal The Lancet. Researchers found that the 3-drug thingytail used for executions could, if given at too low a dose, leave the subject conscious and in pain during the execution, but unable to express their pain due to the paralytic effect of the drugs.
Last week, the justices refused to hear a direct challenge to the lethal injection procedure from Tennessee, but that may only act as an invitation to the states to resolve the issue themselves.
One federal appeals court judge spoke recently of a "dysfunctional patchwork of stays and executions" in capital cases, and said the legal limbo was "intolerable".
In Texas, a state with one of the highest execution rates, there is upheaval in the courts over lethal injection. A Texas appeals court recently lifted the stay of execution it granted days earlier to an inmate challenging the lethal injection procedure, while a North Carolina court allowed such an execution to go forward using a brain wave monitor to see if the inmate was conscious. A California court is also addressing that state's drug protocol.
Some see the lethal injection question as only the latest in a system rife with problems.
According to Eric Freedman, constitutional law professor at Hofstra University School of Law, competency of counsel is at the heart of the issue. "If you have a competent lawyer, you almost never get the death penalty."
Prof Freedman represented Earl Washington, a mentally disabled black man charged in 1982 with the rape and murder of a white woman, who came within days of execution in Virginia before DNA evidence proved his innocence.
A flurry of US Supreme Court decisions in recent years has already gone some way towards reining in the practical administration of capital punishment. The court has issued rulings involving the competency of counsel, racial bias by juries and post-conviction challenges. Other recent rulings abolished the death penalty for juveniles and the mentally disabled.
The type of case the Supreme Court is accepting signals its willingness to police the administration of the death penalty while maintaining the practice, according to attorneys and advocates involved.
"The courts are not about to abolish the death penalty, but to reform it to try and correct and prevent mistakes that have been made," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
R. Neal Walker, director of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center in New Orleans concludes: "We are currently witnessing an unprecedented critique of the administration of capital punishment in the United States."
Prof Freedman goes even further: "My prediction is that the more scrutiny that is given to the actual workings of the death penalty . . . the more its flaws will become visible."
Death sentences are at their lowest level since capital punishment was reinstated in 1977. At the same time, however, overall support for the death penalty remains consistent, with 65 % of respondents to a March poll favouring execution for persons convicted of murder, according to the Pew Research Center.
(source: Financial Times)