Post by SoulTrainOz on Jul 10, 2006 20:37:55 GMT -5
modernized
By Gail Gibson
The Baltimore Sun
As an Oklahoma legislator in the 1970s, Bill J. Wiseman followed the will of his district and voted to restore the state's death penalty. But with deep personal reservations about capital punishment, he also sought out a more humane alternative to electrocution and became the unwitting architect of the lethal injection protocol now used in nearly every U.S. execution.
Now, as then, Wiseman's concerns about the process run deep. He never anticipated that lethal injection executions could be botched by problems of inadequate sedation or the use of a chemical to paralyze an inmate's muscles, as a widely publicized medical study reported last year. And he never anticipated that state after state would adopt the same method and use it for more than two decades without re-examination and, in many instances, without exacting guidelines.
"What you are talking about here is a competency issue," said Wiseman, now a university administrator and Episcopal priest who says that state officials should intervene again to set right a system that across the country has become a jumble of prisoner appeals and makeshift moratoriums.
The push to modernize lethal injection protocols has long been advocated by anti-death penalty advocates. It also has gained support from capital punishment supporters, who see it as a practical way to avoid delays in carrying out death sentences. But few states have implemented changes, even under growing pressure from the nation's courts.
The U.S. Supreme Court in a unanimous decision last month opened the door for death row inmates to bring new challenges to the way states use lethal injection.
Most states have resisted making changes to the three-chemical thingytail that has become the standard for U.S. executions.
Douglas A. Berman, an Ohio State University law professor who closely tracks sentencing issues, said there has been little incentive for states to overhaul lethal injection procedures.
In each state that allows the death penalty, the chemical mix used at executions is generally the same.
But there is no uniform protocol regarding who administers the drugs, how much of each chemical should be administered or how prison officials should proceed if an inmate's veins are too compromised to receive intravenous injections.
A 2002 survey conducted of state death penalty protocols by Deborah W. Denno, a Fordham University law professor, found that just nine states published detailed information about the type and amount of chemicals used in lethal injection. Even among those that made the information available, there was a broad range in amount of chemicals used and how they were administered.
A turning point could come in California, where U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose has scheduled a two-day evidence hearing in September to review that state's lethal injection procedures. Earlier this year, Fogel raised questions about the state's execution protocol, prompting the state in February to call off the execution of Michael Angelo Morales.
Source: The Olympian
159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060710/NEWS/607100318
By Gail Gibson
The Baltimore Sun
As an Oklahoma legislator in the 1970s, Bill J. Wiseman followed the will of his district and voted to restore the state's death penalty. But with deep personal reservations about capital punishment, he also sought out a more humane alternative to electrocution and became the unwitting architect of the lethal injection protocol now used in nearly every U.S. execution.
Now, as then, Wiseman's concerns about the process run deep. He never anticipated that lethal injection executions could be botched by problems of inadequate sedation or the use of a chemical to paralyze an inmate's muscles, as a widely publicized medical study reported last year. And he never anticipated that state after state would adopt the same method and use it for more than two decades without re-examination and, in many instances, without exacting guidelines.
"What you are talking about here is a competency issue," said Wiseman, now a university administrator and Episcopal priest who says that state officials should intervene again to set right a system that across the country has become a jumble of prisoner appeals and makeshift moratoriums.
The push to modernize lethal injection protocols has long been advocated by anti-death penalty advocates. It also has gained support from capital punishment supporters, who see it as a practical way to avoid delays in carrying out death sentences. But few states have implemented changes, even under growing pressure from the nation's courts.
The U.S. Supreme Court in a unanimous decision last month opened the door for death row inmates to bring new challenges to the way states use lethal injection.
Most states have resisted making changes to the three-chemical thingytail that has become the standard for U.S. executions.
Douglas A. Berman, an Ohio State University law professor who closely tracks sentencing issues, said there has been little incentive for states to overhaul lethal injection procedures.
In each state that allows the death penalty, the chemical mix used at executions is generally the same.
But there is no uniform protocol regarding who administers the drugs, how much of each chemical should be administered or how prison officials should proceed if an inmate's veins are too compromised to receive intravenous injections.
A 2002 survey conducted of state death penalty protocols by Deborah W. Denno, a Fordham University law professor, found that just nine states published detailed information about the type and amount of chemicals used in lethal injection. Even among those that made the information available, there was a broad range in amount of chemicals used and how they were administered.
A turning point could come in California, where U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose has scheduled a two-day evidence hearing in September to review that state's lethal injection procedures. Earlier this year, Fogel raised questions about the state's execution protocol, prompting the state in February to call off the execution of Michael Angelo Morales.
Source: The Olympian
159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060710/NEWS/607100318