Post by SoulTrainOz on Jul 12, 2006 21:42:35 GMT -5
In Helena, a group of lawmakers, civil liberty organizations and church groups has asked the state's highest court to stop executions in Montana until a court can determine if death by lethal injection tortures dying convicts.
Their request was filed Tuesday, exactly 1 month before the scheduled execution of 3-time Billings murderer Dave Dawson, who has asked to be put to death.
"This would apply to all executions equally," said Ron Waterman, a Helena lawyer who filed the request on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Montana Association of Churches, the Montana Catholic Council and others.
Attorney General Mike McGrath issued a statement saying he believes the request "lacks legal merit."
Dawson, who murdered 3 members of a Billings family in 1986, including an 11-year-old boy, has asked to stop all legal efforts to postpone his execution, McGrath said. His case has already been extensively litigated for 20 years.
"In spite of that, and in direct opposition to Mr. Dawson's wishes, the applicants today ask for an 11th-hour remedy they have no standing to seek," McGrath said.
Chief Justice Karla Gray said justices received the request Tuesday afternoon and had not yet had a chance to read the petition.
The groups' 31-page request addresses the way Montana's condemned are put to death and questions whether such executions are truly painless and civilized.
Lethal injection is Montana's only execution method, said Bob Anez, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections. Condemned men - there are no women on death row - are executed in a special trailer on the prison grounds, he said.
The men are strapped to a gurney, with both their arms outstretched. 2 intravenous tubes are attached in each arm, Anez said. Executioners attach the tubes to both arms in case the veins in one arm fail during execution.
The executioner is in an adjacent room, unseen by the condemned or the witnesses. The executioner pushes a button, which releases 3 drugs.
The first is an "ultra fast-acting barbiturate," Anez said, which is
intended to render the condemned completely unconscious.
The 2nd is a drug that paralyzes the condemned and stops his breathing. The final drug stops the man's heartbeat.
Death by lethal injection is caused by either an overdose of the initial barbiturate or by cardiac and respiratory arrest while the condemned is unconscious, according to information from the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C., group.
Anez said the agency is "legally obligated to comply" with the standing execution order for Dawson and prison workers are already making preparations.
Waterman, however, notes several potential problems with lethal injection. If the condemned doesn't receive enough barbiturate or if the drug wears off before death, he will experience suffocation as his lungs stop working, as well as pain as his heart stops beating.
The legal papers Waterman filed Tuesday also quote from studies of the bodies of other condemned inmates in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, states that all use the same triple-drug combination to kill people on death row.
Those studies show that 88 % of the men had less barbiturate in their bodies than what is required for surgery and 43 % had low enough levels that they would still have some level consciousness during the execution.
Waterman said the paralyzing drug is administered mostly for the benefit of the witnesses, so they won't see the condemned's body writhing in death. But the paralyzing drug also means the condemned can't express his agony, even if he experiences it, so people are left with the potential illusion of a painless death.
Waterman also questioned who decides which drugs are used and who administers them.
"It would probably be disturbing to think that someone without any training" would end up conducting what amounts to a medically designed death, he said.
Death by lethal injection has come under scrutiny recently. The U.S. Supreme Court, as well as courts in 5 other states and the District of Columbia have postponed executions until studies can show whether the potentially agony experienced with lethal injections violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."
(source: The Missoulian)
Their request was filed Tuesday, exactly 1 month before the scheduled execution of 3-time Billings murderer Dave Dawson, who has asked to be put to death.
"This would apply to all executions equally," said Ron Waterman, a Helena lawyer who filed the request on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Montana Association of Churches, the Montana Catholic Council and others.
Attorney General Mike McGrath issued a statement saying he believes the request "lacks legal merit."
Dawson, who murdered 3 members of a Billings family in 1986, including an 11-year-old boy, has asked to stop all legal efforts to postpone his execution, McGrath said. His case has already been extensively litigated for 20 years.
"In spite of that, and in direct opposition to Mr. Dawson's wishes, the applicants today ask for an 11th-hour remedy they have no standing to seek," McGrath said.
Chief Justice Karla Gray said justices received the request Tuesday afternoon and had not yet had a chance to read the petition.
The groups' 31-page request addresses the way Montana's condemned are put to death and questions whether such executions are truly painless and civilized.
Lethal injection is Montana's only execution method, said Bob Anez, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections. Condemned men - there are no women on death row - are executed in a special trailer on the prison grounds, he said.
The men are strapped to a gurney, with both their arms outstretched. 2 intravenous tubes are attached in each arm, Anez said. Executioners attach the tubes to both arms in case the veins in one arm fail during execution.
The executioner is in an adjacent room, unseen by the condemned or the witnesses. The executioner pushes a button, which releases 3 drugs.
The first is an "ultra fast-acting barbiturate," Anez said, which is
intended to render the condemned completely unconscious.
The 2nd is a drug that paralyzes the condemned and stops his breathing. The final drug stops the man's heartbeat.
Death by lethal injection is caused by either an overdose of the initial barbiturate or by cardiac and respiratory arrest while the condemned is unconscious, according to information from the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington, D.C., group.
Anez said the agency is "legally obligated to comply" with the standing execution order for Dawson and prison workers are already making preparations.
Waterman, however, notes several potential problems with lethal injection. If the condemned doesn't receive enough barbiturate or if the drug wears off before death, he will experience suffocation as his lungs stop working, as well as pain as his heart stops beating.
The legal papers Waterman filed Tuesday also quote from studies of the bodies of other condemned inmates in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, states that all use the same triple-drug combination to kill people on death row.
Those studies show that 88 % of the men had less barbiturate in their bodies than what is required for surgery and 43 % had low enough levels that they would still have some level consciousness during the execution.
Waterman said the paralyzing drug is administered mostly for the benefit of the witnesses, so they won't see the condemned's body writhing in death. But the paralyzing drug also means the condemned can't express his agony, even if he experiences it, so people are left with the potential illusion of a painless death.
Waterman also questioned who decides which drugs are used and who administers them.
"It would probably be disturbing to think that someone without any training" would end up conducting what amounts to a medically designed death, he said.
Death by lethal injection has come under scrutiny recently. The U.S. Supreme Court, as well as courts in 5 other states and the District of Columbia have postponed executions until studies can show whether the potentially agony experienced with lethal injections violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."
(source: The Missoulian)