In Oklahoma, Failed Execution Revives Debate over Lethal Injections

After another botched execution in Oklahoma, the problematic nature of lethal injections is becoming undeniable. This “medicalized” death — without doctors — is a dangerous operation for states that still think they have found the ideal solution for continuing executions in America.

Lethal injection was developed in the late 1970s, when capital punishment was reinstituted after a decade-long moratorium due to a Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of executions. Going back to the old ways — predominantly the electric chair or the gas chamber, or, rarely, hanging or shooting — seemed incongruous at the time. Inspired by techniques used in veterinary euthanasia, lethal injection was developed. The condemned receives three products via successive intravenous injection, which put him to sleep, paralyze him and finally, stop his heart. Charles Brooks Jr., an African-American Texan condemned to death, was the first to die this way in December 1982. During the 1980s and 1990s, lethal injection was the method of choice, a true panacea. To eyewitnesses, the execution seems like a non-event. The condemned dies without moving a muscle in about 10 minutes. After the execution, the body of the condemned shows no ill effects. Lethal injection seemed to accomplish the dream of the modern executioner: a perfectly clean death.

Citing the Hippocratic Oath, Doctors Refuse To Determine the Dosages

At the beginning of the 2000s, however, dissenting voices began to emerge. Called upon by lawyers for those on death row, many medical experts questioned whether the procedure was truly painless. They stressed that if the anesthetic was improperly prepared or improperly measured, it could be ineffective. That would lead to very intense suffering after the second injection, a derivative of curare that gradually paralyzes the condemned. Furthermore, lethal injection requires medical expertise to determine the necessary dosages and to correctly install the intravenous equipment into the arms of the condemned. But American doctors, citing the Hippocratic oath, refused to take part. All they would agree to do is certify the death of the condemned.

The installation of the intravenous equipment and the dosage preparation was thus entrusted to prison personnel who were educated in medical techniques. But in some states, this training was found insufficient. In 2006, federal Judge Jeremy Fogel in California determined that prison staff did not know how to prepare the anesthetic and that the doses that were used were approximate. Between 2001 and 2005, several people in California who were executed suffered greatly. Judge Fogel stopped California’s three-drug executions in 2006.

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court finally intervened in the debate. In the case Baze v. Rees, the Court determined that lethal injection was constitutional. For the justices, nothing in the Constitution or in the common law guaranteed condemned persons a painless execution. Other justices stressed that those opposed to lethal injections did not show sufficient evidence of the barbaric effects of lethal injection. The years that followed, however, have seen many important developments. For one thing, pancuronium bromide, the derivative of curare that could cause major suffering if the anesthetic doesn’t work, has largely been abandoned. For another thing, many states have moved to lethal injection by one injection only, killing the condemned by a massive injection of a barbiturate. This method of putting one to death takes much longer, but it seems to guarantee an execution without physical pain.

The fight against the death penalty in the United States has also had some notable successes. It has been abolished in Illinois, New Mexico and New Jersey. Its abolition is receiving serious discussion in Washington state and in New Hampshire. But the progress is slow and difficult. In November 2012, Californians rejected abolishing the death penalty, with those in favor of keeping it constituting 52 percent of the vote. Above all, in the South, nothing seems to be able to stop the executioner. In southern states, attorneys and abolitionists have only succeeded in slowing the rate of executions, not stopping them entirely.

Recently, a call for transparency regarding execution procedures has produced many stays of executions from the federal judiciary. Traditionally, the prison administrators in charge of executions kept the process very secret. But in the United States, the press’s right to cover judicial and prison affairs has always been recognized. It is hardly possible for the states to hide what products they use for their executions and where they get them. In Oklahoma, however, confusion reigned until the end on this point. After this failed execution, it’s a safe bet that Governor Mary Fallin’s investigation will provide insight into how the concoction injected into the condemned man was prepared and implemented.