When Texas became the first state Dec. 7, 1982 to use lethal injection, it was the first time since the Nazi era that the medical industry was used to carry out the death penalty in the United States. When it comes to physicians taking the Hippocratic Oath, using FDA-approved drugs under doctor’s supervision violates every medial healing principle imaginable. If the state wishes to continue the death penalty, the burden should not fall on the medical community to find a humane way of killing people. Lethal injection, typically with (1) sodium thiopental or pentobarbital for anesthesia (2) pancuonium bromide to paralyze the diaphragm to stop breathing and (3) potassium chloride to stop the heart, was supposed to pass the Eight Amendment banning cruel-and-unusual punishment. Observing death row inmates executed with lethal injection show plenty of cruel-and-unusual punishment.
Watching lethal injection protocols cause a variety of adverse reactions, including coughing, choking, suffocation, seizures, discoloration, etc., suggests that the medical method of execution does not improve on more conventional methods like firing squads, hangings, electrocution, beheading or other commonly used methods of execution. When Carey Dean Moore was executed by the Nebraska Department of Corrections Aug. 14, his death took 20 minutes, treating observers to Moore’s agonizing death. Moore, age 60, spent 38 years on death row awaiting his execution. Nebraska’s Director of Corrections Scott Frakes had medical personnel use a commonly prescribed synthetic opiate painkiller Fentanyl in the execution. No one at the German drug maker Fresenius imagined that its popular painkiller would be used for lethal injection. Used to manage intolerable pain, Fentanyl was not FDA-approved for lethal injection.
Using FDA-approved drugs to carry out the death penalty runs counter to everything known about medical ethics. Latvia was the last European country in 2012 to abolish the death penalty, jointing 29 European Union countries in saying enough-is-enough. No one witnessed the horrors of Nazi Xyklon gas exterminations more than Europeans in WW II. While there are clear differences between the U.S. and EU, the death penalty issue is not today’s debate. What’s at stake today is continuing to use the medical-pharmaceutical industry to carry out the death penalty. Not only does the lethal injection protocol not meet the Eighth Amendment standard, it’s ethically reprehensible to use medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists or an health care workers to perform lethal injections. It’s high time for the courts to take a new look at the constitutionality of death by lethal injection.
Whether or not the EU looks at the U.S. as barbaric is not relevant. What the U.S. must face is that it’s medically-engineered, preferred method of execution is neither effective nor ethically justifiable. “I recognize that today’s execution impacts many people on many levels,” said Frakes, responding to complaints about the 20 minutes of apparent agony before Moore was pronounced dead at 10:47 AM. Saying the execution was done with “professionalism, respect for the process and dignity for all involved,” Frakes showed he’s blind to the issues. No death process should take 20 minutes, visibly showing an inmate suffer. Debating whether he suffered or not, Frakes thinks it’s professional to let the prison’s medical personnel carry out the execution. No prison director can evaluate the “professionalism or dignity” of lethal injection. That determination is left to the courts.
Hospice nurses have long known about using a intravenous [IV] morphine drips to end the lives of terminally ill patients. That process can take days or weeks depending on the morphine-drip dosage. Comparing prison lethal-injection staff to hospice workers underscores the fact that Nebraska prison personnel used Fentanyl, an FDA-approved opiate painkiller to complete Moore’s execution. Taking over 20 minutes to carry out a death sentence with “professionalism and dignity” does not meet the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel-and-unusual punishment. Poisons like hemlock or cyanide have been used for centuries for executions but not under medical supervision. Today’s use of medical technology to use accelerated intravenous methods to deliver poisons raises inescapable ethical concerns. No physician or medical personnel should be required to perform lethal injections.
Time has come to reexamine the use of lethal injections, now that it’s clear that there are too many mishaps with IV medications, depending on individual physiology and body chemistry. Whether admitted to or not by state executioners, they have no clue what they’re doing or, for that matter, what happens to prisoners once administered lethal injections. Using an FDA painkiller like Fentanyl shows that the standard drug protocols are simply not reliable enough to use for lethal injection. Expecting doctors to use FDA-approved medications to administer lethal injections runs counter to every known principle of medical ethics. If the state wishes to continue the death penalty, it needs to stop using medical personnel to perform lethal injections and go back to the more hideous methods. If the state can’t stomach alternative methods of execution, it’s time consider banning capital punishment.
