In a recent op-ed in the UK newspaper The Guardian, anti-death-penalty attorney Clive Stafford Smith does a very good job of examining some of the problems with the death penalty in the U.S.
An excerpt:
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For the last 12 years, I have delighted in the companionship of a golden retriever, rescued from neglect as a puppy. He is the most amiable dog in the world. He is getting on in years, and I know that in the not too distant future a vet is going to encourage me to have him put down. I hope it never comes to this, but at least when we put animals down the injection administered by the vet will not contain the drug potassium chloride, as it has been found to cause intense pain unless the animal is deeply unconscious.
This is not a reassurance that I can offer to my clients on death row.
The lethal cocktail administered in 37 US states and by the federal government to prisoners condemned to death typically does include potassium chloride, despite years of criticism. This drug is preceded by an anaesthetic and then a drug that paralyses the prisoner's muscles. I suspect this is done more to make society feel better rather than the prisoner. They used to cover the face of the electric chair's victim with a leather mask and strap him in so tightly that he could not writhe - not for the benefit of the prisoner, but for the witnesses. With lethal injection, if the prisoner did not feel pain, there would be little point paralysing him, which begs a very troubling question.
Surely the world's most "civilised" nation, which promotes its "compassionate conservatism", would ensure that the anaesthetic was sufficient? Well, actually, no, it doesn't. Death penalty lawyers have been systematically challenging the use of lethal injection recently, as the US has failed to come up with a "kinder, gentler" way to kill people. Human Rights Watch reports that, in fact, prisons do not permit anyone to monitor whether the anaesthetic has been effectively administered during an execution. Anaesthesia is a complex science, affected by the condemned prisoner's weight, his history of intravenous drug use, the blocking ability of the paralysing agent, and many other factors. Once again, the vets are doing a better job here, as guidelines require any veterinarian to do a hands-on check of the depth of anaesthesia before any painful procedure is commenced.
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