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Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual

By Last Night in Little Rock, Section Death Penalty
Posted on Fri Jul 08, 2005 at 08:18:10 AM EST
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by Last Night in Little Rock

CNN reports today that a Kentucky trial judge upheld lethal injection as a form of execution, as long as the state does not use the jugular vein if another vein is not available.

While upholding lethal injection, the judge said the state should not be allowed to administer the fatal drugs through an intravenous catheter stuck into the prisoner's jugular vein, in the neck, if no suitable veins can be found in the arms or legs.

He said it was unconstitutionally cruel and should be removed from the process. Officials said they had already removed that step as an option.

Unless somebody has witnessed an execution, one cannot say that even lethal injection is completely painless. I've watched two clients die, and the experience never leaves you. They gasp for air and their face turns gray as life slips away. 'They' say it is peaceful, but it isn't. Why anybody would volunteer to witness an execution is beyond me. I did it because I was obligated to as counsel and among the last friend the clients seemingly had.

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    Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual | 20 comments (20 topical)
    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#1)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    Hmm. Since whatever is cruel about this "punishment" can never be known by a living person, since it takes place inside the otherwise relatively calm exterior of the condemned. This is a ruling made, obviously, on nothing more than a perception that it's nicer looking that the electric chair, gas chamber, gallows or firing squad. But it's perception only. Since action information could only come from contacting a dead person. It looks nice and neat and clean, so it can't be cruel and unusual. That's seems the depth of thinking here.

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#2)
    by roy on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    There are, or at least can be, objective measures of the cruelty. A neurologist could tell you whether the brain registers pain during the process. I don't know if they asked a neurologist, but the information is out there. Psychologically, even when everything works right, it must be terrifying to feel yourself slipping away to anathesia, knowing its the last time. It seems to me that we should offer the crook the chance to be doped up at the execution. Alcohol, heroin, whatever. I've heard that meth creates a feeling of indestructability, which would be ideal. Then execute them by dropping a large, very heavy object on them from a great height. I'm thinking a slab of steel, sliding down rails so it crushes the person uniformly. From a sufficient height, the nervous system should be (pardon the graphic language) squished to a pulp before it can register pain. There would be no sensation of slipping away. It will never happen. Maybe we'd let them get drunk (can you have wine with your last meal?), but the public won't accept such a gorey method of execution. Some TL regulars are fixing to accuse me of being inflamatory for even suggesting it -- but really, I just think it's more humane than any current method.

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    roy, You had the same idea as me, but I was picturing a room where the walls slam together. Without complete obliteration of the condemned's nervous system, there will be pain. The idea of killing someone, no matter how freaks me out. I think telling someone that the state is going to kill them is cruel, for then they are just waiting for death. Maybe have a cell they live in for a period of days after the last appeal which crushes them after a random interval so that they cannot see it coming?

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    come on...BTK and the guy that kidnapped and raped Shasta and her brother deserve painful death. Lethal injection doesn't even come close to cruel and unusual (that seems to be reserved for the victims only). I remember being knocked out for operations in hospitals and they say count backwards from 100...I get to 96 and I'm out (no muss no fuss...)

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#5)
    by Beck on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    Wool, why do they deserve painful death? They are vicious, cruel people, but if a painful death is intentionally inflicted on them in our name then you and I are no better than them.

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    I've witnessed an execution by lethal injection twice in my job as Victim's right Advocate. I'm also a nurse practiioner that's worked trauma,Med surg and pysch. I was astonished at how painful and undignified these deaths were. Nothing in my 25 years as a nurse prepared me for what I saw. As mad as the victims were at the perpetrator being executed, they couldn't believe the cruelty and pain they saw. Both said "But you're just supposed to fall asleep, peacefully" Wrong, it's anything but.

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#7)
    by ras on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    To be forbidden, does a punishment have to be both cruel and unusual? Discussion of the topic often seems to focus on the first qualifier to the neglect of the second. And yet... Based on the wording, it would appear that both conditions are necessary, since the phrase could have easily been written as cruel or unusual if each category were to have been banned seperately. It wasn't. And to some extent, one can argue that all punishment is cruel, anyway; it's just a matter of degree. Moreover, punishments that are generally seen as unusual, tho not esp cruel, are usually not challenged on the basis of simply being unusual, which would further imply that the usual punishments, even if considered cruel, would also be permissible. Are there any precedents to answering this q? Is this like a Law 101 thing to those in the biz?

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#8)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    Was crucifixion unusual? Hardly. Q:The DP is... A. Not a deterrent to violent crime B. Man assuming the God role C. More expensive and more of a judicial burden than life in prison D. All of the above

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#9)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    E. The only way to ensure that he/she won't murder again.

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    F. The only way to ensure that murder continues.

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#11)
    by roy on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    E. The only way to ensure that he/she won't murder again.
    Also the only way to ensure he never rapes, or steals horses, or jaywalks again. So it's not a useful piece of information for determining right punishment vs. wrong punishment. (This is not a slipper slope argument, it's a "is it a useful discriminant" argument)

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#12)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    Not useful to you, perhaps. Murder is murder. It cannot be conflated with other crimes.

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#13)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    Sorry Todd, I missed your comment. Is your point that absent the DP murder will cease?

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#14)
    by Johnny on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    No SU, his point is that with the DP present, it serves no purpose other than costing a fortune, satisfying bloodlust on the part of old testament driven theocrats, doing nothing to bring down crime rates and in general being a pretty useless punishment. Not to mention the increasing cases of innocents being freed from death row. Everyone who supports the death penalty must believe in guilt beyond a doubt for those murdered by the state.

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#15)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    This thread isn't about the death penalty being right or wrong, it's about whether the method is 'cruel or unusual.' Just because you paralyze someone so they can't react doesn't mean they don't feel it.

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#16)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    Johnny, actually I believe that if murderers are allowed to live, more people will be murdered by them. Be they fellow inmates, guards or civilians should a murderer escape prison. With the DP, more innocent people will not die at their hands.

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#18)
    by Last Night in Little Rock on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:00 PM EST
    What is the acceptable margin of error for the death penalty? One innocent per 200 executions, 1 per 10? I met with former Gov. Ryan (R-IL) and heard his impassioned plea as a former death penalty proponent converted by the fact that half the people on Illinois' death row were demonstrably innocent. That meant to him that the entire system of the death penalty in Illinois had something seriously wrong with it, and he granted clemency to everybody on death row to life and granted some outright pardons. The greatest source of wrongful convictions in Illinois? Coerced confessions from people in Chicago that could not have committed the crime because, usually, the DNA left at the scene was not theirs. Is this "breakage" sufficient for those of you who want to kill killers? The thought of killing one innocent man or woman in the rush to execute for murder should give us all pause and make us repeal the death penalty. You can't say "I'm sorry" after the State kills the wrong person. How can a prosecutor or jury sleep with themselves after that? And what about all those years the State spent pursuing the pretend killer while the real killer is on the loose, perhaps killing again?

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#17)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:02 PM EST
    And what about innocent people that die at the State's hands, being wrongly sent to death? It happens. One of the death row prisoners involved in the KY lethal injection litigation has an actual innocence claim. Others, subject to the death penalty in other states, have even stronger actual innocence claims. Should we just continue to execute them as well?

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#19)
    by ras on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:02 PM EST
    If you had to kill one innocent person in order to save 100, would you? I oppose the death penalty myself, but there are also reasonable arguments in its favor, including just raw numbers. Killers released will kill again statistically at a rate that exceeds the number of executions made in error. Therefore, those who oppose the dp need to be prepared to answer the genuine arguments in its favor, or be complicit in its return. One answer is to lock 'em up & throw away the key. What's yours? Will it lead to less total innocent deaths?

    Re: Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:01:02 PM EST
    The opinion is more nuanced than "Cruel & Unusual" or not. The opinion finds, in fact, that at least part of the procedure (the so-called cut-down procedure) would be C&U and that the process should be shown from start to ending. The full opinion is available here. - karl

    Judge: Lethal injection not cruel, unusual | 20 comments (20 topical)