Supreme Court Allows Use of Execution Drug

[onehandle]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Monday against three death row inmates who had sought to bar the use of an execution drug they said risked causing excruciating pain.

The drug, the sedative midazolam, played a part in three long and apparently painful executions last year. It was used in an effort to render inmates unconscious before they were injected with other, severely painful drugs.

Four condemned inmates in Oklahoma challenged the use of the drug, saying it did not reliably render the person unconscious and so violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Lower courts disagreed.

Oklahoma and several other states started to use midazolam in executions after manufacturers in Europe and the United States refused to sell them the barbiturates that were traditionally used to produce unconsciousness.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/us/supreme-court-execution-drug.html

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Figures Alito would write this decision. Mr. 'shakes his head at the President' is a monster.

Anyway, execution and prisons are big business. The conservative majority rules for profit, again.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. not surprising. The courts have accepted barbarity as usual for a very long time.

[geek tragedy]

2. Just bring back firing squads. Or hire a professional beheaded from Saudi Arabia.

The death penalty is violence, it's killing a human being.

Lethal injection is about sanitizing the process, no icky blood to make a mess, etc.

If people want the death penalty, make it as painless as possible for the person on the wrong end of the sentence, and as uncomfortable as possible for the society enforcing it.

[KansDem]

6. "...hire a professional beheaded from Saudi Arabia."

Would an H-1B visa be required?

"...bring back firing squads."

Actually, this is doable. When Gary Gilmore was executed in Utah in 1976, there were more than enough volunteers for the firing squad--

But when Utah executed a Death Row inmate by firing squad four decades ago, citizens felt very differently about it. In 1976, when Gary Mark Gilmore was sentenced to death by firing squad, TIME reported that dozens of men were calling the Utah state prison warden asking to be one of the shooters. Gilmore, then 35, was a long-time resident of criminal-justice institutions, starting with a reformatory at age 14; in 1975, he killed a gas-station attendant and a motel clerk, apparently without motive. And, when his lawyers appealed, he tried to force them not to. His execution was to be the nation’s first after the Supreme Court lifted a decade-long moratorium on the death penalty.

Time

Utah uses five shooters.

[Retrograde]

19. Guillotine: quick and mostly foolproof

Extremely messy, but if you're going to have the death penalty you might as well go all-out.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

3. Then up the dosage you lamebrains!

If you make it big enough they will go unconscious. Make it bigger and they will die a peaceful death. But, I guess they want them to suffer.

Inject 100mg of Lorazapam into the blood stream. Patient passes out immediately. Dead about a half hour later. No pain whatsoever. But I guess they want them to suffer.

[yeoman6987]

7. The conservatives are disgusting

They recommend doing the procedure that a late term abortion does. I hate them because they are clueless.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

13. I think we all agree that Republicans threaten the very existence of the US.

[groundloop]

4. It's totally sickening that a 'civilized' society still executes prisoners

[davidn3600]

5. We aren't as advanced a society as we like to think we are

We're decades behind the modern world.

[Kevonio]

8. Why is Alito in your view the only "monster"?

Is Scalia not a monster?

[uppityperson]

9. Alito wrote the decision. Who said Alito is the "only" monster?

[cyberswede]

22. You know anyone can reply to anyone else on a message board, right?

Your question to onehandle is fallacious, which is probably why he didn't reply to you.

[maveric]

10. Why cant they use heroin?

One hot shot and they are gone.

[Nevada Blue]

12. maveric, I was just going to suggest that. 1 big painless shot and gone.

[7962]

11. What is used to put down animals?

We'd never allow our pets to suffer when they have to be put down, so why not use whatever THAT drug is ata higher dose?
How about carbon monoxide? They call it the "silent killer" because you dont know you're going to die. Why not use that?

[Fluothane]

16. alternatives

I think the problem is not necessarily the dose, but more related to the "practitioner" that is administering the drug. Many of these "botched" cases are a result of the drugs not being administered intravenously. Intramuscular or intradermal injections of midazolam and hydromorphone are not too painful, however IM potassium feels like FIRE. Nurses and physician are not the ones starting the intravenous lines. It is typically just some dude off the street who watched a youtube video and now he is the new director of the prison IV/PICC team. Occasionally paramedics are used, but I question how often they actually starting IV's outside of that setting.

A nitrogen gas chamber is a much more humane way to kill these people in states that feel the need to do this sort of thing. It is painless, quick and removes the question of whether or not you have a working IV. I would also bet that it would save the state money as nitrogen is obviously readily available.

[7962]

21. Good idea. MAkes a lot of sense. And while I know you're being serious,

I busted out laughing at this line:"...typically just some dude off the street who watched a youtube video and now he is the new director of the prison IV/PICC team"
That was gold.

[d_legendary1]

14. The fact that they were debating how to kill someone

is chilling

[jomin41]

15. We HAVE to kill these people to

demonstrate the sanctity of life! Don't you see?

[LiberalLovinLug]

17. In other news...

ISIS has decided after beheading, fire, crucifixion, and drowning, that they have decided to ....not change anything either.