In a splintered and chaotic decision

the US supreme court again opened the floodgate

that has been holding back the death penalty,

ruling that lethal injections as currently administered

were not unconstitutional despite causing great suffering

This January 1996 file photo provided by the California
Department of Corrections shows the entrance to
the execution chamber and the lethal injection table
at California's San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, Calif.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the Wednesday, April 16, 2008,
U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow lethal injections
for death row inmates affirms California's capital
punishment procedure and would allow executions to resume.

3,263 Prisoners Facing Death

The paralytic drug is used in standard human execution so the death would be less difficult to watch.

"The reason we use the paralytic drug in human execution is because the people watching the execution don't want to see the twitching. It's about our sensibility."

The US supreme court has ruled that

lethal injection does not violate the constitution

States are now competing to reschedule delayed executions

Yesterday, in a splintered and chaotic decision producing seven separate (and occasionally vitriolic) opinions from the nine justices, the US supreme court again opened the floodgate that has been holding back the death penalty, ruling that lethal injections as currently administered were not unconstitutional.

This judgment (pdf) came despite ample evidence that the cocktail of drugs used to kill people can cause great suffering.

As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissenting from the ruling, wrote, "it is undisputed that the second and third drugs used in Kentucky's three-drug lethal injection protocol, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, would cause a conscious inmate to suffer excruciating pain".

Because the pancuronium bromide simply paralyses him, a condemned prisoner cannot "scream after the second drug is injected, no matter how much pain he is experiencing".

Criticisms by the dissenting justices are buttressed by the British veterinarians' decision four decades ago, joined more recently by their American counterparts, to ban the use of similar drugs when putting down a dog.

Indeed, Justice Stevens wondered whether society could really allow a state to kill its prisoners "using a drug that it would not permit to be used on ... pets."

Unfortunately, other justices felt that the pancuronium bromide was justifiable to preserve "the dignity of the procedure ... "

It is, in other words, an Ostrich drug, used to prevent witnesses from seeing the victim's suffering. This somehow delivers a "dignified" death and allows those who run the system to stick their heads in the sand once again.

All this tinkering with the mechanism of death finally persuaded Justice John Stevens, an octogenarian who has wrestled with the issue for decades, to give up on the death penalty altogether.

He stated that "the imposition of the death penalty represents the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes.

A penalty with such negligible returns to the state [is] patently excessive and cruel and unusual punishment violative of the eighth amendment"

Yet, with states competing to reschedule executions, Stevens' belated and isolated conversion will be of little solace to the 3,263 prisoners who now face death at the hands of the authorities once again.

"You Wouldn't Put Down a Dog This Way"

An official at Boalt Hall School of Law Death Penalty Clinic released a study finding that the majority of states ban the use of a drug for lethal injection on animals, although that drug is still used in human lethal injection.

Forty-two out of 50 states have banned the use of the paralyzing agent in animal euthanasia, instead giving the animal barbiturates until it dies.

But the same paralyzing drug that was banned on animals is still used for human lethal injection, with some saying the process is inhumane.

"(This study) reinforces the idea that the states are using a dangerous drug unnecessarily," said Ty Alper, the clinic's associate director.

"They are using a drug that has been banned in the veterinary community for decades and they are ignoring a readily available alternative method of lethal injection."

The standard lethal injection process for humans is a three-drug combination, which includes the paralyzing agent, administered sequentially.

"The first drug anesthetizes, rendering the patient unconscious so they don't feel the second and third drug," said Elisabeth Semel, clinical professor of law and director of the clinic.

The second drug is used to paralyze the person after they are unconscious, while the third then kills the person.

But if the first drug is not administered properly, the person will be conscious when the second and third drugs are administered, Semel said, meaning the patient could feel the pain from the last drug without being able to move.

That paralyzing drug had been removed from the veterinary standards for euthanasia so that the veterinarians could make sure the animals have been rendered unconscious.

"This is a procedure of overdose of anesthetic. It's the procedure that every major animal welfare organization advocates, and in many cases, require for animal euthanasia," Alper said.

Some said the ban was placed upon animal lethal injections because it was determined as safer for them.

"The veterinarians say they don't want to use this paralytic drug because they want to ensure that the animal is not properly anesthetized," Semel said.

Some said the drug was used in standard human execution so the death would be less difficult to watch.

"The reason we use the paralytic drug in human execution is because the people watching the execution don't want to see the twitching. It's about our sensibility," Semel said.

The study will be published in the May issue of the Fordham Urban Law Journal and is the first of its kind to take a nation-wide look at the ban in animal euthanasia cases.

"I know that the method the states are using is unconstitutional, and there is an alternative method that doesn't involve pain and suffering that this (current) procedure they're using does involve," Alper said.

"States can't say there is no alternative because 10 million animals are euthanized every year in a way that is more safe than the way they're executing the human being."