Sunday, April 24, 2011
Illinois abolishes death penalty
From The Hindu
Illinois became the 16th State of the United States to abolish the death penalty when its Governor, Pat Quinn, announced the decision on Wednesday.
Mr. Quinn, a former supporter of capital punishment, said he believed a ban on the death penalty was justified so long as it was “impossible to devise a system that is consistent, that is free of discrimination on the basis of race, geography or economic circumstance, and that always gets it right.”
Commenting on how the innocent are sometimes placed on death row and executed Mr. Quinn noted that since 1977, Illinois had seen 20 people exonerated from death row, a record that said “should trouble us all.”
The Governor said because the criminal justice system was “broken” in this regard he would also be commuting the sentences of those currently on death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or release.
He also said that there was no credible evidence that the death penalty had a deterrent effect on the crime of murder and that the “enormous sums” expended by the State in maintaining a death penalty system would be better spent on preventing crime and assisting victims' families in overcoming their pain and grief.
Anticipating some of the ire likely to come his way for the abolition of the death penalty he said that he had heard from family members who lost loved ones to murder that “maintaining a flawed death penalty system will not bring back their loved ones, will not help them to heal and will not bring closure to their pain.”
Mr. Quinn's action comes even as numerous U.S. states are experimenting with the cocktail of lethal drugs delivered to execute inmates. In particular the Oklahoma State Penitentiary used a veterinary anaesthetic drug called pentobarbital, more commonly used to put down dogs, to execute John Duty (58 last December.
This method of execution, which has fuelled debates on the death penalty constituting “cruel and unusual punishment,” followed after the sole manufacturer of barbiturate sodium thiopental in the United States, a company called Hospira, ran out of stock earlier last year and said that it did not expect to resume production until 2011.
Illinois became the 16th State of the United States to abolish the death penalty when its Governor, Pat Quinn, announced the decision on Wednesday.
Mr. Quinn, a former supporter of capital punishment, said he believed a ban on the death penalty was justified so long as it was “impossible to devise a system that is consistent, that is free of discrimination on the basis of race, geography or economic circumstance, and that always gets it right.”
Commenting on how the innocent are sometimes placed on death row and executed Mr. Quinn noted that since 1977, Illinois had seen 20 people exonerated from death row, a record that said “should trouble us all.”
The Governor said because the criminal justice system was “broken” in this regard he would also be commuting the sentences of those currently on death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or release.
He also said that there was no credible evidence that the death penalty had a deterrent effect on the crime of murder and that the “enormous sums” expended by the State in maintaining a death penalty system would be better spent on preventing crime and assisting victims' families in overcoming their pain and grief.
Anticipating some of the ire likely to come his way for the abolition of the death penalty he said that he had heard from family members who lost loved ones to murder that “maintaining a flawed death penalty system will not bring back their loved ones, will not help them to heal and will not bring closure to their pain.”
Mr. Quinn's action comes even as numerous U.S. states are experimenting with the cocktail of lethal drugs delivered to execute inmates. In particular the Oklahoma State Penitentiary used a veterinary anaesthetic drug called pentobarbital, more commonly used to put down dogs, to execute John Duty (58 last December.
This method of execution, which has fuelled debates on the death penalty constituting “cruel and unusual punishment,” followed after the sole manufacturer of barbiturate sodium thiopental in the United States, a company called Hospira, ran out of stock earlier last year and said that it did not expect to resume production until 2011.
Labels: capital punishment, Illinois
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Oklahoma Penitentiary uses animal drug to execute inmate
From The Hindu
The Oklahoma State Penitentiary has used a veterinary anaesthetic drug called pentobarbital, more commonly used to put down dogs, to execute John Duty (58), a prisoner on death row.
In a development that is likely to fuel the ongoing arguments on whether the lethal injection method of execution constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment,” the state used the animal drug in place of sodium thiopental, one of the three chemicals injected as part of the procedure.
Duty was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. eastern standard time according to Jerry Massie, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. He had been sentenced to death for strangling his cellmate, Curtis Wise, back in 2001.
Earlier this year the sole manufacturer of sodium thiopental in the United States, a company called Hospira, ran out of stock and said that it did not expect to resume production until 2011.
Last month Oklahoma state lawyers petitioned U.S. courts for use of the veterinary euthanasia drug in place of sodium thiopental, describing it as “an ideal anaesthetic agent for humane euthanasia in animals,” and not substantially different to sodium thiopental, according to reports. On November 19, Oklahoma federal judge Stephen Friot authorised the state’s use of the drug.
However numerous capital punishment specialists were reported to have warned that pentobarbital “had not been properly vetted and might not keep inmates unconscious during the more painful subsequent injections that kill them.”
In particular Duty’s lawyers had argued that that he would be used as a “guinea pig” in an experiment with the animal anaesthetic. While the anaesthetic is administered first, to cause unconsciousness, pancuronium bromide is then administered to induce paralysis, and finally potassium chloride is injected to stop the heart from beating.
In a different case, the Guardian newspaper reported, post-mortem examinations of three recent executions in Tennessee showed that there was “insufficient anaesthetic in the prisoner’s bloodstream: he was not rendered unconscious.” The newspaper said that in those cases the inmates did not die painlessly but “slowly suffocated as the other drugs took effect, an excruciating death.”
This year the debate surrounding the shortage of sodium thiopental spilled over international borders as well, with the United Kingdom coming in for a barrage of criticism from death penalty abolitionists in Europe, for exporting sodium thiopental to authorities in Arizona, who subsequently used them to execute another inmate, Jeffrey Landrigan.
The Oklahoma State Penitentiary has used a veterinary anaesthetic drug called pentobarbital, more commonly used to put down dogs, to execute John Duty (58), a prisoner on death row.
In a development that is likely to fuel the ongoing arguments on whether the lethal injection method of execution constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment,” the state used the animal drug in place of sodium thiopental, one of the three chemicals injected as part of the procedure.
Duty was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. eastern standard time according to Jerry Massie, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. He had been sentenced to death for strangling his cellmate, Curtis Wise, back in 2001.
Earlier this year the sole manufacturer of sodium thiopental in the United States, a company called Hospira, ran out of stock and said that it did not expect to resume production until 2011.
Last month Oklahoma state lawyers petitioned U.S. courts for use of the veterinary euthanasia drug in place of sodium thiopental, describing it as “an ideal anaesthetic agent for humane euthanasia in animals,” and not substantially different to sodium thiopental, according to reports. On November 19, Oklahoma federal judge Stephen Friot authorised the state’s use of the drug.
However numerous capital punishment specialists were reported to have warned that pentobarbital “had not been properly vetted and might not keep inmates unconscious during the more painful subsequent injections that kill them.”
In particular Duty’s lawyers had argued that that he would be used as a “guinea pig” in an experiment with the animal anaesthetic. While the anaesthetic is administered first, to cause unconsciousness, pancuronium bromide is then administered to induce paralysis, and finally potassium chloride is injected to stop the heart from beating.
In a different case, the Guardian newspaper reported, post-mortem examinations of three recent executions in Tennessee showed that there was “insufficient anaesthetic in the prisoner’s bloodstream: he was not rendered unconscious.” The newspaper said that in those cases the inmates did not die painlessly but “slowly suffocated as the other drugs took effect, an excruciating death.”
This year the debate surrounding the shortage of sodium thiopental spilled over international borders as well, with the United Kingdom coming in for a barrage of criticism from death penalty abolitionists in Europe, for exporting sodium thiopental to authorities in Arizona, who subsequently used them to execute another inmate, Jeffrey Landrigan.
Labels: capital punishment, death sentence, human rights abuse
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