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
Thursday, June 10, 2010
India among the least peaceful places
From The Hindu
India is among the least peaceful of major countries in the world and is getting even less peaceful year on year.
This was the major finding of the Global Peace Index (GPI) Report an annual publication by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), a global think tank focused on researching the relationship between economics, business and peace.
According to the 2010 report, which considered a range of peace-related variables among 149 countries, India’s rank was 128, six ranks lower than its 2009 position.
Some of India’s key neighbours in South Asia ranked in the bottom 20 per cent along with India — Sri Lanka was ranked 133rd, Pakistan 145th, Afghanistan 147th. However, Nepal did much better, ranked in 82nd place and Bangladesh in 87th. Bhutan, ranked at 36th, narrowly missed being in the top 20 per cent of nations.
Commenting on the results, the IEP said, “South Asia saw the greatest decrease in peacefulness, as a result of increased involvement in conflicts, a rise in deaths from internal conflict and human rights abuses. It added, “The main countries experiencing decreases in peacefulness were India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.”
The report’s authors also observed that, overall, the world became “slightly less peaceful in the past year”, adding that in some nations, an intensification of conflicts and growing instability appears to be linked to the global economic downturn in late 2008 and early 2009.
Hinting at the possibility that rapid development might have brought more conflict in its wake the IEP also noted, “Three BRIC countries — Russia (143), India (128) and China (80) — saw substantial declines in peacefulness.” However Brazil’s score remained essentially stable (83) compared to the 2009 Index.
While most developed countries including those of Western Europe and Canada, ranked in the top 20 per cent of peaceful nations, the United States was an anomaly in this regard, ranking at 85th, outranked by countries such as Rwanda, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Ranked low in Asia-Pacific region
India also ranked 19th out of 25 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The leader in the region, New Zealand, was also the most peaceful nation globally. Close on its heels were Iceland and Japan. Iraq was estimated to be the least peaceful among all countries, accompanied at the bottom of the table by Somalia, Afghanistan and Sudan.
The identification and weighting of indicators in the GPI, which is compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, was undertaken by an international panel of experts in the study of peace.
“How peaceful a country is depends on the internal structures, institutions, and attitudes that sustain and promote peace as well as on external factors,” said Clyde McConaghy, board director of the IEP.
He added, “This year’s top five countries, and more peaceful countries in general, have certain things in common: well functioning governments, stable business environments, respect for human rights, low levels of corruption, high rates of participation in education, and freedom of information.”
Labels: civil unrest, global peace index, GPI, human rights abuse, terrorism
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