Foreseeable Risk: Lethal Injection and the Three-Drug Protocol

Since the Supreme Court’s decisions in Nelson v. Campbell and Hill v. McDonough, civil rights lawsuits across the country have uncovered information about the administration of lethal injection and have highlighted the risks inherent in lethal injection procedures as currently practiced. Litigation has revealed that most jurisdictions use the same three-drug protocol, even though it is well known that the second and third drugs put the inmate who is being executed at risk of consciously experiencing paralysis, suffocation, and excruciating pain if he is not adequately anesthetized by the first drug. The cases also have revealed that lethal injections frequently are performed by non-medical personnel who lack the training necessary to carry out an execution that does not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.” The absence of trained personnel exacerbates the foreseeable risks inherent in the three-drug protocol. Indeed, the risks associated with the three-drug protocol and its administration by untrained personnel have become realities in botched executions that have occurred across the country.

Under the three-drug protocol, the inmate is first administered sodium thiopental, an anesthetic that is intended to cause unconsciousness. Sodium thiopental is known as an ultra-short-acting barbiturate because it has a rapid onset, and its effects in surgical doses are shorter-lasting than other barbiturates. The second drug is pancuronium bromide. It causes paralysis of all muscles, including the diaphragm, which controls breathing. Pancuronium bromide is not a sedative and does not affect the ability to feel pain. If the individual is not unconscious when this drug is administered, he will, over the course of several minutes, experience the physical and psychological agony of suffocation. However, because he is paralyzed, the inmate cannot convey the fact that he is suffocating to death. The third drug is potassium chloride, which is intended to bring about death by causing cardiac arrest. There is no medical dispute that, if an individual is not unconscious, the intravenous injection of this drug causes excruciating pain, likened to setting one’s veins on fire. Click here to read this feature in full.

Source : lethalinjection.org