Nebraska: 3-drug combo is execution cocktail

Nebraska corrections officials propose to execute condemned prisoners with a 3-drug combination.

The drugs would be the same used in all other states that carry out the death penalty by lethal injection an anesthetic, a paralyzing agent and a drug to stop the prisoner's heart.

Death penalty critics attack the drugs, saying they can cause prisoners to suffer and that veterinarians have rejected using them to euthanize animals.

But the three-drug protocol is outlined in draft rules and regulations for Nebraska executions officials released Monday.

The proposed rules would carry out the state's new lethal injection law. A public hearing is set for Nov. 16 at the State Office Building in Lincoln.

Robert Houston, director of corrections, said staffers who developed the draft protocol did not consider other drugs.

"Those are the most accepted," he said. "We believe that that protocol follows state law and reflects the best procedures from around the country."

But Mike Nelsen, an Omaha attorney who has defended people on death row, predicted that the protocol would become an immediate target for legal action:

"This will prompt a substantial legal challenge, and the state will spend money needlessly that they could spend on other things."

Nelsen said a botched execution in Ohio this month illustrates some of the problems with lethal injection.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland ordered a halt to the execution of Romell Broom, 53, on Sept. 15 after technicians tried for 2 hours to get an intravenous line started. Appeals are pending on whether the state can try again.

Houston said Nebraska officials would study the Ohio case in hopes of avoiding similar problems.

The state's draft protocol calls for a team of at least 12 people to carry out an execution.

None would have to be licensed health care professionals, although two team members would have to get training as emergency medical technicians and in drawing blood and starting IV lines.

The execution team would include the department director, the Nebraska State Penitentiary warden, the penitentiary staff communicator, at least seven people to escort the prisoner and a 2-person IV team. The IV team is to start an intravenous line and administer the drugs when the director orders.

The draft rules spell out the order and dosage of the drugs.

The warden is to do consciousness checks after the 1st drug is administered. The checks are to determine whether the prisoner is anesthetized before giving the 2nd drug, a paralyzing agent.

Houston said he expects to draw the team members from among corrections staff.

Nebraska was the last death penalty state to adopt lethal injection as its method of execution. State lawmakers approved the change earlier this year.

The Nebraska Supreme Court had declared the previous method of execution the electric chair to be cruel and unusual punishment in March 2008.

Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty is studying the draft protocol and won't have specific comments until later, said Jill Francke, the group's statewide coordinator.

But, she said, the state's proposal doesn't address major flaws in the death penalty process.

"We certainly don't see this as any sort of improvement to fix a system that is clearly broken," Francke said.

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said the state learned from others in crafting its lethal injection protocol.

It also has the benefit of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that upheld Kentucky's lethal injection law. The 2 dissenting judges in the case recommended the consciousness checks.

Bruning said he expects the rule-making process to be completed "within the next few months." By law, the attorney general and governor have to review and approve the rules.

Source: Omaha World-Herald, Sept. 29, 2009

Comments

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

Japan: Capital punishment for a minor

Death chamber at Tokyo Detention Center The Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold the death sentence given in a lay judge trial to a 24-year-old man for murders he committed when he was a minor raises questions about the lay judge trial system and capital punishment. These include whether the lay judges correctly understood the spirit of the Juvenile Law in sentencing the defendant to death. It was the 1st death sentence handed down on a minor in a lay judge trial. The murders took place in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, in 2010 when Yutaro Chiba was 18 - meaning he fell under the purview of the Juvenile Law. Chiba was convicted of entering his ex-girlfriend's house and stabbing to death the girl's sister and a female friend of the girl with a butcher knife, seriously injuring a male friend of the sister and abducting the girl. Prosecutors said Chiba killed the victims because they were trying to separate him and his former girlfriend. Since Chiba pleaded n...

Texas: The inmates who refused to die quietly and had to be gassed out of their cells before execution

Former crime reporter Michelle Lyons, who witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, reveals the desperate acts of death row prisoners who refused to accept their fate After spending years or often decades locked up in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day, most Death Row inmates go willingly to their executions. However, some refuse to die quietly - with officers forced to gas them out of cells, strap up their heads and even give chase across prison grounds. Michelle Lyons, who has witnessed nearly 300 executions in Texas, US, exclusively tells Sun Online how certain inmates "fight like hell" in their last moments. On most occasions, Michelle watched from the witness area, with the killers already on the gurney - the stretcher where they'd be given a lethal injection. Seven prisoners once tried to escape from the Row in Huntsville - with one shoving magazines and newspapers under his clothes to help him roll over razor-wire fences. Others have had to b...

Florida executes Dennis Sochor

Man, 74, becomes oldest inmate executed in Florida in state’s 10th lethal injection this year Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was 1 of 3 older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state. Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He was convicted of killing a woman on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.

Oldest inmate set to be executed in Florida will face strict spending limit for final meal

An entire category of food is also off-limits for final meal requests in Florida Florida is currently preparing to execute its oldest inmate later today (July 14), a 74-year-old convicted murderer who has been on death row since the 1980s—but his final meal will be limited by a strict budget. Dennis Sochor is scheduled to be put to death later today, making history as the oldest inmate to ever be executed in the state. The criminal, who has been on death row for nearly 40 years, will be administered the lethal three-drug injection, with the process due to begin at around 6pm.

Florida to execute William Silvia for 2006 shooting murder of wife

William Silvia, convicted of the 2006 shooting murder of his wife, Patricia, is scheduled to die by lethal injection in August, according to a death warrant filed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on July 17. If all previously scheduled executions go as planned, Silvia will be the 13th person put to death in Florida this year, following a record-breaking 19 executions in 2025. Silvia, now 61, went to his estranged wife's mother's house in Seminole County to attempt to reconcile with her, but first he calmly bought a 12-gauge shotgun and ammunition, prosecutors said. After talking to Patricia Silvia, Silvia got the shotgun from his truck, shot her mother, Betty Woodard, in the face, and fatally shot Patricia in the head, court records show. Woodard, who was standing in front of her daughter, lost her left eye and the top portion of her nose.

Idaho | Death row prisoners sue over state's new firing squad

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – Days after Idaho made the switch to a firing squad for executions, two Idaho death row prisoners next in line to be put to death sued the state prison system, saying its director withheld information about how she settled on the specifics for carrying out the method. Attorneys for prisoners Thomas Creech and Gerald Pizzuto filed suit this week in state district court against Idaho Department of Correction Director Bree Derrick. In the filing, they called her approval of an updated standard operating procedure for the firing squad and lethal injection as a backup method “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion and in excess of the statutory authority of the agency.”

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog