The state Supreme Court authorizes Tennessee to use a revised method of executing inmates

The state Supreme Court has authorized Tennessee to use a revised method of executing inmates, refusing to stop 2 executions including one Tuesday.

The court ruled Wednesday evening that the state has "a contingency procedure should the condemned inmate remain conscious."

Attorneys for Stephen Michael West and Billy Ray Irick had challenged the state protocol on grounds inmates might remain conscious while they were executed by lethal injection.

West is to be executed Tuesday. Irick is to be executed next month.

Earlier Wednesday, the state pledged that the warden will brush a hand over an inmate's eyelashes and gently shake the inmate to check for consciousness under a new lethal injection procedure.

Source: Associated Press, November 26, 2010

Warden to check for consciousness in TN executions

A prison warden will brush a hand over an inmate's eyelashes and gently shake the inmate to check for consciousness under a new lethal injection procedure that became necessary after a judge ruled the old one was unconstitutional, the attorney general said Wednesday.

Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman ruled last week that Tennessee's process "allows for death by suffocation while conscious," in an appeal filed by inmate Stephen Michael West, who was convicted of 2 murders in 1986. Now it will be up to the warden to make sure the condemned inmate is unconscious, including calling out the person's name.

The state Supreme Court late Wednesday said the revised method was satisfactory.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said states that have had recent legal challenges, like Ohio and California, have put in similar procedures to check consciousness.

Bonnyman's ruling paved the way for delays in West's Tuesday execution and one in December of another inmate who joined the appeal, Billy Ray Irick. With the Supreme Court's decision, the executions can go on as planned.

During the 2-day hearing last week, Bonnyman heard from medical experts and an Ohio prison official who testified about the effects of the 3 drugs used in the lethal injection procedure.

Bonnyman said in her ruling that the 5 grams of sodium thiopental, the first drug meant to render the inmate unconscious, was insufficient and said the state should adopt some method to determine whether the inmate was awake before being injected with the second drug, a paralyzing agent.

If the warden determines the inmate is unconscious following the first injection, he directs the executioner to administer the next two drugs. If the warden determines the inmate is still conscious, a second IV line will give a second dose of 5 grams of sodium thiopental. The court approved the plans.

Attorneys for West presented medical experts who testified that the autopsies of three executed Tennessee inmates showed concentrations of the two of the drugs were too low to knock the person out.

State attorneys argued the levels found in an inmate's body hours or sometimes days after the execution wasn't reliable to determine consciousness.

West was convicted in the 1986 stabbing deaths of Wanda Romines and her 15-year-old daughter, Sheila Romines, in Union County.

Source: Associated Press, November 26, 2010

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