Missouri executed four people in 2023. Amber McLaughlin, Michael Tisius, Johnny Johnson and Leonard Taylor, who maintained that he was innocent, all died by lethal injection. The state is one of five in the country that carried out executions last year.
An attorney for a man scheduled to be executed in April says Missouri’s protocols present a “substantial risk of serious, torturous, physical and psychological pain.”
Brian Dorsey is scheduled to die by lethal injection on April 9. The 51 year old was convicted in the 2006 killing of his cousin Sarah Bonnie and her husband Ben Bonnie in central Missouri.
Federal Public Defender Arin Melissa Brenner raised several objections in a complaint filed Friday seeking an injunction by the Eastern District of Missouri. In the court filing, Brenner writes that the Missouri Department of Corrections’ two-page execution protocol is vague and that several of the guidelines violate Dorsey’s constitutional rights.
Missouri has ramped up its use of the death penalty, executing four people last year. It is one of six states with executions scheduled this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The state uses the drug pentobarbital for its executions. Once administered, the drug can induce pulmonary edema — where a frothy fluid leaks into lung tissue and airways — causing the sensation of drowning. It occurs “virtually immediately” and before a person given a high dose becomes unresponsive, the court filing said.
Brenner argues that the state’s protocols violate protections against cruel and unusual punishment. She also says the protocols do not include any safeguards for the pentobarbital’s manufacturing, testing or storage. The execution team can also use a “cut down.” The procedure involves cutting into the person to set an IV line, causing “excruciating pain.”
According to the complaint, an anesthetic is not administered and the policy does not limit the number of times the team can attempt to set the line. Executions have been considered botched or even called off due to difficulties setting an IV line, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Without pain medication, Brenner says Dorsey would be prevented “from having any meaningful spiritual discussion or participation in his last religious rites with his spiritual advisor,” which would violate his right to exercise his religious beliefs.
Dorsey will have a minister with him during the execution, a right that was extended by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022.
In a statement to The Star, Brenner said she hopes Missouri sees the latest litigation as an opportunity to put more humane practices in place. “There is simply no justification for some of its actions, which cause excruciating pain, including just moments before a person must engage in the most important spiritual and religious practices of their lives – preparing their souls for the afterlife,” she said.
The Missouri Attorney General’s Office and the Missouri Department of Corrections did not respond to emailed questions.
Source:
kansascity.com, Katie Moore, February 13, 2024
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