Revamped lethal injection room
IN PHOTO: An undated handout photo of the revamped lethal injection room at San Quentin State Prison supplied by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation October 25, 2012. The state hosts nearly a quarter of the nation's condemned prisoners but has executed none in the last six years. A federal judge halted all California executions in 2006, saying a three-drug lethal injection protocol risked causing inmates too much pain and suffering before death. California revised its protocol, but executions have not resumed. Reuters

After giving gays in the US a chance to get married in a landmark decision on Sunday, the United States Supreme Court issued another life-changing ruling the following day by giving the green light for states to use lethal injection on death row convicts. The high court said the method of execution is constitutional and not a cruel and unusual form of punishment.

The decision paves the way for Oklahoma and other states that halted executions to resume the use of lethal injection. Justice Samuel Alito Jr and five other justices, in the majority opinion, upheld a lower court’s decision that inmates in Oklahoma were unable to prove that a large dose of midazolam, the sedative the three states use, places the death row prisoners at a substantial risk of pain.

The drug took 43 minutes before a convict in Oklahoma, who was injected with midazolam in 2014, died. During those minutes, the prisoner kicked and grimaced in pain. Similarly, convicts in Arizona and Ohio also took a long time to die after being administered the lethal injection. They gasped and snorted for long periods of time, reports Washington Post.

But Alito pointed out that the risk of pain is an inevitable part of capital punishment. He explains, “Because some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution, we have held that the Constitution does not require the avoidance of all risk of pain.” Alito notes that even among free citizens, many people want to die a painless death, however, “many do not have that good fortune.”

In spite of the ruling, Richard Dieter, senior programme director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said it is not a glowing endorsement of midazolam. Dieter opined that not many states would use that sedative for their lethal injection cocktails. Texas and Missouri plan to continue using pentobarbital or other alternate drugs in view of shortage of lethal injection ingredients as pharmaceutical companies stopped manufacturing those drugs to protest capital punishment.

“I think this case will be remembered more for that dissent than for the decision itself,” LA Times quotes Dieter who was referring to what Justice Stephen Breyer and three other justices wrote. Breyer stated that the death penalty is “unfair, cruel and unusual,” and the case paves the way for a discussion on capital punishment.

To contact the writer, email: vittoriohernandez@yahoo.com

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