Execution Drugs Don't Always Work, Study Says

Execution Drugs Don't Always Work, Study Says

www.msnbc.msn.com

The drugs used to execute prisoners in the United States sometimes fail to work as planned, causing slow and painful deaths that probably violate constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment, a new medical review of dozens of executions concludes.

Even when administered properly, the three-drug lethal injection method appears to have caused some inmates to suffocate while they were conscious and unable to move, instead of having their hearts stopped while they were sedated, scientists said in a report published Monday by the online journal PLoS Medicine.

No scientific groups have ever validated that lethal injection is humane, the authors write. Medical ethics bar doctors and other health professionals from taking part in executions.

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Yet another reason why I believe that a bullet is a good solution. Studies have shown that a couple bullets to the brain work quite well.
Studies have also shown that a guillotine has a perfect rate of 100% effective.

www.msnbc.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 24-4-2007 by lombozo]

I'm with you, I guess I fail to see the problem here.

Hasn't this been the general consensus for the last few years? I can vividly remember a documentary on it.

But that's beyond the point, so whatever.

I also agree that a bullet to the back of the head is quick and painless, messy sure, but cheaper and more efficient.

They should be grateful that they are shown such mercy, considering they probably didn't give their victims any.

I agree with you Zanzibar. Alot of people hereon ATS know my views on not just the death penalty, but my feelings towards the "rights" that these convicts hide behind as well.

If lethal injection is questionable, then change the manner in which execution is carried out. I'm not advocating feeding them to the lions, although that might make a nice Pay-Per-View event.

I agree.... so what if they feel pain. I'll bet in a lot of cases it's nothing compared to what thier victims felt and the families afterwords.

If I read correctly, that study was by a "group" wanting to do away with the death penalty, I wonder what a study would show if done by a group, pro death penalty?

Here in the home of the traditional approach to the executioner's art there has long been a suspicion that some of the USA's preferred methods of execution have smacked of a search for the dramatic and maybe even a little flashy rather than the most effective or humane.

It cannot be denied that an electric chair or gas chamber is innately more glamorous than a simple hangman's noose and the introduction of the lethal injection seems similarly flawed, although this may have rather more to do with what I understand is the rigmarole designed to help work around the apparent reluctance of anyone medically qualified to administer an injection to actually perform the deed.

Our French cousins opted for a typically idiosyncratic solution in the form of the Guillotine but, perhaps surprisingly, this is certainly not without its problems either as there are many historical records which suggest that it is not quite so efficient as some may claim. In particular, this report from 1905 makes for gruesome reading.

The head fell on the severed surface of the neck... ...It was then that I called in a strong, sharp voice: "Languille!" I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions

www.metaphor.dk..." target="_blank" class="postlink">Dr. Beaurieux's Report

So I find myself in the unaccustomed situation of agreeing with Lombozo on a death penalty thread...

I'll take the bullet in the back of the head please, and make it a large one.

I do not buy what these so called studies allege. Too me I think they are anti death penalty so they want to make you believe there is pain so the courts would end it.

I have under gone major surgery more then once in my life. They put me out I felt nothing until I woke up,.

Now that being the case if they put someone out use a stronger dosage followed by the other drugs if one does not feel a scalpel they sure as heck are not going to feel another drug that is in my opinion hogwash.

I still believe simple nitrogen asphyxiation would be the best, cheapest, safest, and surefire way to execute the condemned. All one would have to do is seal the prisoner in a gas chamber and let the nitrogen flow. It is colorless, odorless, and the body is already accustomed to breathing 70% by volume in the air we normally breath. You would just feel funny and pass out. Then, with enough time to guarantee the job, a doctor could pronounce death. Simple no?