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Home News Injustice in Ohio Lethal injection: We're better than this Lethal injection: We're better than this
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Elaine Hughes is a senior majoring in journalism and political science and is The Daily Collegian's Thursday columnist. Her e-mail is "This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it!"
Joseph Clark didn't die right away.
At first, everything went according to plan. The lethal injection team stuck the needle in his arm and started the drug cocktail, which resulted in Clark breathing shallowly and appearing to have fallen asleep.
But after a few minutes, the Ohio convict raised his head, shook it back and forth and declared: "It don't work."
.
The execution team reinserted the needle, but Clark still raised his head and attempted to speak several times before he was pronounced dead, the Toledo Blade reported.
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that legal injection doesn't constitute "cruel and unusual punishment" and missed another opportunity to end this inhumane practice.
In theory, a peaceful, drug-induced coma seems like a more pleasant way to die than shooting electric volts through the body, snapping the neck or putting a bullet through the heart.
But since 1982, at least 36 lethal injection executions have caused a person pain for more than 20 minutes. By now, the government should realize that a life sentence is the most severe, yet most humane punishment available -- because things can so easily go awry during a lethal injection.
For instance, people with histories of using intravenous drugs, weakened veins could collapse and cause a prolonged death, as happened in Clark's case.
Medics also have difficulties sticking the needles into distorted veins. For example, in December 2006, the needle went through the vein instead of into it, and Florida prisoner Angel Nieves Diaz received burn marks on his arms from the chemicals.
In other cases, the anesthetic wears off before the heart gets stopped by an injection of potassium chloride. This leaves the prisoner "conscious, suffocating... and in extreme pain," wrote Dr. Mark J.S. Heath, anesthesiology professor at Columbia.
Because of this risk, 42 states banned veterinarians from using one of the lethal drugs when euthanizing animals, and a recent University of California-Berkley study found this is true in Texas, Virginia, Missouri and North Carolina -- the five states that most frequently use the death penalty.
I don't understand how a government body can recognize that a medical procedure shouldn't be used on animals but find it acceptable to use the method on their own species.
Equally alarming, at least six states are considering legislation that would allow them to use the death penalty more often.
"We're going to send a message that if you kill our kids in Utah, we're going to kill you," State Rep. Paul Ray said about the measures taken to toughen penalties on harming children.
His statement sounds creepy -- a better face for the government would be a positive message about how we're providing education and having police patrol neighborhoods, not using violence as vengeance.
All parts of the government, especially the Supreme Court, should recognize that a life sentence restricts a person's ability to decide what they eat, wear and communicate with the outside world. Taking away someone's freedom and what they've accomplished in life serves as the worst punishment that we're humanely available to provide.
Because, as Gandhi once said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind."