No technological magic bullet for U.S. executions

The botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate by lethal injection this week typifies the ongoing challenges pro-death penalty states face in finding a technological magic bullet to put inmates to death, experts say.

Each development or application of a new technology for execution has come with the same promise, and that is, that this method will be efficient, it will be reliable, itll be painless, itll be humane, said professor AustinSarat, associate dean of the faculty ofLaw, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College in Massachusetts.

That was said about electrocution, it was said about lethal gas, it was said about lethal injection. What were learning is there is no technological magic bullet.

On Tuesday, Oklahoma inmate ClaytonLockettwas declared unconscious 10 minutes after the first of three drugs in the state's new lethal injection combination was administered in his execution. Three minutes later, Lockett, who was convicted of shooting a woman and watching as two accomplices buried her alive, began breathing heavily, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head.

Lockettdied of a heart attack shortly thereafter, the Department of Corrections said. Officials later blamed a ruptured vein for the problems with the execution.

'Technology fails'

The execution mishap came months after Ohio inmate Dennis McGuire took 26 minutes to die after being injected with lethal drugs. He reportedly gaspedrepeatedly as he lay on a gurney with his mouth opening and closing.

Why are therebotched executions? Because technology fails," Sarat said. "Why are there automobile accidents, why do airplanes disappear from the sky, why does surgery go bad? Because there is no foolproof technology."

The U.S. has used five methods of execution in its history: firing squad, gas chamber, hanging, electric chair and lethal injection, which is now the predominant method employed.

While there are more efficient ways to execute people, those methods must conform with the U.S. constitution's eighth amendment that bars thegovernmentfrom inflicting "cruel and unusual punishment."

However,Saratsaid the U.S.is alsocommitted to punishing in a way that is compatible with the standards and decency of a humane society.Using a methodlike theguillotine, or firing a bullet in the back of one's head may be consideredmore efficient, but it's alsoconsidered indecent.

"Every other method of execution deforms the body," saidMichael Radelet, a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who is also an expert in the death penalty. "In the electric chair ... the bodies look horrible after they're executed; with lethal injection, you can't even tell."

"Lethal injection disguisesthe fact that we're killing somebody. It just looks like he's going to sleep."

Saratexamined every U.S. execution from 1890 to 2010 and determined that in three per cent of all the cases, the execution was botched, meaning those administering it didnt follow protocol or standard operating procedure.

Lethal injection highest botch rate

So a botched execution would be defined as a prisoner being strangled during a hanging, or anelectrocution in which the prisonerdied by flames and not electricity because the electric chair caught fire.

However, the technique that hadthe highest botchrate waslethal injection, at around seven per cent.

And this rate has the potential to go up, as many Europeandrugmakers, opposed to capital punishment,are refusing to sell their drugs to U.S. prisons and corrections departments. This is forcing states to find new sources of execution drugs, many that have been untested for the death penalty.

States like Oklahoma are engaged in a kind of experimentation on humans, trying to find a drug or drug cocktail that will work without knowing that they will work,Saratsaid.

Now what youre going to do is try an entirely different recipe and you really havent had any experience with it. Well what do you expect, you expect theres going to be some serious problems in getting it right.

Although improper dosages and adverse reactions to drugs continue to be issues in executions,there are other challenges as well.

The difficulty is in the technique. So theres a mismatch between expertiseand patient need," saidJonathanGroner, a pediatric surgeon in Columbus, Ohio who has studied lethal injections.

IV insertion by the inexperienced

Gronersaid just the insertion of the IV into the prisoner, whennot done by professionals, can lead to problems.

"In the prison it might be [emergency medical technicians] who have some experience but they dont do it every day," he said. "So you take someone who is not very experienced and you match them up with someone who is pretty anxious and dehydrated. It's a recipe for disaster.

Medicaltraining is also important in knowing how hard to push the syringe to administer the drugs,Groner said. If pushed too hard, the vein in the prisoner's arm can explode.

"Someone whos never done it before and might be nervous about doing it, probably [will] pushit as hard as they can. Theres probably a lack of trainingin how to give a drug IV push."