A 76 year old executed by the state of California Tuesday required 2 potassium injections to die.
Clarence Ray Allen was legally blind, nearly deaf, diabetic and had suffered a heart attack in September. He asked prison officials to let him die if he had another one.
Having suffered a heart attack back in September, Allen had asked prison authorities to let him die if he went into cardiac arrest before his execution, a request prison officials said they would not honor.
“At no point are we not going to value the sanctity of life,” said prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon. “We would resuscitate him,” then execute him.
A political witness to the execution:
“For 76 years old, he looked to be in remarkably good shape,” said Republican Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, who witnessed the execution as a member of a legislative committee debating a moratorium on the death penalty.
Medical facts about lethal injections
In a study of post-mortem toxicology results from 49 executions in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, [researchers] found in 43 cases the concentrations of thiopental in the blood were lower than required for common surgery. In 21 of those cases they found the concentrations “consistent with awareness” — in other words, the inmates could have been awake.
The execution cocktail consists of three sequential injections: sodium thiopental as anesthesia, then by pancuronium bromide (Parvulon, derived from curare arrow poison) to induce paralysis, and finally potassium chloride to cause death. Try to imagine being conscious through the entire process: completely paralyzed, unable to make a sound or even breathe, unable even to writhe in a futile attempt to relieve the agonizing pain as the potassium chloride progressively deranges your nervous system, upsetting the delicate sodium/potassium balance that is the basis of nerve impulse transmission and causing more and more neurons to fire wildly and with increasing strength until it reaches your heart and stops it in a final crescendo of convulsive disintegration.
So-called lethal injection is even more barbarous than this possibility suggests, for the use of the Parvulon has no role in the execution (since the victim doesn’t live long enough to suffocate). It is simply to spare the witnesses from seeing the violent convulsions that would otherwise be induced by the potassium chloride as it destroys the victim’s nervous system.
A Tennessee judge, Ellen Hobbs Lyle, commenting on the use of the drug in an appeal brought by someone on death row in that state, said Pavulon has no “legitimate purposes.” She wrote about the drug’s use: “The subject gives all the appearances of a serene expiration when actually the subject is feeling and perceiving the excruciatingly painful ordeal of death by lethal injection. The Pavulon gives a false impression of serenity to viewers, making punishment by death more palatable and acceptable to society.” Sherwin B. Nuland, a professor in the Yale School of Medicine, when told of use of the drug, expressed surprise. He said: “It strikes me that it makes no sense to use a muscle relaxant in executing people. Complete muscle paralysis does not mean loss of pain sensation.”
There are more medical details available at Redwood Dragon including the fact it is illegal to use this type of lethal injection on animals in many locations, including the state of Tennessee.
Allen spent 23 years on death row, he was convicted of ordering the killings in 1980 of Bryon Schletewitz, 27, Josephine Rocha, 17, and Douglas White, 18. Prosecutors alleged that Allen had ordered the killings while serving a life sentence for ordering the murder of an accomplice in a 1974 robbery.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected clemency Friday.
via: Moral Contradictions
Published 2 years, 10 months ago
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So out of respect for the sanctity of life they will do something that would be unethical in a hospital setting–ignore the patient’s express wish to be DNR. THen they will kill him. Umm does this make any sense? Well I guess it does if you are so bent on vengeance that you have to cause the death.
That is not justice, not ethical, not moral.
I received this email from a friend:
I’m not going to get into the fracas at your site that would surely emerge if I commented on your post today, but I wanted to share some observations with you personally, as well as a WSJ article about the topic. You raise some good points, but not compelling ones. I suspect that it would not aid your conscience if we merely upped the dosage of the sodium thiopental to ensure the painlessness of the lethal injection procedure, or if we substituted other drugs that suited our sensibilities better, it would not change your underlying opinion about the death penalty one scintilla, so arguing the “cruel and unusual” line of reasoning seems to me to be a non-starter.
Not trying to pick a fight, just giving you a gut reaction here. This post seems to fit the usual pattern of “Americans as our worst, barbaric Canadian selves” motif that tends to flavor your writing whenever you take on a subject about which there is seemingly unanimous “world opinion” but disagreement in the United States. You ask, “Justice or vengeance?” I ask, “Why not both?” Some people juxtapose abortion and capital punishment in order to undermine the “sanctity of life” position of some Christians. I would suggest that in order to be truly consistent, one would also need to be a vegan, but one does not hear that argument made.
Unlike many supporters of capital punishment, I take no joy in the demise of the convict. I am depressed by the level to which a person who has forsakes their fundamental humanity drags, not only himself, but an entire society. I have an almost morbid fascination with what goes through the mind of such an individual as they come to the end of their life, knowing the day and the hour, having the ultimate opportunity for repentance, and it always leads me to contemplate my own mortality, how would my life end in a manner that gives glory to God, what does such justice demand of me, etc. In other words, does not this ultimate sanction evoke in me exactly what it is intended to evoke?
Check out this article and let me know what you think.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007827&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage
It is good to hear from my friend and he raises some compelling points.
I have no desire to debate the death penalty, the state of California has decided what it’s laws will be and the law was served.
I want to say two things:
a) Canada cannot take moral high ground.
705 people were hanged in Canada from 1867 to 1962. 1533 death sentences were passed between 1867 and 1976, resulting in the executions of 694 men and 11 women, all but two for murder, between 1867 and 1962. Our path to abolishment was long.
b) I also chose US authors for this post for it is a contentious topic. I am aware DNA was processed in a Canadian lab recently in a US death penalty case that showed the perpetrator had commited the crime.
I would suggest if discussions such as those presented in the above post are unproductive, a cost-benefit analysis like New Jersey has undertaken might be more effective in the decision making process for legislators.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/2006/Jan/20060113News017.asp
they give you Sodium P wich puts you so far under that the criminal did not feel a thing,do not worry about it,he was a killer.Would you want a killer to kill you or your family and then go free or live in prison to kill guards and other inmates?What about the victims???? I know more about anesthesia then you do,so trust me on this one.
John: Your credibility is in question when you switch tenses mid sentence, don’t capitalize, don’t spell correctly or use punction prudently and don’t know what an outside link is.
Trust me on this one. Thanks for stopping by.