The death penalty due to lethal injection

Not long ago it has begun to question that lethal injection is a indolate execution method, against what their promoters assured. Even with all the doubts it raises, it is the most used execution method in the United States.

Continue reading to know what this method of execution consists of and why it raises so many questions!

Content

• History of lethal injection
• The three chemical compounds and the protocol
  • The execution of Ángel Nieves Díaz, 2006
• A very questioned method
  • Final conclusion
  • Resources

History of lethal injection

In 1889, New York became the first state that introduced the electrocution method As a more scientific method of execution, due to the enormous concern caused by the amount of hanging in which the executed people took too long to die.

Subsequently, new execution methods were introduced, for example, the Gas poisoning, adopted in 1921 and that became up to 11 states.

Currently, Lethal injection is one of the latest execution methods incorporated into the extensive catalog of ways to apply the death penalty. It was first approved on May 11, 1977, in the state of Oklahoma (United States) by an American doctor of the same state, Jay Chapman, as a more "human" alternative to other types of executions, such as the aforementioned electrocution or The hanging.

Charles Brooks became the first person executed in Texas in 1982.

Of the 22 judicial executions that occurred during 2019 in this country, 20 of them were by lethal injection. Besides, It is applied in other countries, mainly in China, although the applied protocol is not public.

Texas is the state that uses lethal injection with humans: about 400 people have been executed through this method since 1982.

The three chemical compounds and the protocol

Conventional execution protocols for lethal injection usually contemplate the consecutive administration of three drugs with lethal potential for themselves.

The lethal injection method consists of injection of a Mass dose of three chemical compounds:

• Sodium tiopental (also known as the commercial name of Pentothal), used to induce a general anesthesia;
• Pancuronium bromide, causes muscles paralysis, including diaphragm;
• Potassium chloride, which finally produces cardiac arrest.

The usual protocol contemplates the taking of two ways, one in each arm, and the administration of the drugs, independently, in one of them, reserving the second for the hypothetical case that they arise problems.

It is important to note that the cannula for drug administration is applied by technical personnel or prison officer trained for this function while Another official prepares the infusion bomb for the administration in a adjacent room.

The cannula for drug administration is never applied by a doctor.

In the first place, the sodium tiopental (3-5 gr is administered.), In order to induce anesthesia and, therefore, the loss of consciousness, then the pancuronium bromide (40-100 mg), which causes a paralysis of the musculature of the respiratory system, and finally the potassium chloride (100- 160 mEq), which results in cardiac arrest.

The infusion pump through which these drugs are administered is activated by an official or by a private, and automatically and sequentially apply. Habitually, Death takes place between seven and ten minutes after the end of the administration, and has to be certified by a medical professional.

The American Medical Association establishes, from the ethical perspective, that no doctor must participate in the executions, in no way, except in the certification of the death of the person. However, it should be noted that they are professional recommendations that do not link the doctors.

So much so, in some states, such as Missouri and Georgia, medical staff has voluntarily participated in judicial executions.

The execution of Ángel Nieves Díaz, 2006

It was December 2006 and the failed execution of Ángel Nieves Díaz in Florida, United States, led the state governor, Jeb Bush, to order the Execution suspension.

Ángel Díaz, convicted of death in 1986 for a murder committed in 1979, took 34 minutes to die. According to the only press report on execution: "24 minutes after receiving the first injection, Ángel Díaz moved, grimaced, blinked, passed his tongue down his lips, resolved and seemed to want to articulate words".

A second dose had to be administered to complete the execution. After more than half an hour since the beginning of the execution, a doctor who hid his face with a blue hood entered the execution room to check the vital constants of Ángel Díaz. He returned a minute later, he checked the constants again and made a sign of a team member.

A very questioned method

The concern has been expressed by the medical community, since the fact of applying an insufficient amount of sodium tiopental (for example, due to an incorrect dose of tiopental, to a defective insertion of the road or to the precipitation of the substances), Anesthesia may not be as deep as the anesthetic effect may disappear before the heart is paralyzed of the executed person, which would expose it to intense pain When potassium chloride penetrates the veins and produces cardiac arrest.

Due to the muscular paralysis caused by the Pancuronium bromide, the executed person would be impossible to inform those surrounding it.

One of the arguments used by lethal injection supporters is that this punishment is more human than its alternatives.

On the other hand, the position of the American Association of Veterinary Medicine indicates in this regard that the mixture used for euthanasia in animals with sodium pentobarbital should not include a paralyzing agent, and that to remove life from an animal through an injection of Potassium Chloride, it is necessary that competent professional personnel have established a surgical level for the use of pancuronium bromide.

Final conclusion

Finally, it is still paradoxical that, while in the world the death penalty is progressively repea. And what is more striking, than the procedure used in both cases is the same: lethal injection. This apparent contradiction should induce everyone in a deep reflection to those who promote it.

Resources

• The symptom of a culture of violence: the death penalty
• Oklahoma's controversial decision to use nitrogen to execute the death sentences
• When medicine kills: the death penalty due to lethal injection turns 43
• American Association of Veterinary Medicine
• The serial killer who made clowns terrify us