02-20-2011, 06:44 AM
yes. we should go back to other means. hanging is good.
from Daily Mail UK:
Two American prisoners died in agony in botched lethal injections after being given allegedly defective anesthetic supplied by a British drug company.
The grisly details of the deaths of murderers Emmanuel Hammond, executed by the state of Georgia last month, and Brandon Rhode, put to death there last September, will form the basis of a High Court action to be launched on Tuesday.
Both kept their eyes open when they should have been in a coma and Hammond grimaced in pain.
The legal action, brought by the campaign group Reprieve on behalf of the Rhode family, aims to force the British pharmaceutical regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), to recall all the anaesthetic supplied for executions by Dream Pharma, a tiny company located in West London.
If successful, the case would halt executions in Georgia and many other states. U.S. ‘execution protocols’ say the anaesthetic, sodium thiopental, must be administered first in lethal injections to render the prisoner fully unconscious.
Then he or she is given pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant that makes it impossible to breathe, and potassium chloride, a caustic chemical that stops the heart.
There are no U.S. firms currently able to supply thiopental. Dream Pharma’s consignments, sent last summer to states including Georgia, California, Arkansas and Arizona, were the last from Britain before Business Secretary Vince Cable imposed a ban in December on exporting drugs for executions.
The Mail on Sunday interviewed three witnesses to the most recent botched execution, that of Hammond, 45, who raped and murdered a teacher, Julie Love, in 1988. All said that he remained conscious as he was put to death on January 24.
Professor Sheri Johnson, of Cornell University law school, a member of Hammond’s legal team, said she stared at him throughout as she knew the previous prisoner to be executed using the Dream Pharma thiopental – Rhode – had kept his eyes open throughout and had not lost consciousness.
Prof Johnson said: ‘He closed his eyes perhaps ten seconds after the drugs started. But then, some time later, he opened them again. Perhaps one or two minutes after that, his mouth screwed up to one side. It looked painful, as if it could be a grimace of pain.’
Reporter Josh Green also said Hammond first closed and then reopened his eyes some time after receiving the thiopental. Later, he wrote, he observed Hammond give out ‘short bursts of breath that lifted his lips’.
Jill Rand, a Florida nurse who became Hammond’s penfriend, said that she too saw him move his lips.
Several witnesses also said Rhode, 31 – who murdered three members of the same family in 2000 – kept his eyes open throughout.
Maya Foa, an investigator at Reprieve, said: ‘If it’s not recalled, more prisoners are likely to die in agony.’
Georgia’s next scheduled execution is on March 1.
Ms Foa said Reprieve was also taking statements from witnesses to a third ‘botched’ execution – Jeffrey Landrigan, 50, in Arizona in October.
from Daily Mail UK:
Two American prisoners died in agony in botched lethal injections after being given allegedly defective anesthetic supplied by a British drug company.
The grisly details of the deaths of murderers Emmanuel Hammond, executed by the state of Georgia last month, and Brandon Rhode, put to death there last September, will form the basis of a High Court action to be launched on Tuesday.
Both kept their eyes open when they should have been in a coma and Hammond grimaced in pain.
The legal action, brought by the campaign group Reprieve on behalf of the Rhode family, aims to force the British pharmaceutical regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), to recall all the anaesthetic supplied for executions by Dream Pharma, a tiny company located in West London.
If successful, the case would halt executions in Georgia and many other states. U.S. ‘execution protocols’ say the anaesthetic, sodium thiopental, must be administered first in lethal injections to render the prisoner fully unconscious.
Then he or she is given pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant that makes it impossible to breathe, and potassium chloride, a caustic chemical that stops the heart.
There are no U.S. firms currently able to supply thiopental. Dream Pharma’s consignments, sent last summer to states including Georgia, California, Arkansas and Arizona, were the last from Britain before Business Secretary Vince Cable imposed a ban in December on exporting drugs for executions.
The Mail on Sunday interviewed three witnesses to the most recent botched execution, that of Hammond, 45, who raped and murdered a teacher, Julie Love, in 1988. All said that he remained conscious as he was put to death on January 24.
Professor Sheri Johnson, of Cornell University law school, a member of Hammond’s legal team, said she stared at him throughout as she knew the previous prisoner to be executed using the Dream Pharma thiopental – Rhode – had kept his eyes open throughout and had not lost consciousness.
Prof Johnson said: ‘He closed his eyes perhaps ten seconds after the drugs started. But then, some time later, he opened them again. Perhaps one or two minutes after that, his mouth screwed up to one side. It looked painful, as if it could be a grimace of pain.’
Reporter Josh Green also said Hammond first closed and then reopened his eyes some time after receiving the thiopental. Later, he wrote, he observed Hammond give out ‘short bursts of breath that lifted his lips’.
Jill Rand, a Florida nurse who became Hammond’s penfriend, said that she too saw him move his lips.
Several witnesses also said Rhode, 31 – who murdered three members of the same family in 2000 – kept his eyes open throughout.
Maya Foa, an investigator at Reprieve, said: ‘If it’s not recalled, more prisoners are likely to die in agony.’
Georgia’s next scheduled execution is on March 1.
Ms Foa said Reprieve was also taking statements from witnesses to a third ‘botched’ execution – Jeffrey Landrigan, 50, in Arizona in October.