Lethal Injection

Worded perfectly by The Scientific American, a magazine analyzing controversial issues in America said, “About two thirds of the states use a combination of barbituric, paralytic and toxic agents for executions, despite a lack of scientific evidence supporting their effectiveness.” The procedure is still subject to FDA approval, the agency has avoided questions ruling on the mixtures efficacy in “delivering a merciful death” (citation). This brings to light a harsh topic: is lethal injection truly cruel and unusual? Human Rights Watch is an international non government aided organization dedicated to protecting and establishing the appearance of human rights around the world. The report the HRW released, “So Long as They Die: Lethal Injection in the United States” (citation) The report highlighted a fact not a lot of people consider, “Prisoners in the United States are executed by means that the American Veterinary Medical Association regards as too cruel to use on cats and dogs.” A lot of the civilians who simply only read about death

This is one big controversial issue that we all hear about. It is all over the news, in newspapers and it is a really big concern. That issue wonders whether lethal injection is too kind or too brutal. Well that was a good question, so while conducting a lot of research. I discovered that that topic can be taken both ways.

There are many methods for executing an inmate on death row and lethal injection is one of them. This method is stated to be a painless injection of different chemicals that eventually stop the heart. unfortunately that has not been the case. Over the years there has been numerous cases were cruel and unusual punishment has been witnessed. Countless of times there have been inmates that have gasped for air, been several punctured wounds with needles trying to find a vein, also clenched their fist in pain. Many people may not see this as a problem but no human being, even criminals, should be like this. Lethal injections shouldn't be conducted if they are not going to be done the proper way. Because of some cases, they changed the way they proceed with lethal injection but to this day inmates are still having complications. With all the complications that have occurred with Lethal Injection, they should banned them from be practiced.

The process of lethal injection that has always been used in the United States is that Sodium Thiopental is first put into the patient to put the inmate to sleep and then pancuronium bromide is used to paralyze muscle function and to stop the inmate’s breathing and finally potassium chloride is used to stop the inmate’s heart. They typically use this method of 3 different drugs so that if someone is allergic to one of the ingredients of one of the drugs that they can easily switch one of the drugs out for a drug without the ingredient that they are allergic to that serves the same purpose. Though this method has been used for over 30 years recent research has found that sometimes the anesthesia does not come into effect and many times the inmate is sitting there convulsing and feeling extreme pain and possibly experiencing asphyxiation, burning sensations. According

Before Midazolam was created, the main drug used was called Pavulon. Sadly, the makers of Pavulon were ran out by a drug named Propofol (Levy, 142-147). Propofol, however, is strictly prohibited by their creators in usage of execution (Dyer, 6). While Pavulon was ran out of business, Propofol consequently gained strength in the medical field, but that left a void in the world of capital punishment. Propofol would have been the perfect drug to use for executions, as it has a quick reaction time in the body, and it also doesn’t give its patient any nausea at all. The plan brought forth would allow the producers of Pavulon to create a few gallons of the drug every year for matters such as injections, that way; America would always have a steady supply of drugs that wouldn’t expire towards the end of the

In recent years the thought of exactions has become more immoral. More people see that in doing so the execution could be painful or unlawful. Over the years the style of being executed has been changed, from beheading, hanging, and stoning to death now the most applicable way is lethal injection. Simply the person affiliated will be put to sleep, then the body will go into a paralytic state and lastly the lungs will stop working. Stating there are no harm to come and no pain, making this the only efficient way to carry out lethal injections. Unfortunately, there is pain and agony when it comes to the lethal injection. Many times, the one overseeing the injection will get the amounts wrong and the patient could be conscious and expressive.

Death penalty is also known as capital punishment or execution. Societies from all over the world have used this sentence at one point in history, in order to avenge criminals. Most common reasons for being sentenced to death were war crimes, war treason, murder and espionage. Back then, the capital punishment was almost always accompanied by torture, and executions were public. The most used execution method was by hanging. If an inmate chooses the electric chair it takes anywhere between 2 min and 15 minutes. The criminal receives a jolt between 500 and 2000 volts for every 30 seconds, attending doctor waits for body to cool after each bolt and check if the heart is still breathing. While in some societies, violent death penalties are still being employed – like shooting, hanging, electric chair and gas chamber – in most countries, these have been replaced with a painless method – the lethal injection. When the person is put to death for the death penalty they use a lethal injection execution, in most cases. Sodium thipal makes the person go deeply unconscious but unable to feel himself being paralyzed from the “pancuronium bromide”. On death row an inmate waited an average of 15 years between sentencing and execution but a quarter of inmates die on death row from natural cases. The time has come to make punishment fit the crime, too oppose lethal injection, but not because these untried new drugs might obituary cause pain, but cause confusion, lethal injection conflates

The 8th Amendment in the Bill of Rights states that there should be no cruel and unusual punishment. Is the death penalty not considered a form of cruel punishment? The death penalty goes against this amendment, which makes this an unethical form of punishment. No matter what the circumstance or situation, killing is cruel, and no one should be intentionally

Hands stained with blood, our justice system still remains battered and broken. States disintegrating the laws that once stood, the laws stealing the lives of innocent, further perpetrating injustice. No matter the decline, abhorrent and controversial execution methods still remain commonplace. Challenge must be made against such methods as lethal injection. Capital punishment, with declining support must be eliminated from our country’s justice system, for the inability to hinder crime, slaying the innocent and underprivileged, while the realization that death is not the perfect punishment sets in.

Since the late 1970s, roughly 1500 prisoners were executed in the United States. A capital punishment, also known as death penalty, refers to the execution of a perpetrator convicted of any capital offense, such as murder or treason. Ratified in 1791, the Eighth Amendment, which was originally concerned with the criminal on death row rather than the process of execution, constitutionally bans cruel and unusual punishments. Yet, like any other amendment or constitution, the interpretation of the cruel and unusual punishment clause today differs immensely from the interpretation during the early 1790s, due to the changing standards of society, hence the increase in questions about the moral and ethical issues of death penalty, and what constitutes

Lethal injection was intended to be the better alternative to hanging, firing squad, electrocution, or gas chamber but when pharmacies stopped providing their drugs after finding it was for deadly use and when stories of botched executions surfaced, the same concerns about the old methods of the death penalty were applied to lethal injection.

    To begin with, the death penalty violates the United States’ Constitution. Under the U.S. Constitution amend. VIII, section I, cruel and unusual punishment is prohibited. For a proper and painless execution, the states use a substance known as barbiturate sodium thiopental. The thiopental serves as an anesthetic and causes the patient to become unconscious. What many people are unaware of is that thiopental is a controlled substance and can be very hard to obtain, even for an execution. In order to avoid the trouble of obtaining thiopental, states began to look to alternative drugs, but not all of the drugs had the same anesthetic effect as thiopental. Two drugs specifically, midazolam and hydro-morphone, were tested in Ohio on a prisoner named Dennis McGuire. Not only did this execution take twenty-six minutes, but McGuire was also seen with his fists clenched and choking for ten minutes. No words, other than cruel, can accurately describe McGuire’s execution. As well as cruel, unusual accurately describes the death penalty.

The intention of the drugs are to knock the person out, put them in a state of paralysis, and stop the heart. The injection is not meant to be painful, unless a human error occurs. It’s like the same as lighting a match. It’s not meant to be painful, but if you make an error, you could burn yourself. Why should we put an end to the most commonly used way of the death penalty simply because there is a low chance of there being an error. Even the Supreme Court ruled that lethal injection should be allowed, so why should we put an end to something with a low chance of happening. Even if it does happen and pain is inflicted, that will never match the pain inflicted on the person and the family of who was killed. Lethal injection is not meant to be torture, and is not cruel and unusual punishment, so it should be considered legal along the lines of the death

Executing condemned prisoners by lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment and should not be legal. Lethal injections are the most common procedure of capital punishment in the United States today, but it does not mean that it is the most civilized. Several states use the three-drug protocol, with sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium. The other method is by injecting a large dose of barbiturate. Several problems can occur with these methods and cause excoriating pain and torcher. Physicians stand under the Hippocratic’s Oath to save people lives, not to kill them, often inexperienced technicians and orderlies carried out the injections of the drugs. It is cruel and inhumane to let untrained workers administer drugs

How does lethal injection work? Most people have a basic concept of how it works but when it comes to how someone dies I’m not going to accept just knowing the basic concept. The first of three injections is an anesthetic called sodium thiopental, it depresses the central nervous system, but does not serve as a pain killer (Peter Sergo, scienceline.org, 2007). The first injection “puts a person into a state of unconsciousness that’s theoretically deep enough to make pain undetectable” (Peter Sergo, scienceline.org, 2007). Theoretically, should we be okay with theory when it comes down to will the inmate we’re putting to death, die painlessly or in excruciating pain? To know the answer to this question we must first understand how the last two