A few months back, I blogged about the failed execution of Romell Broom, a man who was given the death penalty in Ohio for murdering and raping a 14 year old girl. In a recent article I read, the state of Ohio employed a new method for administrating the death penalty: a one-drug intravenous lethal injection. This new method is very much alike to that of putting an animal to sleep (euthanizing animals), as it involves a large dose of anesthetic. According to many experts, it is a painless procedure. Furthermore, most experts see it as an improvement to the widely used method of a three-drug cocktail, because this method requires "a short-acting barbiturate to render the inmate unconscious, followed by a paralytic and then chemical to stop the heart." A barbiturate is used as a sedative and acts as a depressant to the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). According to Romell Broom's lawyer, Broom was wincing in pain during the administrators attempts to execute him with the three-drug cocktail.
Personally, I think that this new method sounds much more humane. I've known many people who have had to put pets to sleep, and I know that these animals do not suffer, but simply drift off to sleep before they are killed. Well, this then begs the question, does this man (Kenneth Biros), who sexually assaulted and then murdered and desembled a girl, deserve to be killed humanely? I think this is a very hard question to answer, and I'm not exactly sure where I fall on the issue. I guess I believe that he should be killed as humanely as possible, because he is still getting punished - his life is getting taken away.
Another interesting debate the article sparked up was that this was the first time that this euthanizing method had been used on humans, so it has been dubbed "human experimentation" by medical and legal experts. The phrase "human experimentation" has bad connotation to me, as it reminds me of horrendous procedures done on Holocaust victims by the Nazis during World War II. However, as the legal director of the Crimminal Justice Legal Foundation - Kent Scheiddegger - pointed out, “What kind of test do they [critics of human experimentation] expect?” he said. “A controlled study with volunteers? Not likely.”
What do you think? Is it ok in this situation to test out a new method on humans, or is it never just for human experimentation never occur?
Interesting thoughts, Katie. I also wonder why there is such a push to make these executions more humane? I mean, we used to (and still do in some states) execute people by hanging, firing squad, and electric chair.
ReplyDeleteIs our impulse to make this process more "humane" just an effort to make us comfortable (less guilty) in the face of a tax-funded "killing"?
I would separate the "experimentation" portion of the post for another post, entirely!