Tinkering With the Machinery of Death
By On the botched execution in Oklahoma this week, which is less atypical than one would prefer to think:
The torture of Lockett was the predictable result of a failed experiment. Oklahoma attempted to execute the condemned prisoner with a new lethal injection “cocktail” that had not been tried before, composed of drugs that came from a secret source. After an ugly conflict between Oklahoma’s courts and Fallin and her allies — an episode that threatened the judiciary’s independence, as detailed by Andrew Cohen — the state went ahead with an untried method. It shouldn’t be terribly surprising that the outcome was disastrous.
And yet, the problem goes well beyond problems with any specific method of lethal injection. Because it has the superficial trappings of a medical procedure, lethal injection has become the dominant form of death penalty in the United States, viewed as a more “humane” alternative to methods such as hanging and the gas chamber. But its lofty reputation has no discernible justification. Research by the eminent legal scholar Austin Sarat has found that “executions by lethal injection are botched at a higher rate than any of the other methods employed since the late 19th century, 7 percent.”
Combined with the fact that it’s impossible to know whether even non-botched lethal injections inflict pain, there’s no reason whatsoever to believe that lethal injection is any better than the deeply flawed methods it replaced — indeed, it may well be worse.
Lithwick with more.