(The Lethal Injection Debate: Law and Science)
Ty Alper
Extract
People are never executed using the anesthetic-only procedure that veterinarians and shelter workers use on animals. And animals are never euthanized by the three-drug formula prison officials use on human beings. As detailed in this Article, the veterinary and animal welfare communities widely condemn the use of neuromuscular blocking agents such as pancuronium. Particularly given the popular assumption that execution of humans by lethal injection is no different than “putting an animal to sleep,” the condemnation of the use of curariform drugs in the euthanasia context should give courts pause when assessing the risks of the three-drug formula under the Eighth Amendment. . . The Humane Society mandates a method of euthanasia the primary benefit of which is that it is actually humane. At a time when the public’s trust in the administration of capital punishment in this country appears to be eroding, the states, on the other hand, have clung to a method whose primary benefit is that it looks humane- but that in reality risks the unnecessary infliction of excruciating pain and suffering.
Alper T. Anesthetizing the public conscience: lethal injection and animal euthanasia (The Lethal Injection Debate: Law and Science). Fordham Urban Law J. 2008;35(4):817-856.