Lethal Injection

Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium solution) for the express purpose of causing immediate death. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broader sense to include euthanasia and other forms of suicide. The drugs cause the person to become unconscious, stops their breathing, and causes a heart arrhythmia, in that order. First developed in the United States, it is now also a legal method of execution in China, Thailand, Guatemala, Taiwan, the Maldives, Nigeria and Vietnam, though Guatemala has not conducted an execution since 2000 and the Maldives has never carried out an execution since its independence. Although Taiwan permits lethal injection as an execution method, no executions have been carried out in this manner, most likely due to drug shortages, the same is true for Nigeria. Lethal injection was also used in the Philippines until the country re-abolished the death penalty in 2006. Lethal injection gained popularity in the late 20th century as a form of execution intended to supplant other methods, notably electrocution, gas inhalation, hanging and firing squad, that were considered to be less humane. It is now the most common form of execution in the United States. Lethal injection was first proposed on January 17, 1888, by Julius Mount Bleyer, a New York doctor who praised it as being cheaper than hanging. Bleyer's idea was never used, due to a series of botched executions and the eventual rise of public disapproval in electrocutions. Nazi Germany developed the Action T4 euthanasia program as one of its methods of disposing of Lebensunwertes Leben ('life unworthy of life'). The British Royal Commission on Capital Punishment (1949–53) also considered lethal injection, but eventually ruled it out after pressure from the British Medical Association (BMA). On May 11, 1977, Oklahoma's state medical examiner Jay Chapman proposed a new, less painful method of execution, known as Chapman's protocol: 'An intravenous saline drip shall be started in the prisoner's arm, into which shall be introduced a lethal injection consisting of an ultrashort-acting barbiturate in combination with a chemical paralytic.' After the procedure was approved by anesthesiologist Stanley Deutsch, formerly Head of the Department of Anaesthesiology of the Oklahoma University Medical School, the Reverend Bill Wiseman introduced the method into the Oklahoma legislature, where it passed and was quickly adopted (Title 22, Section 1014(A)). Since then, until 2004, 37 of the 38 states using capital punishment introduced lethal injection statutes. On August 29, 1977, Texas adopted the new method of execution, switching to lethal injection from electrocution. On December 7, 1982, Texas became the first state to use lethal injection to carry out capital punishment, for the execution of Charles Brooks, Jr. The People's Republic of China began using this method in 1997, Guatemala in 1996, the Philippines in 1999, Thailand in 2003, and Taiwan in 2005. Vietnam first used this method in 2013. The Philippines abolished the death penalty in 2006, with their last execution being in 2000. Guatemalan law still allows for the death penalty and lethal injection is the sole method allowed, but no penalties have been carried out since 2000 when the country experienced the live televised execution of Manuel Martínez Coronado. The export of drugs to be used for lethal injection was banned by the European Union (EU) in 2011, together with other items under the EU Torture Regulation. Since then, pentobarbital followed thiopental in the European Union's ban. By early 2014, a number of botched executions involving lethal injection, and a rising shortage of suitable drugs, had some U.S. states reconsidering lethal injection as a form of execution. Tennessee, which had previously offered inmates a choice between lethal injection and the electric chair, passed a law in May 2014 which gave the state the option to use the electric chair if lethal injection drugs are either unavailable or made unconstitutional. At the same time, Wyoming and Utah were considering the use of execution by firing squad in addition to other existing execution methods.