Lethal Injection Drug Shortage Leads to Debate

By Nadia N. Sawicki

A recent article in the New York Times (“Death Row Improvises, Lacking Lethal Mix”) described the challenges that correctional departments in death penalty states face in obtaining the drugs needed for lethal injection. The manufacturers of pancuronium bromide and pentobarbital, for example, have refused to supply drugs for execution purposes, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of the District of Columbia recently ruled that the FDA cannot approve importation of sodium thiopental. States such as Missouri, Arkansas, and California are now struggling to decide how to approach the issue.

The article quotes death penalty supporter Kent Scheidegger, of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, who describes the legal challenges to lethal injection drugs as a “conspiracy to choke off capital punishment by limiting the availability of drugs.”  Also quoted is Robert Blecker, a professor of criminal law at New York Law School, who refers to the drug challenges as “an abolitionist tactic to gum up the works … It’s just another tactic.”  Such comments do a disservice to those on both sides of the political spectrum who have legitimate concerns about the methods by which states execute death row prisoners.  Not every challenge to lethal injection techniques is a subversive tactic to overturn the death penalty.  In engaging in debate on this issue, commentators ought to look beyond their own political perspectives and consider that the arguments made by opponents are made in good faith and do not always reflect a predetermined political view.

While many opponents of lethal injection techniques are driven by a moral opposition to the death penalty, the arguments about the problems with these techniques are valid regardless of one’s political position. Surely, even a supporter of the death penalty can believe that the methods used to execute prisoners matter – that lethal injection techniques ought to be effective and efficient, and ought to be designed to avoid the types of errors that have caused complications in the past.  One’s support for the death penalty as a penal tool should not negate human compassion for even the most hardened criminal’s last moments on earth.  While death penalty states may be eager to move forward with executions as quickly as possible, it is foolish for this motivation to drive the adoption of untested and unproven drugs.

While there are very real logistical challenges to testing new execution techniques, death penalty supporters are wrong to describe the arguments presented by opponents of the current system of lethal injection as merely conspiratorial tactics to “gum up the works.” Rather, these arguments reflect legitimate concerns about the end-of-life experiences faced by the 40 to 60 prisoners who are executed every year.  Commentators such as Scheidegger and Blecker, if truly committed to the death penalty, ought to find ways to satisfy critics’ concerns about humane execution methods, rather than dismiss critics as politically-motivated obstructionists.

Nadia Sawicki

Nadia N. Sawicki is a Georgia Reithal Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago, and Academic Director of Loyola’s Beazley Institute for Health Law and Policy. Her research focuses on patient decision-making and the informed consent process, particularly in the areas of end-of-life and reproductive care. Her work has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals - including the New England Journal of Medicine; Law & Policy; the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics; the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics; the Journal of Clinical Ethics; the American Journal of Bioethics; and the Journal of Legal Medicine – as well as in many academic legal journals. She has previously served as a member of the American Bar Association’s Special Committee on Bioethics and the Law, and was the co-chair of the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities’ Law Affinity Group. Prof. Sawicki received her J.D. from University of Pennsylvania Law School, and her Masters in Bioethics from University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She is a graduate of Brown University, with a concentration in biomedical ethics. Prior to joining the Loyola faculty, Prof. Sawicki held the inaugural George Sharswood Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, served as a lecturer in History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Arts and Sciences, practiced law with Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen, and clerked for the Honorable J. Curtis Joyner of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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