New death penalty in OK

[clovismommy25]

I am 100% for the death penalty, and I think it is far to easy on these sick bastards. I think we should bring back the chair and the fire line, but at least this is closer to what they have done to get here!

 

Now Chapman, semiretired in California at age 70, said he believes the system he helped create shows condemned inmates too much mercy.

"Their death is made much too easy by this sort of protocol for the crimes that they committed," he told The Associated Press last week.

Similar to pet euthanization
But he said the hope was injection would avoid the pain-and-suffering arguments and allow executions to take place.

Under Ohio's new system, executioners would use a single large dose of thiopental sodium, an anesthetic, to put inmates to death, similar to the way veterinarians euthanize animals.

The one-drug system has never been used on condemned inmates in the United States.

State officials proposed the change after state executioners tried unsuccessfully Sept. 15 to find a usable vein for condemned killer Romell Broom. Broom, who raped and killed a 14-year-old girl in 1984 in Cleveland, is challenging the state's right to try a second time.

The new protocol would provide a backup method using two drugs injected into a muscle if no usable vein can be found, as happened with Broom. The current system uses one drug that puts inmates to sleep, a second that paralyzes them and a third that stops their heart.

Death penalty opponents have long argued that the three drugs could cause offenders severe pain if the first drug didn't adequately knock out an inmate.

Capital punishment entered Chapman's life early. A childhood friend, Chester Gregg, was executed for killing his wife in July 1952.

Chapman, who grew up in the southwest Ohio town of Blanchester, and his mother stayed up with Gregg's mother the night of the execution. He said the event had no bearing on his later work.

"It's a totally separate thing," Chapman said. "It's just an experience I had along the way."

Two-drug proposed initially
Chapman, a forensic pathologist, was the Oklahoma medical examiner while state officials were looking for a new execution method shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court declared capital punishment constitutional. Lawmakers then began looking for a humane method of execution to replace the electric chair.

Chapman initially proposed a two-drug approach: an anesthetic followed by a paralytic drug. He later added potassium chloride, to provide for instantaneous death.

"We felt that by going with this type of regimen, no one could suggest that it was cruel and unusual because people undergo this very protocol every day for anesthetic for surgery world-round," Chapman said.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection, ruling on Kentucky's three-drug method, which is similar to that in Ohio and many other states.

A separate lawsuit challenges Ohio's protocol, questioning in recent months the qualifications of executioners, some of whom are paramedics.

Attorneys for death row inmates mention the case of Joseph Clark when raising questions about executioners' ability to perform lethal injection. In 2006, Clark's execution had to be restarted after he pushed himself up and announced the drugs weren't working. An execution in 2007 also took much longer that usual. The state has repeatedly said it's confident in its execution team.

The state argues that the new method renders the lawsuit moot, since it removes the possibility of pain, and it addresses situations such as the Broom case. Opponents says moving ahead quickly with the new, untested method amounts to "human experimentation."

Ohio hopes to have its new system in place in time for a possible execution Dec. 8.

[bluesky51201]

I completely agree with you.  I think they should take the anesthetic away completely and make them suffer.  They had no regard for their victims lives or if they felt pain or not.  Who cares if they have to feel it?  It's bad enough they get a last meal of whatever they wanted and people to comfort them up until the time they go into the chamber, then we just put them to sleep.  I've only read of about a couple of people who were not knocked out completely before they died and their crimes were so vile they deserved every bit of suffering.

[lil_mama06]

I'm sorry, they had NO MERCY on their victims' suffering, have NO MERCY on them..They acted barbaric give them a barbaric death...I thnk we need the guillotine back,cat o 9 tails..That sort of thing..