A gurney is used to strap down death row inmates. (File - The Courier-Journal)
FRANKFORT, KY. — The state is proposing use of a single drug for lethal injections to replace the three-drug cocktail that death-row inmates have challenged as unconstitutional.
Kentucky Justice Cabinet officials filed the regulatory changes Friday, outlining a new protocol that would allow wardens to execute inmates with an intravenous solution of either sodium thiopental or pentobarbital, instead of the combination of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
Death penalty opponents and inmates have argued that the three-drug mixture violates the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment by producing more pain compared to the one-drug method.
The fight over Kentucky’s method has been going on for a year and a half, and the debate has been one of the factors that have held up executions in recent years in the state. Executions cannot resume until the state’s protocol passes muster.
In April, Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd ordered the cabinet to change the protocol within 90 days or defend the mixture in his court.
Jennifer Brislin, spokeswoman for the justice cabinet, and Shelley Catharine Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office, both declined to comment on the changes Friday.
The proposals are scheduled for a public hearing Sept. 25 and could appear before the state’s Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee as soon as October. But any controversy could push the proposed regulations’ effective date as far back as January.
Advocates on both sides of the debate remained divided Friday afternoon.
Katherine Nichols, president of Kentuckians Voice for Crime Victims, said the group supports measures that would allow executions to move forward.
David Barron, an assistant public advocate with the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy, said death-row inmates would continue legal fights against lethal injection under the proposed regulations, which he said leave many issues unresolved and create new problems.
more
No comments:
Post a Comment