Tennessee high court weighs lethal injection cocktail
Associate Deputy Attorney General Joe Whalen told the five justices on Wednesday that the state’s death penalty protocol is sound, a point challenged by lawyers for condemned killer Abu-Ali Abdur’Rahman.
“It’s a protocol designed to render a condemned inmate unconscious within seconds and induce death within five minutes,” Whalen said.
Abdur’Rahman’s attorney, Bradley MacLean, said the process, which includes Pavulon, a drug forbidden by the American Veterinary Medical Association for the euthanasia of animals, is irrational because of its risk of causing needless pain and suffering.
“No medical or scientific expert has testified that this protocol makes sense,” he said.
MacLean is asking the court to force the state’s Correction Department to come up with a new way of executing inmates that eliminates Pavulon and simplifies the process.
Tennessee has used lethal injection only once when in 2000 it put Robert Glen Coe to death in four minutes — the state’s only execution in 45 years.
The lethal injection mixture Tennessee uses involves three drugs.
The first is an anesthetic to put the inmate to sleep, known by the generic name sodium thiopental. The second is Pavulon, or pancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscle system. The third drug, potassium chloride, stops the heart.
The U.S. Supreme Court has never found a specific form of execution to be unconstitutional. Of the 38 states that have death penalty statutes, lethal injection is an option in every one but Nebraska because it is considered more humane than options like the electric chair or gas chamber.
The overwhelming majority of states that allow their protocols to be viewed use the three-drug mixture.
Whalen told justices Abdur’Rahman, 54, should not be allowed to dictate the terms of his death when an execution date is scheduled in his case.
“We are not talking here about putting to sleep the family pet after years of faithful service,” he said. “It’s the height of absurdity for a condemned inmate convicted of murder to determine what the state can do to execute him.”
Justice Adolpho A. Birch questioned if the court would overstep its boundaries by acting as a quasi-medical board, while Justice William M. Barker asked MacLean how he knew the process was inhumane and what the court should do to change it.
“I’m in an awkward position to say what is constitutional to kill my client,” he said before his recommendation of a single injection of Pentobarbital — a method not used by any other state where the process is known. “It’s quicker, cheaper, works faster and if it messes up, you don’t have the horrifying side effects.”
Abdur’Rahman, previously known as James Lee Jones, was sentenced to die for the 1986 stabbing death of a Nashville drug dealer while on parole. He had been convicted previously of assault and sentenced to federal prison, where he killed an inmate he said had repeatedly raped him.
His lawsuit over the state’s use of Pavulon is aimed at changing death penalty methods. Separate appeals intended to block his execution are under way in the federal courts.
The state Supreme Court did not indicate when it might rule on the case, but typically issues opinions in three to four months.
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On the Net:
Tennessee Supreme Court: http://www.tsc.state.tn.us/