Bredesen disagrees with judge’s lethal injection ruling

The state would have a difficult time meeting the criteria to make the state’s lethal injections constitutional under U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger’s ruling, Bredesen told The Associated Press.

‘She’s kind of created a Catch-22 for us,’ Bredesen said Friday. ‘She decries the lack of medically trained personnel involved in the execution, and of course … it’s very hard to get trained medical personnel to participate in any fashion.’

Trauger said state Department of Correction Commissioner George Little adopted the new execution protocols in April despite having knowledge about risks of excessive pain for inmates.

Little did not give enough consideration to a recommendation to discard the standard three-drug lethal injection cocktail in favor of a single-drug method, Trauger said. Current training and medical expertise are also not sufficient to ensure a painless execution, she said.

Bredesen, a Democrat, defended Little’s decision not to go with the single-drug method, and said he disagrees with Trauger’s push for an untested lethal injection procedure.

‘I think this is the wrong decision in this case. I think she’s trying to push us into uncharted territory, which I’m going to have to think carefully about,’ he said. ‘And I think she’s made it very difficult to fix the three-drug protocol.’

Bredesen said he hasn’t yet decided whether to appeal the case to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, but acknowledged that any challenge would be more difficult than previous ‘ and successful ‘ moves to reverse temporary injunctions for Tennessee executions.

Unlike those previous cases, Trauger held a four-day evidentiary hearing that she said gave her the ‘opportunity to observe and gauge the credibility of all the witnesses who testified.’

The hearings included testimony from Department of Correction officials, the execution team, members of a panel appointed to recommend changes to the lethal injection protocol and medical experts representing both sides.

Trauger also heard from a neutral medical witness, Michael Higgins, an anesthesiologist and the chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at Vanderbilt Medical Center, who testified that the new protocol does not require sufficient training and expertise.

Difficulties administering intravenous drugs occur ‘with fairly high frequency’ in a hospital setting with highly trained professionals, Higgins said.

Trauger found that Higgins’ testimony ‘ supported by both sides’ own medical experts ‘ showed an increased likelihood of an execution going wrong.

‘These are known risks ‘ accidents which, given enough of an opportunity, will occur ‘ for which the executioners are completely unprepared,’ Trauger said. ‘In many cases, the executioners are not even aware that the risks exist.’

But the state would have a hard time getting medical advice because most doctors refuse to participate in crafting death penalty procedures.

‘If the Vanderbilt anesthesiology department would come over and perform executions for us, there wouldn’t be any issues,’ Bredesen said.

Edward Jerome Harbison was scheduled to be executed Wednesday for beating an elderly woman to death during a burglary in 1983. The state announced Friday that it will ask the state Supreme Court to delay Harbison’s execution date.

Trauger did not issue a stay or throw out the death sentence for Harbison, who has lost all his appeals. He can be legally executed once the state adopts a valid method of execution, she said.

The three drugs consist of an anesthetic, a muscle paralyzer, and a substance to stop the heart. Death penalty foes have argued that if the condemned is not given enough anesthetic, he can suffer excruciating pain without being able to cry out.