WASHINGTON — Nearly all lethal-injection executions have occurred in states in which veterinarians are not allowed to use the same method to euthanize animals, a new study says.
One of the three drugs used in executions, the one that paralyzes the condemned inmate, has been banned from use in animal euthanasia by at least 42 states, said the study author Ty Alper, a death penalty opponent and associate director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law.
Executions have been on hold as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a challenge to lethal injections in a case from Kentucky, among the roughly three dozen states that administer three drugs in succession to knock out, paralyze and kill inmates.
The major criticism of the three-drug procedure is that if the executioner administers too little anesthetic or makes mistakes in injecting it, the inmate could suffer excruciating pain from the other two drugs.
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Federal judges in California, Missouri and Tennessee have ruled that the way lethal injections are carried out in those states is unconstitutional.
The national veterinarians association has tried to stay out of the debate, saying on the cover of its 39-page guidelines on euthanasia that the guidelines have been "widely misinterpreted" and are not intended for human lethal injections.
