Deborah Denno comments to the Associated Press on the Tennessee Supreme Court’s decision to grant a temporary stay for Stephen Michael West to address his claims against Tennessee’s lethal injection procedure.
Deborah Denno, a professor at Fordham Law School, said a similar argument was made in California using autopsy results of death penalty inmates who had been executed.
“This has been ongoing matter on the level of thiopental that inmates are getting,” she said.
Denno said there could be a number of explanations for why thiopental levels in an autopsy would be low. She said certain physiological characteristics of the inmates, such as whether they were heavy drug users, could change the effects of thiopental. Also if the injection is not done properly the drugs wouldn’t go into the vein, but into the surrounding tissue, she said.
The entire Associated Press story ran in the Stamford Advocate and on New England Cable News on November 6, 2010.