Deborah Denno comments in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about how the execution of Dennis McGuire did more than highlight the flaws of lethal injection in Ohio; it raised a fundamental question in the heated debate of the death penalty: Why is it so hard for governments to put an inmate to death in a humane way?
“People ask, ‘How did this happen?”’ said Deborah Denno, a professor at the Fordham University School of Law who has studied lethal injection for 20 years. “Well, it’s not just the drugs; it’s a lot of variables, and the problems have gone on for quite a while. This is a prison inflicting a punishment, not a hospital treating a patient.”
“We have no idea who these people are or their training,” Denno said. A spokeswoman for the prison system said she would not comment on the lethal injection process or McGuire’s death.
Read the entire Cleveland Plain-Dealer story.