Deborah Denno comments to the Huffington Post on a recent pair of botched executions that has renewed the debate over lethal injection and whether it’s actually less inhumane than other methods used to execute condemned prisoners.
As Deborah Denno, a Fordham University law professor who has testified in many lethal injection cases, said of the invention of the three-drug protocol typically used in lethal injection, “There was no medical testing of the drug combination. There was no science. I think it was the pretense of science and a medical veneer. It was basically concocted in an afternoon.”
“It’s not like you have a scientific expert sitting there and saying ‘these are the drugs you should use and in this amount.’” Denno said. “To the contrary I think one of the reasons we see these constant problems and this jump from drug to drug is these people, either they’re getting no advice whatsoever or the advice they’re getting is very bad and it’s all under the table.”
Read the entire Huffington Post article.