Deborah Denno quoted in New Scientist on a long-running shortage of the drugs that are typically used for capital punishment has sparked a desperate search for alternatives, even as fresh concerns emerged about the number of people on death row who have been wrongly convicted.
In a study due to be published in the Georgetown Law Journal next month, Deborah Denno of Fordham University in New York examined more than 300 cases from the past six years in which states modified the drugs used for lethal injection. She found that these changes are often implemented haphazardly, and without sufficient oversight.
Developments such as Gross’s finding and Denno’s work are “snowballing together” to change public opinion, Denno says. A Gallup poll conducted last year found that American support for the death penalty has dropped to its lowest level since 1972.
“Lethal injection is worse than it ever has been,” says Denno.
Read the entire New Scientist article.