Deborah Denno comments to NBC News on suggestion by the aide to Jack Kevorkian who is trying to convince death-penalty states to abandon lethal injections — which have been undermined by drug shortages and screw-ups — in favor of an old Kevorkian standby: carbon monoxide.
Fordham University law professor Deborah Denno, an expert on executions, said what worked for Kevorkian will not necessarily work for prison systems.
“It’s not just the machine or the drugs,” she said.
“Jack Kevorkian was very experienced. He had created this machine. He researched the physical conditions of the people he was working with. He was the one who administered it.
“But if you’re going to have prison officials doing it, you’re going to have the same problems we’ve always had. Prison officials just don’t have the expertise to do something like this.”
Denno, who thinks the firing squad may be the most fool-proof method, doesn’t expect any prison officials to jump at Nicol’s idea, especially when every change to execution protocols unleashes a fresh round of litigation.
“Departments of correction are hesitant to try anything new,” she said.
Read the entire NBC News article.