Deborah Denno quoted in a Washington Post article about how the third botched execution in 2014 would prompt outrage, questions and calls to get rid of the death penalty, but would unlikely lead to widespread changes or prompt states to seriously alter their policies.
“Any time there’s a significant event like this one, it carries some weight,” said Deborah W. Denno, a Fordham University professor and expert on the death penalty.
In particular, she said, Wood’s prolonged death could increase scrutiny of how states use the sedative midazolam in executions. That drug was used, along with hydromorphone, during the execution at the Arizona State Prison Complex an hour outside of Phoenix. Wood’s attorneys had argued that more information was needed about these two drugs, which were combined for the first time in an execution in Arizona.
Read the entire Washington Post story.