Fordham Law Professor Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert and founding director of Fordham Law’s Neuroscience and Law Center, explains to The Washington Post that, while states might work quickly to start a new execution method, they can take decades to slow or stop its use once it is revealed to be inconsistent.
Patterns that emerged after states introduced the electric chair and lethal injection are now unfolding among states that have used or adopted nitrogen hypoxia, according to Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert at Fordham School of Law who studies execution methods. States like Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana tend to deny that there are problems with the new execution method’s development or real-world use, Denno said, while simultaneously spending less time now than in the past investigating execution techniques before using them.
Oklahoma, for instance, adopted lethal injection in 1977 but didn’t use it until 1990. By contrast, Alabama adopted nitrogen hypoxia before it even had a protocol written, Denno said.
And while states might work quickly to start a new execution method, they can take decades to slow or stop its use once it’s revealed to be inconsistent or inhumane, Denno said.
“I think states start to acknowledge there’s a problem when there’s effective litigation, and executions start to slow down or get more burdensome,” she said. “It seems only then that the lightbulb goes on.”