| SFGate | - |
It
took Arizona nearly two excruciating hours to execute Joseph Wood with
drugs whose source the state concealed. Executions in California have
been on hold since 2006 because of problems with lethal injections.
Botched execution brings use of firing squads into the discussion
Bob Egelko
Updated 11:02 pm, Thursday, July 24, 2014
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Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Alex Kozinski poses for a portrait in the lobby of a Washington office building, Thursday, July 24, 2014. Kozinski, an influential federal appeals court judge said that the nation's third lethal injection execution to go awry in six months underscores his call to bring back firing squads. Kozinski said lethal injection was a "dishonest" attempt to disguise the brutal nature of capital punishment.
Photo: J. David Ake, AP
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It took Arizona nearly two excruciating hours to execute Joseph Wood
with drugs whose source the state concealed. Executions in California
have been on hold since 2006 because of problems with lethal injections.
Last week a Southern California federal judge cited the delays in
declaring the state's death penalty system unconstitutional.
Now the West Coast's top-ranking federal judge, a supporter of capital punishment, says it's time to face up to the brutality of executions, drop the medical facade and bring back firing squads.
Any protracted lethal injection "undermines the idea that this is a fast, sure procedure, like putting animals to sleep," Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, said in an interview Thursday.
Executions, Kozinski wrote Monday in Wood's case, "are brutal, savage events, and nothing the state tries to do can mask that reality. ... We should be willing to face the fact that the state is committing a horrendous brutality on our behalf."
Kozinski suggested that if executions are to be carried out, death in front of a firing squad would lessen that brutality.
"Sure, firing squads can be messy, but if we are willing to carry out executions, we should not shield ourselves from the reality that we are shedding human blood," he wrote. "If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad then we shouldn't be carrying out executions at all."
In the never-ending debate over the death penalty in the United States, Wood's prolonged death has put a new focus on lethal injections, the near-universal method of executions for two decades, blessed by the Supreme Court in 2008 as safe, reliable and painless.
"It's never been worse than now ... with the drug shortage, the experimentation, states using whatever drugs they can get their hands on," said Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University and a longtime researcher and commentator on the death penalty.
Wood was executed Wednesday for murdering his former girlfriend and her father in 1989. The state identified the two drugs it injected - the same chemicals used in a botched execution in Ohio in January - but not their sources, the dosages or expiration dates, or the qualifications of the execution team.
The Ninth Circuit, which oversees federal courts in nine Western states, ruled 2-1 on Saturday that Arizona must disclose the information, but the Supreme Court overturned that ruling and lifted the stay of execution Tuesday, without explanation. An hour into the planned 10-minute execution, with Wood still breathing, his lawyers asked a federal judge, and then the Supreme Court, to call a halt, but got no response.
Several reporters on the scene agreed with one of Wood's lawyers that Wood was gasping and snorting for more than an hour. State officials said he was snoring and comatose. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer ordered a review of the state's injection procedures but said there was no evidence that Wood was conscious or suffering.
"The extended time is a public relations problem because it creates a bad appearance, even though it is not actually cruel," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento.
The impact on public attitudes is less clear. As Stanford law Professor John Donohoe observed, accounts of painful executions are often greeted with grim satisfaction by death penalty advocates, who point out that the murderer's victims suffered more.
Now the West Coast's top-ranking federal judge, a supporter of capital punishment, says it's time to face up to the brutality of executions, drop the medical facade and bring back firing squads.
Any protracted lethal injection "undermines the idea that this is a fast, sure procedure, like putting animals to sleep," Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, said in an interview Thursday.
Executions, Kozinski wrote Monday in Wood's case, "are brutal, savage events, and nothing the state tries to do can mask that reality. ... We should be willing to face the fact that the state is committing a horrendous brutality on our behalf."
Kozinski suggested that if executions are to be carried out, death in front of a firing squad would lessen that brutality.
"Sure, firing squads can be messy, but if we are willing to carry out executions, we should not shield ourselves from the reality that we are shedding human blood," he wrote. "If we, as a society, cannot stomach the splatter from an execution carried out by firing squad then we shouldn't be carrying out executions at all."
In the never-ending debate over the death penalty in the United States, Wood's prolonged death has put a new focus on lethal injections, the near-universal method of executions for two decades, blessed by the Supreme Court in 2008 as safe, reliable and painless.
Secret sources for drugs
Leading manufacturers of lethal drugs, increasingly unwilling to be linked to executions, are withdrawing their supplies, while the remaining suppliers are reluctant to be identified. States, in response, are resorting to secret sources for the drugs - and, not coincidentally, there have been at least three drawn-out, mishandled executions this year."It's never been worse than now ... with the drug shortage, the experimentation, states using whatever drugs they can get their hands on," said Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University and a longtime researcher and commentator on the death penalty.
Wood was executed Wednesday for murdering his former girlfriend and her father in 1989. The state identified the two drugs it injected - the same chemicals used in a botched execution in Ohio in January - but not their sources, the dosages or expiration dates, or the qualifications of the execution team.
The Ninth Circuit, which oversees federal courts in nine Western states, ruled 2-1 on Saturday that Arizona must disclose the information, but the Supreme Court overturned that ruling and lifted the stay of execution Tuesday, without explanation. An hour into the planned 10-minute execution, with Wood still breathing, his lawyers asked a federal judge, and then the Supreme Court, to call a halt, but got no response.
Several reporters on the scene agreed with one of Wood's lawyers that Wood was gasping and snorting for more than an hour. State officials said he was snoring and comatose. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer ordered a review of the state's injection procedures but said there was no evidence that Wood was conscious or suffering.
"The extended time is a public relations problem because it creates a bad appearance, even though it is not actually cruel," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento.
The impact on public attitudes is less clear. As Stanford law Professor John Donohoe observed, accounts of painful executions are often greeted with grim satisfaction by death penalty advocates, who point out that the murderer's victims suffered more.
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