Ethical Implications of Modifying Lethal Injection Protocols 英文参考文献.docVIP

Essay Ethical Implications of Modifying Lethal Injection Protocols Leonidas G. Koniaris, Kenneth W. Goodman, Jeremy Sugarman, Uzoezi Ozomaro, Jonathan Sheldon, Teresa A. Zimmers * C ourts in the United States have historically judged execution methods against “evolving standards of decency,” and have prohibited punishments that involve “the unnecessary and wanton in?iction of pain,” or more recently the “substantial risk of serious harm” [1]. Public repugnance and legal challenges to execution by cyanide gas and electrocution led to the development of lethal injection as an ostensibly more humane method of state killing [2,3]. The intravenous delivery of an anesthetic, a paralytic, and potassium chloride in lethal injection protocols is intended to cause a painless death, which likely accounts for its use in 930 of the 1,100 executions in the United States from the re-establishment of the death penalty in 1976 to May 6, 2008, as well as for its growing use worldwide [4,5]. Summary requests reveals that at least some jurisdictions systematically collect data on executions and outcomes (Table 1). Lethal injection for execution has largely replaced other execution The motivations for the data collections are largely unknown, although in certain cases, the processes suggest a prospective intent to collect data, e.g., assaying thiopental levels in virtually all executed inmates, while in others the stated goal is to assess adequacy of anesthesia in life and post-mortem thiopental changes after death [6]. Moreover, the collection of multiple, timed post-mortem blood samples from individual inmates in Connecticut and North Carolina was clearly intended to address questions regarding thiopental redistribution [10]. methods, in part due to the appearance of a peaceful death; however, available evidence indicates that some inmates actually suffer extreme pain. This has triggered legal challenges against lethal injection on the grounds that it violates the United States’ con