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| Committee OKs truth serum study in La. |
| By The Advocate |
| Published: 06/14/2004 |
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Apparently succumbing to a Baton Rouge, La., legislator's tears, House committee members endorsed a study on giving convicted killers truth serum before execution, even after noting the notion is unconstitutional. House Concurrent Resolution 273 asks the Department of Public Safety and Corrections to study applying "truth serum" medications to inmates before their executions to elicit confessions to other murders and rapes. Rep. Yvonne Dorsey cried during her testimony on her resolution last Tuesday. She interrupted committee members to accuse them of insensitivity to murdered women when they said the resolution would have no affect other than to waste the time of state employees. Dorsey countered that considering a resolution, no matter how ineffectual, is an important use of lawmakers' time. It's "not a waste of time to discuss the people's issues," the Baton Rouge Democrat said in a tear-choked voice. "Those people pay us to listen to issues on their behalf." With a handkerchief balled in her hand, Dorsey shook her fist at the panelists and said, "Every woman in this state has been raped by" government's inability to address unsolved murders of serial killers. Dorsey has pushed other resolutions aimed at Baton Rouge's two alleged serial killers, Derrick Todd Lee and Sean Gillis. Some of the victims lived in her district. Dorsey said sodium amytal, pentothal and brevital lower blood pressure and put the patient into a semi-conscious state in which he cannot use his imagination and therefore cannot manipulate answers. She acknowledged, under questioning by Rep. Ernest Wooton, D-Belle Chasse, that the medical community is not certain of the effectiveness of truth serum. Rep. Dennis Martiny, chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee, said he is concerned about advancing a "clearly unconstitutional" concept. The 5th Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights that became effective in December 1791, states that nobody should be "compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." |
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