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| Experts testify against lethal injection in state |
| By The Courier-Journal |
| Published: 04/25/2005 |
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An animal medicine expert testified last week that veterinarians are barred from euthanizing animals the way Kentucky executes inmates because the animals might remain conscious enough to feel pain. The testimony from the expert, Dr. Dennis Geiser, a veterinary medicine professor at the University of Tennessee, came on the third day of a trial in which two death-row inmates are challenging Kentucky's use of lethal injection. Geiser said state law and industry ethical guidelines prohibit veterinarians from using a drug to paralyze an animal being euthanized because it would mask "pain and suffering." Public defenders representing the death-row inmates contend Kentucky's method could leave an inmate conscious but paralyzed as a caustic solution of potassium chloride is administered to cause heart failure. Kentucky uses a three-step series of drugs, the first to anesthetize the inmate, the second to paralyze him and the third to stop his heart. Public defenders contend that because the anesthetic -- designed to render the inmate unconscious -- is short-acting, there is no way to know if the anesthesia has worn off after the inmate is paralyzed. Jeff Middendorf, general counsel for the state Corrections Department, dismissed those claims in opening statements last Monday, saying the state's procedure keeps the inmate unconscious until he dies. Kentucky corrections officials testified early last week that they developed the procedure based on those used by other states and that the procedures date to the late 1970s. Oklahoma devised the first method for lethal injection. Kentucky's lethal injection protocol was developed after lawmakers in 1998 designated lethal injection, rather than the electric chair, for executions. Only one inmate, Eddie Lee Harper, has been executed by lethal injection. That was in 1999. Testimony last week came on behalf of death-row inmates Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr., 52, convicted of the 1990 murders of a Lexington couple; and Ralph Baze, 49, convicted of the 1992 slayings of the Powell County sheriff and a deputy. They are represented by three lawyers from the state Department of Public Advocacy. |
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