Hard times for lethal injections in the US

• Autores: Alyssa Botelho
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2943, 2013, pág. 12
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • If it went ahead as scheduled in Ohio, the execution of Ronald Phillips on Thursday was a grim milestone. He was due to be put to death by a cocktail of two drugs that has never before been used for capital punishment--midazolam, a sedative, and the painkiller hydromorphone. The case is indicative of a broader crisis for the death penalty in the US. States have traditionally relied on the painkillers sodium thiopental and pentobarbital in a bid to ensure that inmates die in a way that does not run afoul of the Constitution's 8th Amendment, which prohibits acts of cruel and unusual punishment. But in recent years drug-makers have ceased supplying them to prisons, leaving institutions scrambling for alternatives.