WASHINGTON - Nov. 19, 2020 - U.S. Court of Appeals just ruled unanimously that condemned murderers can challenge the use of a lethal drug on the grounds that it may cause unnecessary, severe, and tortuous pain.

The court agreed that the government is violating the law by administering the lethal drug without a prescription, even though to be prescribed, a drug ordinarily must be shown to be safe and effective.

Meanwhile this type of litigation, generally brought by attorneys opposed to the death penalty itself, is allowed to continue, with stays of executions occasionally being granted, notes public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

This is only the latest in a long string of attacks on methods used for carrying out the death penalty.

But Banzhaf notes that most of these law suits have challenged the use of injections to administer drugs so a way to possibly avoid these and other legal problems could be to use the same drug, phenobarbital, but in pill form rather than injecting it.

The simple answer, he argues, and an alternative to using injectable drugs for executions generally - with the many legal and other challenges this method has faced, and will continue to face - is putting the condemned on the pill.
http://banzhaf.net/ jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com @profbanzhaf

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