In Kentucky, a Franklin Circuit Court judge will hear evi­dence for pos­si­bly five days in April on whether the state’s method of exe­cut­ing pris­on­ers is humane. Medical experts will tes­ti­fy about the drugs, dosage and train­ing of the peo­ple who admin­is­ter the 3‑drug lethal-injec­tion cock­tail. Lawyers for con­demned inmates Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr. and Ralph Baze sued the state in August, say­ing Kentucky’s method of exe­cu­tion vio­lates a pris­on­er’s Eighth Amendment right not to be sub­ject­ed to cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment.

Among the issues to be reviewed are the type of chem­i­cals used in lethal injec­tion, the dosage, and how much of the drugs make it into the body of the con­demned. Kentucky has exe­cut­ed only one per­son, Eddie Lee Harper, by lethal injec­tion, in 1999. In court papers, Baze and Bowling’s lawyers have argued that there is more than a 50 per­cent chance that Harper was awake when the third drug was admin­is­tered, mean­ing he could have felt pain. But because the state uses a drug called Pavulon, which par­a­lyzes the mus­cles, Harper could not have com­mu­ni­cat­ed that he was in pain.

(Kentucky Herald-Leader, Jan. 20, 2005). See Methods of Execution.

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