A forth­com­ing study to be pub­lished in the Fordham Urban Law Journal found that almost all states that use a par­a­lyz­ing drug in the lethal injec­tion of death row inmates for­bid the use of this same drug in euth­a­niz­ing ani­mals. Ty Alper, the asso­ciate direc­tor of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law, con­duct­ed the research that found that 42 states do not approve neu­ro­mus­cu­lar block­ing agents in the ordi­nary euthana­sia of ani­mals. However, almost 98% of the lethal injec­tions of human beings that have been car­ried out since 1982 have involved the use of this kind of drug that hides from view severe pain an inmate may be experiencing.

The con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the lethal injec­tion pro­to­cols used in vir­tu­al­ly all states with the death penal­ty is cur­rent­ly being con­sid­ered by the U.S. Supreme Court in Baze v. Rees that was argued in January. The death row inmates in that case have main­tained that the 3‑drug method of lethal injec­tion can be extreme­ly painful if the anes­thet­ic used is not admin­is­tered prop­er­ly. However, the par­a­lyz­ing drug, typ­i­cal­ly pan­curo­ni­um bro­mide, blocks all move­ment of the inmate and makes it appear that no suf­fer­ing is occur­ring. The anes­thet­ic is typ­i­cal­ly not admin­is­tered by doc­tors, but rather by prison per­son­nel.

At the oral argu­ment in Baze, Justice John Paul Stevens remarked in his ques­tion­ing that states gen­er­al­ly use a sin­gle-drug pro­to­col in euth­a­niz­ing ani­mals, there­by avoid­ing the risk of severe pain: ​“They use a sin­gle drug pro­to­col for ani­mals because it’s more humane than the three-drug pro­to­col,” said Stevens. In agree­ing with Stevens, Alper remarked in an inter­view, ​“There’s a rea­son why they don’t use it and so there’s a rea­son we should be con­cerned about exe­cu­tions by lethal injec­tion that do use a neu­ro­mus­cu­lar block­ing agent.”

Dr. John Dodam, past pres­i­dent of the American College of Veterinary Anesthesiologists, also expressed con­cerns about the use of a drug that can mask a patien­t’s con­di­tion. ​“When we euth­a­nize an ani­mal, we’re try­ing to ensure a humane death,” Dodam said. ​“Unconsciousness can be dif­fi­cult to eval­u­ate in a patient that is par­a­lyzed.”

The study is enti­tled ​“Anesthetizing the Public Conscience: Lethal Injection and Animal Euthanasia,” and it will be pub­lished in May.
(M. Sherman, ​“Most states bar lethal-injec­tion drug use in ani­mals, study says,” Associated Press, April 4, 2008). Read the study. See also Lethal Injections and Supreme Court.

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