Dr. Jay Chapman, the Oklahoma medical examiner who created the three-drug lethal injection protocol that was used from 1982 to 2010, recently told The Guardian that he has doubts about the death penalty.“I am ambivalent about the death penalty – there have been so many incidents of prosecutorial misconduct, or DNA testing that has proved a prisoner’s innocence. It’s problematic,” Chapman said. He said he believed lethal injection would be a more humane method of execution, “At that time we put animals to death more humanely than we did human beings – so the idea of using medical drugs seemed a much better alternative.” He found it odd that his name has become so closely associated with lethal injection, saying, “This wasn’t my field, and it wasn’t my purpose in life – I’m a forensic pathologist and my main purpose was to set up a medical examiner’s system for Oklahoma, which is what I did.” Ultimately, concerns about wrongful convictions have given him qualms about capital punishment: “I’ve done autopsies for 50 years and I know what people are capable of doing to others. There are some criminals who have no redeeming features and who will never be rehabilitated – in those cases I would support the death penalty. But I’ve also seen the misconduct that can occur, and the problem is: how do you sort out one from the other?”
