Institute of Legal Education

Lethal injection vs. electrocution: modes of execution

Author – PRAGATI DWIVEDI, Student at University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun

Abstract

Since the dawn of time, the death sentence has been used as a form of punishment. Different methods of carrying out death sentences have been adopted by nations around the globe, including hanging, public hanging, lethal injection, electrocution, firing squads, gas chambers, the guillotine, and even burning at the stake. The methods of execution for the death penalty that will be the emphasis of this article are lethal injection and electrocution. In some ways, the issue comes down to medical judgement. The general consensus, with which few can disagree, is that a technique that is certain, humane, quick, and decent should be used. The knowledge that mortality is imminent is, in fact, the most agonizing aspect. However, society owes it to itself to minimize the suffering experienced during the actual execution. We’ll look at their potential ethical, moral, and legal implications as well as how well they uphold justice. This section will provide a comprehensive analysis of the issues with these two execution techniques. along with the controversy of these practices from nations like the USA and India.

Introduction

“The state should not punish with vengeance.”

Emperor Ashoka

It is never the state’s or the courts’ intention to take someone’s life. The Endeavor is to achieve an orderly society while protecting citizens’ rights and liberties.

Since time immemorial, the death penalty has been used as a form of punishment. The arguments for and against have remained largely unchanged over the years. In any case, death sentencing is a significant decision, but how it is carried out is even more crucial.

Countries around the world have adopted different methods for executing death sentences, and these methods range from hanging, public hanging, lethal injection, electrocution, firing squads, gas chambers, the guillotine, and even burning at the stake.

Although all of these methods are worthy of discussion, the current article will concentrate on lethal injection and electrocution as methods of execution for the death penalty.

The article will go over each of these approaches’ potential legal, moral, and human rights ramifications as well as how well they work to bring about justice. A thorough analysis of the problems relating to these two methods of carrying out the death penalty will be provided by looking at each separately and contrasting it with the other in terms of advantages and disadvantages.

Lethal Injection

Lethal injection is the most commonly used method of execution for the death penalty, and it is considered to be the most humane. It involves a combination of drugs that are injected into the body which causes unconsciousness, stops the person’s breathing, causes a heart arrhythmia, and eventually leads to death.

It was invented in the United States and has since become a legal form of execution in countries like Mainland China, Thailand, Guatemala, Taiwan, the Maldives, Nigeria, and Vietnam. Nevertheless, the Maldives has never carried out an execution since gaining independence, and Guatemala abolished the death penalty in civil cases in 2017 and has not carried out an execution since 2000. Despite the fact that lethal injection is a legal method of execution in Taiwan, no such executions have ever occurred there;[1] the same is true in Nigeria. In the Philippines, lethal injection was also used until the country reinstated the death penalty in 2006.

A. Origin

J. Mount Bleyer, a New York doctor, proposed lethal injection as a method of execution in an article published in the medico-legal journal on January 17, 1888. This proposal gained prevalence in the 20th century, with many states in the US adopting it as their primary method of execution. Gradually, it was adopted by countries like China, the Philippines, Guatemala, Thailand, and Taiwan. However, it remains controversial due to questions about its efficacy and humanity.[1]

B. Procedure

In the United States of America, the process of lethal injection starts with the condemned person being strapped onto a pram. Two IVs are then inserted into the veins on each arm, and other proper medical instructions such as sterilizing are followed according to the standard medical procedures. In most states, intravenous injections are given, i.e., a series of drugs given in a set sequence, where the first injection causes unconsciousness, followed by another causing paralysis of respiratory muscles or cardiac arrest, and ultimately another causing death. The drugs used here are sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride.

Death usually occurs within seven minutes, though due to the medical complications involved, the entire procedure can take up to two hours. The coroner signs the death certificate of the condemned after confirming that death has occurred.

The People’s Republic of China also practices execution by lethal injection, which was legalized in 1996, but the specific procedure followed and the drug or drugs used are state secrets and not publicly known[2].

In Vietnam, the use of lethal injection for execution was approved by the government in 2010, implemented in 2011, and began in 2013. The drugs used are potassium chloride, sodium thiopental, and pancuronium bromide. However, production of these substances in Vietnam is low, resulting in drug shortages and the consideration of using other poisonous domestic drugs.[3]

C. Is lethal injection ethical?

Lethal injection has been the subject of controversy ever since. Due to concerns regarding the potential for pain and suffering during the administration of lethal injection, as well as the possibility of botched procedures, some argue that the practice is unethical. However, proponents of the method argue that it is more humane than other forms of execution and provides closure for victims’ families.

Popular opinion says that lethal injection avoids many of the unpleasant effects of other forms of execution: bodily mutilation and bleeding due to decapitation; the smell of burning flesh in electrocutions; disturbing sights or sounds in lethal gassing and hanging; and the problems of involuntary defecation and urination. Lethal injection is considered more humane and cheaper than other methods of execution.

Opponents of lethal injection, on the other hand, argue that it is not as painless as popular belief suggests. A new report from NPR[4] has found that lethal injection causes severe pain and respiratory distress, with associated sensations of drowning, asphyxiation, panic, and terror in the overwhelming majority of cases. NPR reviewed more than 200 inmate autopsies and found similar results in 84% of the cases. Along with the comments and studies of several doctors, the report gives an overview of the effects of lethal injection on the human body.

Researchers from the University of Miami collaborated with the legal counsel for Virginians on death row to publish a research letter in The Lancet in 2005[5]. In the article, protocol data from Texas, Virginia, and North and South Carolina were presented, demonstrating that executioners lacked anesthesia training, that drugs were administered remotely without anesthesia monitoring, that data were not recorded, and that peer review was not conducted. In their analysis of toxicology reports from Arizona, Georgia, the authors concluded that there was a strong possibility that some of the inmates were aware and experienced extreme pain and distress during the execution. In North and South Carolina, they discovered that 21 (43%) of the 49 prisoners who were executed had thiopental post-mortem blood concentrations that were consistent with awareness. This led the authors to conclude that a substantial probability existed that some of the inmates were aware and suffered extreme pain and distress during execution. The authors attributed the risk of inmates becoming conscious to a lack of training and monitoring during the process. which is very essential to the procedure in order to avoid unnecessary cruelties and sufferings during execution.

III. Electrocution

Electrocution is a type of death or execution caused by electric shocks from an electric current passing through the body. The term is derived from the word’s “electro” and “execution,” which were coined in 1889, shortly before the first use of the electric chair. At some point in time, it used to be the most widely used process of execution but was largely supplanted by lethal injection in the late 20th and early 21st centuries and is now used relatively rarely.

D. Origin

George Westinghouse produced the first electric chair intended for use in executions in 1888. adopted in New York as a faster and more humane substitute for hanging[6]. Westinghouse described the chair’s power source as being so deadly that it would only take five seconds of 1000 volts to cause death. However, the first man executed did not die in five seconds, but rather took four minutes of a steady stream of power to be finally pronounced dead. And during those four minutes, the body of the convict started to smoke, the hair on his arms and head ignited, and his face was covered in blood. The incident was described in detail by a reporter for the New York Times, who said that it was “awful” and that “the witnesses were so horrified by the ghastly sight that they could not take their eyes off it.”

After this display, the electric chair was considered a failure. However, after some modifications and further modernization of the chair, it is now used in eleven US states.

E. Procedure

In a typical electric chair execution, a convict is strapped to a specifically designed chair, with his head and body shaved to allow greater contact with the moistened copper electrodes that the executioner attaches. Usually, the control of the buttons is given to three or more executioners to push, but only one is connected to the actual electric source, and therefore the actual executioner is not known. The jolt power varies from state to state and is determined on the basis of the convict’s body weight. the first shock is followed by several more of lower voltage. In Georgia, the electric current is applied for four seconds at 2,000 volts, followed by seven seconds at 1,000 volts, and then two minutes at 208 volts. The body is physically damaged by electrocution because the internal organs are burned. When the switch is activated, the prisoner typically springs forward against the restraints. The body swells, changes color, and might even ignite.

F. The constitutionality of the electrocution

The United States Supreme Court has never ruled on whether electrocution violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment[7]. However, a lot of evidence points to the possibility that the technique can subject the convict to needless suffering, humiliation, and bodily mutilation (e.g., severe external burning and bleeding). Documentation of executions that were observed has revealed a significant pattern of back-to-back errors. The court challenges against electrocution have led many states to abandon electrocution in favor of lethal injection. Early in the twenty-first century, lethal injection and electrocution were the two execution techniques an inmate could select in some jurisdictions. (In 2008, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that using electrocution as the only method of execution was unconstitutional.) Nebraska was the last state in the Union to use this method.

Nonetheless, even in places where it was legal, electrocution was rarely used, a stark contrast to previous practice. For instance, electrocution was used in 4,251 executions between 1890 and 1972 (the year the Supreme Court started its moratorium on the death sentence), and from 1976 (the year the Supreme Court ended the moratorium) to the beginning of the twenty-first century, it was used in about 160 executions. Even though it was used in the Philippines up until 1976, electrocution has not been extensively used outside of the United States.

IV. Lethal Injection vs. Electrocution: Which is the Better Way to Die?

Stephen West, a death row inmate, opted to use the electric chair rather than a lethal injection the day before his planned execution in Tennessee[8]. He initially refused to choose between electrocution and lethal injection, but he eventually did so because of the controversy surrounding lethal injection. as his attorney spoke, “I could understand why that person may choose something equally horrific, but maybe a bit more certain”. The argument is that the electric chair kills faster than lethal injection, which has failed in some cases across the country. Attorney Stephen Ross Johnson continued, “In the last century, 7% of lethal injection executions have failed, compared to only 2% of electrocutions.

In the Nance v. Ward[9] Supreme Court decision, a majority of five justices ruled that it is permissible for condemned prisoners to file a lawsuit in federal courts, claiming that a specific execution method violates the Eighth Amendment (which forbids “cruel and unusual punishment”). The likelihood of a decision on unconstitutionality in the near future appears to be rising. If the Supreme Court made such a decision, the electric chair would automatically resume its long-standing position as the primary means of execution by court order in the United States. Whether the suffering of the condemned would get worse or get better if the electric chair were to come back is an open issue. That is, is the electric chair crueler than lethal injection?

The United States is the only nation in the world that executes condemned prisoners by electrocution. There have been more than 4,300 electric chair executions in the United States to date, with Tennessee hosting the final one in 2020[10].

One would find it difficult to distinguish one execution technique over another as being inherently more humane, so the Supreme Court should review the constitutionality of execution by electric chair at the same time as it considers future cases involving the constitutionality of execution by lethal injection.

And the question still stands: Which of the two ways to pass away is preferable? as there are debates over the methods, the erroneous use of lethal injections, and the cruelty caused by electrocution.

V. India’s stand

In the 187th Law Commission report[11] on Mode of Execution of Death Sentence and Incidental Matters. The law commission made possible suggestions on including other lethal injection as an alternative mode of execution in place of hanging till death by amending Sec. 354(5) of the Cr. P. C[12]., 1973. The report also discusses in detail other methods of execution like electrocution, lethal gas, etc., giving the pros and cons of each. and at the end, concluding on some possible amendments to be made to existing laws and execution procedures.

References

[1] 187^th Report on Mode Of Execution Of Death Sentence And Incidental Matters, Law Commission of India, October, 2003.

[2] Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethal_injection#Ethics_of_lethal_injection, (last visited march 5, 2023)

[3] Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethal_injection#Ethics_of_lethal_injection, (last visited march 5, 2023)

[4] Noah Caldwell, Ailsa Chang, Jolie Myers, Gasping For Air: Autopsies Reveal Troubling Effects Of Lethal Injection, NPR, (September 21, 2020, 7:00 AM ET), https://www.npr.org/2020/09/21/793177589/gasping-for-air-autopsies-reveal-troubling-effects-of-lethal-injection .

[5] Zimmers, Teresa A. Sheldon, Jonathan, Lubarsky, David A., López-Muñoz, Francisco, Waterman, Linda, Weisman, Richard; Koniaris, Leonidas G., Lethal Injection for Execution: Chemical Asphyxiation?, PLOS Medicine. 4 (4): e156. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040156. PMC 1876417. PMID 17455994, 2005.

[6] Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrocution, (last visited Mar. 3,2023).

[7] Chaz Morgan, A Constitutional Development? The Electric Chair as a Default Execution Method, Louisiana Law Review, (Mar. 5,2023), https://lawreview.law.lsu.edu/2021/11/15/a-shocking-development-the-electric-chair-as-a-default-execution-method/

[8] Deborah W. Denno, Electrocution: capital punishment, Britannica, (Feb. 6, 2023, 1:43 PM ET), https://www.britannica.com/topic/electrocution

[9] Nance v. Ward, 597 U.S.

[10] Timothy J. Jorgensen, Grave consequences: How banning execution by lethal injection may result in the return of the electric chair, Princeton University Press, July 20,2020, https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/grave-consequences .

[11] 187^th Report on Mode Of Execution Of Death Sentence And Incidental Matters, Law Commission of India, October, 2003.

[12] The Code Of Criminal Procedure, § 354(5), Act of Parliament, 1973.