<\/a>Should states be required to disclose which drugs they use to kill people sentenced to the death penalty? In July 2014, the 9^{th<\/sup> Circuit Court said, \u201cYes,\u201d while, in a separate case, the U.S. Supreme Court said, \u201cNo.\u201d That judicial disagreement is complicating recently instituted death-penalty procedures, in which states use new combinations of death-inducing drugs\u2014but are reluctant to reveal the sources of those drugs.<\/p>\n}

In the court of my opinion, however, the answer is, \u201cYes\u2014states should be required to reveal the composition of their death cocktails and their sources.\u201d<\/p>\n

The states involved in these two most recent cases are Arizona and Texas, who along with Missouri, are currently the most active of the 32 \u00a0death-penalty states in the U.S. The states argue that, under current law, it is their legal duty to carry out the death penalty, and they do not want to be hampered by new rules. For people like me, who oppose the notion that a state has the right to kill someone\u2014no matter how awful the crime he\/she has committed\u2014the issue of drug disclosure may represent a way to finally put the death penalty to death in this country.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how that might happen: As we\u2019ve seen recently, several manufacturers of drugs that have previously been used for executions have stopped selling their products to state prison systems. The manufacturers\u2014who want their drugs to be seen as helpful, curative and life-saving\u2014don\u2019t want them associated with the death penalty and death. Several of these drug companies are based in Europe, where the death penalty is considered anathema. (Countries that employ the death penalty cannot become members of the European Union.) Even US manufacturers are showing reluctance to allow their drugs to be used for executions. And for good reason: Have you seen the proliferation of recent news<\/a> reports about the protracted deaths<\/a> associated with some of the newly improvised death-drug cocktails?<\/p>\n

The result has been that states have had to scramble for new death-inducing drug combos<\/a>. They\u2019ve moved on to other drugs\u2014some of them generally used in veterinary care\u2014and other deadly combinations not routinely prescribed for use together. Several states\u2014unable to obtain the preferred execution drugs from manufacturers\u2014are now getting their supplies from compounding pharmacies, who mix up small amounts of the drugs using the same components that a manufacturer would use. In many cases, states do not reveal the names of the compounding pharmacies.<\/p>\n

The reason behind this secrecy is obvious: If the names of the new combinations and sources were made public, there could be negative publicity, driving more pharmacies and manufacturers to ban their products from use in executions. And then what would state prison systems do? Revert to the gas chamber? Firing squads? The guillotine? It\u2019s hard to imagine a state wanting to go back to methods viewed as archaic and barbaric. In fact,\u00a0most don\u2019t want anyone to see much of anything associated with the death penalty: That\u2019s why executions are usually carried out in the middle of the night; and why the identities of the executioners are kept private; and why witnesses to executions are often curtained off at the moment of the injection and don’t see the prisoner die.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s possible that full disclosure could make the death-penalty so difficult\u00a0for state prison systems that they would have to abandon it. We\u2019d have a market solution [a manufacturers’ boycott] to a moral issue, and the U.S. would at long last join the rest of the industrialized world in ending the death penalty. I\u2019d even be okay if free-market Reppublicans took credit for that development. Whatever it takes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should states be required to disclose which drugs they use to kill people sentenced to the death penalty? In July 2014, the 9th Circuit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2209,572,1253],"tags":[1382,647],"yoast_head":"\n