WASHINGTON (AFP) — A judge in the northern US state of Ohio Tuesday ordered the state to change its lethal injection method because it can cause pain, in a move that is expected to revive the death penalty debate.
Judge James Burge said the current three-step method -- by which a convict is rendered unconscious, then a muscle-paralyzer is administered, followed by a final injection which stops the heart -- does not conform with the state law which calls for prisoners to be executed "quickly and painlessly."
Critics of the procedure say that if the injections are administered incorrectly, the convict can suffer excruciating pain.
Judge Burge said corrections officials should instead administer a single massive dose of anesthesia. Such a move would avoid the use of the potential pain-causing injections but would likely extend the procedure.
"A single massive dose of sodium thiopental or another barbiturate or narcotic drug will cause certain death, reasonably quickly, and with no risk of abrogating the substantive right of the condemned person to expect and be afforded the painless death mandated by the law," he said.
The US Supreme Court in April ruled 7-2 that the risk of suffering to those executed by lethal injection did not constitute "cruel and unusual punishment," which is barred under the US Constitution.
However, the high court's decision only directly applied to the southeastern state of Kentucky, where two convicts initially brought the case.
The United States invoked a seven-month moratorium on executions while the case was being considered, but several states have since resumed executions.
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