Lawsuits Challenge Use of Lethal Injection

Lethal injection, when used for the first time in Texas nearly 22 years ago, was touted as a more humane way to execute prisoners than the firing squad, hanging, the gas chamber or even the electric chair. Today, though, death penalty opponents are challenging that notion based on the Constitution's Eighth Amendment, which prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Attorneys in at least a dozen of the 37 states that use lethal injection have filed lawsuits seeking to ban the procedure, which they say puts inmates through excruciating pain because the anesthetic wears off before the two other drugs are injected. The most recent anti-death penalty action was brought in civil court in Kentucky. Earlier this year, New Jersey stopped lethal injections after an appeals court found insufficient medical knowledge to support the procedure. [more ]