LiberalNation
04-27-2007, 10:28 PM
Huh, there still gona be killed. Who cares if there hearts still beating a few seconds after the jolt. Instead of being sure it's stopped after 4.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070428/ap_on_re_us/nebraska_electric_chair;_ylt=Ajl1SZAjJVcRngLxG_SM6 l9vzwcF
LINCOLN, Neb. - The state's new method of electrocution — a single, sustained jolt instead of several shorter ones — could leave the condemned's heart beating well after the shock, backers and foes of the protocol say.
The macabre image of a strapped-down inmate, possibly brain dead but with a pulsating heart, could sharpen an already tense debate as Nebraska, the only state with the electric chair as its sole means of execution, prepares to put to death its first prisoner in a decade.
No one's sure the inmate's heart would continue to beat after the current stopped, but the possibility has caused a furor among capital punishment opponents since it was broached by the doctor who almost single-handedly revised Nebraska's execution protocol.
Carey Dean Moore is to die May 8 through an untested system of sending 2,450 volts through his body for 20 seconds.
Death penalty opponents are stepping up legal challenges to the execution, mainly on the grounds that the chair is cruel and unusual punishment. And the Legislature narrowly defeated a bill last month that would have repealed the death penalty.
Nebraska adopted the new protocol after a judge rejected the old one, which involved four jolts of current. The new rules call for a 15-minute wait after the jolt before checking inmates to see whether they are dead.
That wait is "crucial to the determination of death if Nebraska is intent upon using heart sounds as the criteria of death," Dr. Ronald Wright, who helped design the new policy, wrote in a 2002 report to state officials.
"The heart has a high probability of restarting following cessation of current" using the new method, he wrote.
In court depositions, Wright has said that a high-voltage shock would almost immediately cause brain death and has said the state's reluctance to use that as the standard for pronouncing death is unfortunate.
But there is "absolutely no proof" that an initial high-voltage shock causes brain death, according to John Wikswo, a biomedical engineer who has studied executions by electrocution.
The uncertainty means an inmate could experience incredible pain while corrections officials wait to check if he is dead, opponents of the protocol say.
"What they're assuming is that if the initial shock doesn't kill the person immediately, the 15-minute wait will," said Wikswo, of Vanderbilt University.
Wright has argued that because the inmate will be brain dead, he won't feel pain.
Wright, the chief medical examiner in Broward County, Florida, from 1980 to 1994, did not return messages seeking comment.
On Wright's recommendation, the state implemented a protocol calling for a continuous 15-second current. That was changed to 20 seconds after state Sen. Ernie Chambers alleged that the state Department of Correctional Services broke its own rules when it determined the new protocol without oversight and public hearings.
Officials did not provide any scientific or medical reasons for the change.
The change to 20 seconds would not appear to alter Wright's conclusion that an inmate's heart may well resume beating after the jolt. Wright mainly attributed the high probability of a heartbeat to the fact that there would not be an initial shock of lower voltage.
The four-jolt method used a stop-and-go application of electricity with low voltage during the first shock. That produced "a much higher probability" of stopping the heart permanently, Wright said in his report.
Settling on a protocol that works in electric chairs has been a problem for decades and may be more difficult now because they are more uncommon and not easily tested, and credible doctors and engineers tend to avoid them, said Deborah Denno, a professor at the Fordham University School of Law.
"We trust what the departments of corrections do," said Denno, who has studied executions extensively. "But nobody really knows very much about executions by electrocution."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070428/ap_on_re_us/nebraska_electric_chair;_ylt=Ajl1SZAjJVcRngLxG_SM6 l9vzwcF
LINCOLN, Neb. - The state's new method of electrocution — a single, sustained jolt instead of several shorter ones — could leave the condemned's heart beating well after the shock, backers and foes of the protocol say.
The macabre image of a strapped-down inmate, possibly brain dead but with a pulsating heart, could sharpen an already tense debate as Nebraska, the only state with the electric chair as its sole means of execution, prepares to put to death its first prisoner in a decade.
No one's sure the inmate's heart would continue to beat after the current stopped, but the possibility has caused a furor among capital punishment opponents since it was broached by the doctor who almost single-handedly revised Nebraska's execution protocol.
Carey Dean Moore is to die May 8 through an untested system of sending 2,450 volts through his body for 20 seconds.
Death penalty opponents are stepping up legal challenges to the execution, mainly on the grounds that the chair is cruel and unusual punishment. And the Legislature narrowly defeated a bill last month that would have repealed the death penalty.
Nebraska adopted the new protocol after a judge rejected the old one, which involved four jolts of current. The new rules call for a 15-minute wait after the jolt before checking inmates to see whether they are dead.
That wait is "crucial to the determination of death if Nebraska is intent upon using heart sounds as the criteria of death," Dr. Ronald Wright, who helped design the new policy, wrote in a 2002 report to state officials.
"The heart has a high probability of restarting following cessation of current" using the new method, he wrote.
In court depositions, Wright has said that a high-voltage shock would almost immediately cause brain death and has said the state's reluctance to use that as the standard for pronouncing death is unfortunate.
But there is "absolutely no proof" that an initial high-voltage shock causes brain death, according to John Wikswo, a biomedical engineer who has studied executions by electrocution.
The uncertainty means an inmate could experience incredible pain while corrections officials wait to check if he is dead, opponents of the protocol say.
"What they're assuming is that if the initial shock doesn't kill the person immediately, the 15-minute wait will," said Wikswo, of Vanderbilt University.
Wright has argued that because the inmate will be brain dead, he won't feel pain.
Wright, the chief medical examiner in Broward County, Florida, from 1980 to 1994, did not return messages seeking comment.
On Wright's recommendation, the state implemented a protocol calling for a continuous 15-second current. That was changed to 20 seconds after state Sen. Ernie Chambers alleged that the state Department of Correctional Services broke its own rules when it determined the new protocol without oversight and public hearings.
Officials did not provide any scientific or medical reasons for the change.
The change to 20 seconds would not appear to alter Wright's conclusion that an inmate's heart may well resume beating after the jolt. Wright mainly attributed the high probability of a heartbeat to the fact that there would not be an initial shock of lower voltage.
The four-jolt method used a stop-and-go application of electricity with low voltage during the first shock. That produced "a much higher probability" of stopping the heart permanently, Wright said in his report.
Settling on a protocol that works in electric chairs has been a problem for decades and may be more difficult now because they are more uncommon and not easily tested, and credible doctors and engineers tend to avoid them, said Deborah Denno, a professor at the Fordham University School of Law.
"We trust what the departments of corrections do," said Denno, who has studied executions extensively. "But nobody really knows very much about executions by electrocution."