Death penalty to continue in Missouri

By Juana Summers

Published June 6, 2007

Executions will resume in Missouri after a decision Monday by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a previous ruling regarding lethal injection.

The three-judge panel ruled that lethal injection was not unconstitutional with regard to the Eighth Amendment and that the state may resume executions.

"Many states are debating the issue of lethal injection," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "Executions remain on hold in nine states because of this challenge."

Dieter said the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2004 to allow inmates to challenge lethal injection as a civil rights matter.

"The evidence reveals that the only inherent risk in Missouri's written procedure arises from the specific chemicals chosen by the state to carry out the sentence of death by lethal injection," the decision states. "Lethal injection itself is commonly thought to be the most humane form of execution."

U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan ruled that Missouri's lethal injection procedure could cause "torturous" pain.

Gaitan halted all executions in the state of Missouri in June 2006 pending the state's changes to lethal injection procedures. The ruling stemmed from an appeal made by a Missouri inmate.

Attorneys for Michael Taylor claimed that the lethal injection method in Missouri created a risk of pain for the inmate sentenced to die.

This, attorneys claimed, would violate the Eighth Amendment's explicit protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

Taylor's appeal came when he was hours away from death in February 2006. Taylor was convicted in the rape, murder and kidnapping of a 15-year-old in Kansas City in 1989.

In executions performed in the state of Missouri, inmates die by a three-chemical process through an IV in the forearm. Sodium penthonal, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride are used in the process. Ultimately, an inmate's cause of death in lethal injection is a heart attack.

Taylor and his lawyers said there was the possibility that the first chemical used would not properly anesthetize him, and so he would feel the third chemical, which causes a burning sensation as it induces a heart attack.

During the course of the appeal, the panel reviewed the executions of Missouri's last six inmates who underwent lethal injection and said in the appeal that there was no evidence to support that any of them felt pain during execution.

"The question is whether there will be more holds or whether courts will rule that the executions will go forward," Dieter said. "What happened to Missouri is that they ruled that the executions could go forward. But there's no doubt that ruling will also be challenged."