[FADPUpdate] Report is Available

[melliott3 at aol.com]

Friends,
 
The Final Report of the Governor's Commission on the Administration of Lethal Injection is now available at www.FADP.org.
 
More coming soon.  
 
Statements by coalition partners to the Commission will be posted.
 
More details upcoming.
 
Call For Action next.
 
---Mark
 
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Crist gets report on lethal injection

BILL KACZOR
Associated Press

TALLAHASSEE - A commission reviewing a botched execution suggested Thursday that Florida officials explore the use of newer chemicals for lethal injections and evaluate whether a paralytic drug should continue to be employed at all.
 
The Governor's Commission on Administration of Lethal Injection submitted its final report and recommendations to Gov. Charlie Crist, but he took no immediate action.
"I'm in favor of the death penalty," Crist said. "I think that within a reasonable period of time after having a chance to review it, have our general counsel review their recommendations, that we can move forward."
 
The governor said he also planned to work with Corrections Secretary Jim McDonough and the Legislature to address the commission's recommendations.
 
Crist's predecessor, Jeb Bush, created the 11-member panel to find out what went wrong with the Dec. 13 execution of Angel Diaz, 55, who took 34 minutes to die - twice as long as usual - and recommend how to prevent that from happening again.
 
Executioners administered a rare second dose of three chemicals. They included a painful paralytic drug, pancuronium bromide, which some commissioners felt was responsible for the panel's inability to determine if Diaz suffered.
 
An anesthesiologist told the panel the drug has the potential to leave an improperly sedated inmate in intense agony but paralyzed and, thus, unable to show it.
The commission concluded that the state would be able to continue using the present three chemicals without violating the constitution if it adopted the panel's recommendations.
 
It also suggested, though, that Crist and the Department of Corrections look into more recently developed drugs and consider and evaluate the need of a paralyzing agent "in an effort to make the lethal injection execution procedure less problematic."
 
Those suggestions drew a written objection, included with the report, from commissioner Carolyn Snurkowski, a lawyer in the attorney general's office who represents the state in death penalty appeals.
 
Addressing the use of particular drugs exceeded the commission's authority, she wrote. She cited Bush's executive order barring the panel from re-evaluating legislative decisions to enact the death penalty or chose the means to implement it.
 
The report also includes a statement from the commission's three physician members who wrote that administering lethal injections may involve the use of medical personnel in violation of professional ethics.
 
The doctors added that "the potential unreliability of lethal injection cannot be fully mitigated."
 
The commission recommended that executioners make sure an inmate is unconscious from a dose of sodium pethothal before the paralyzing drug and the fatal chemical, potassium chloride, are administered.
 
It was unable to determine if Diaz had been properly sedated. An autopsy found the needles were pushed through his veins into the flesh of his arms, possibly limiting the effectiveness of all three drugs.
 
The report also recommends more training for execution teams and a clear protocol to define the process.
 
Other suggestions are for better supervision, closed circuit monitoring and the addition of a second Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent who would be placed inside the death chamber to observe and report on the execution.
 
An Amnesty International official said in a statement that the organization was encouraged by the report and openness of the commission's hearings.
 
"The actual practice of lethal injection was hidden for too long behind a veil of secrecy and vague legislative wording that fails to convey what actually occurs in the death chamber," said Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn, director of the organization's USA Program to Abolish the Death Penalty.
 
ACLU of Florida legislative counsel Larry Spalding said the report was a positive step forward and urged that Crist "continue on the cautious path of inquiry and investigation before consideration is given to a resumption of signing death warrants."




 
 
 
 
 
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