Tuesday, April 25, 2006

A new take on the lethal injection debate

Interesting piece in the New Standard today:

Lethal Injection Debate Misses Bigger Point, Abolitionists Say
by Jessica Azulay

While heated deliberations rage over an execution method considered the "most humane" practiced today, those opposed to the death penalty altogether hope their side gains traction.

Apr. 25 – Mounting evidence that America's favored method for state-sponsored execution of prisoners may cause its victims excruciating pain has infused fresh rigor into at lease one narrow aspect of the death-penalty debate.

Defense attorneys and medical ethicists are squaring off against state executioners in a fight for judicial and public opinion on whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Meanwhile, many of the leading death-penalty abolition groups are staying above the fray, saying that rather than discussing how best to put people to death, the nation should be discussing whether to kill them at all.

To read the whole piece, and to see NCADP's and CUADP's quotes on the subject, go here.

(Hat tip, Scott at Ohio Death Penalty Information)

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