作者:Rich Holloway.D.，项目总监 刑事司法
You may have heard about the botched execution that occurred recently in Oklahoma. Historically, a number of states have used 注射 as the default method for executions. The idea being that the right combination of lethal drugs can put a person to death in a "humane" way. A cocktail of drugs would first render the inmate unconscious; then paralyze the inmate’s muscles; and lastly, 让犯人心脏停止跳动. The inmate would theoretically not feel any pain or significant discomfort prior to death.
Oklahoma has a law that prevents inmates from knowing the ingredients in the cocktail to be used for 注射. 4月21日，俄克拉荷马州最高法院 无限期地保持 the executions of Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner to deal with the question of the constitutionality of the above-mentioned Oklahoma statute. 俄克拉荷马州州长玛丽·法林说, 然而, stated that the Oklahoma Supreme Court didn’t have the authority to issue the stay, 改成7天的住宿, 并计划在4月29日执行死刑, 2014. Clayton Lockett’s execution went forward on the 29th, and was the latest “botched execution.“目前还不清楚到底是哪里出了问题. 但不管你是否相信俄克拉荷马州, 或者洛克特的公设辩护律师, it is clear that the intent was not for Lockett to be conscious and visibly in pain before ultimately dying from a heart attack about 45 minutes into the execution.
For a little more background on what's causing the current problem, we have to go overseas. European companies have traditionally manufactured some of the chemicals used as part of the 注射 cocktail. 然而，其中一些公司决定重返市场 2011 他们不想再参与死刑, so they made the business decision to no longer produce those chemicals. 从那时起，欧盟委员会已经安置 新规定 关于出口死刑用毒品的问题. 结果是, one of those chemicals is no longer available for use by American correctional institutions, causing correctional institutions to try to come up with alternative chemical cocktails to use for 注射s. 一些国家通过使用 药房购买, 根据医生的指示为个别病人混合药物的药店, 而且往往不受传统监管. 事实证明，使用复方药物是有问题的. 1月9日, 俄克拉荷马州处决了迈克尔·李·威尔逊, 据说他的遗言是, “我觉得全身都在燃烧.1月16日，在俄亥俄州，一名囚犯只用了25分钟就死于 注射 一种未经检验的鸡尾酒.
Because of the nature of the US legal system (a bi-furcation of federal and state systems), 在大多数与……有关的事物中，固有地缺乏一致性 刑事司法. There is the federal system, which should be relatively uniform, and is in many ways. 美国, 然而, 各干各的，有些跟着联邦探员, 其他人则含蓄地拒绝一切联邦的东西. Layering on top of this are differing standards on the local and county level within states, so often the quality of a defendant’s treatment by the system depends more on where he or she has done wrong versus what he or she has done wrong.
The Constitution Project’s Death Penalty Committee recently released a 报告 titled “Irreversible Error: Recommended Reforms for Preventing and Correcting Errors in the 政府 of Capital Punishment”. The document is comprehensive and detailed, so I will not try to summarize it here. 该报告并不仅仅关注执行程序, but instead makes 39 recommendations covering 12 different aspects of the 刑事司法 process leading up to execution, 例如:诉诸司法, 确保证人证词可靠, 以及检察官的角色, 仅举几个例子. 这39条建议都是合理的, and I urge those interested in this topic to at least read the Black Letter Recommendations beginning on page xlv (page 43 of 217 of the electronic version).
在审阅39条黑字建议时, 我认为, 然而, that there needed to be a 40th recommendation: these recommendations need to be part of federal legislation mandating uniformity across the nation on all of these recommendations. We need a national standard for the administration of capital punishment in the United States. Capital punishment appears to be dying a long slow death in this country. 死刑执行的数量每年都在减少, and the number of states abandoning or at least staying capital punishment is increasing. 然而, 至少需要有统一的标准, processes and procedures in place so that we can get as close to actual “justice” as possible on this issue.
The question of capital punishment is often a very personal question, and many people cling strongly to whatever reasons they may have to want to continue to use this method of punishment which has never been proven to deter crime. 不论保留死刑的个人动机如何, those interested in the “justice” should be willing to concede the need for ensuring that our Constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection under the laws is actually happening in every state that still executes people. 我们的法律历史表明，虽然不完美, our best chance at uniformity and fairness for those who need it most, 是通过建立一个系统吗, 一套规则和程序, 这是全国统一的标准. Where the defendant commits the crime should not be one of the overriding factors determining who gets subjected to capital punishment, 以及如何实施. 作为一个国家，我们至少是时候这么做了.
理查德·霍洛威，J.D.，项目总监 刑事司法 科罗拉多理工大学, practiced both criminal and civil law in the Chicago area for nearly a decade before he began teaching as an adjunct professor in 业务 Law and 刑事司法.
