Gorsuch has taken one life already -- Ledell Lee, first Arkansan executed since 2005.

[moriah]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/us/arkansas-death-penalty-ledell-lee-execution.html

VARNER, Ark. — The State of Arkansas, dismissing criticism that it intended to rush too many prisoners to their deaths too quickly, on Thursday night carried out its first execution in more than a decade. Using a lethal injection drug that has been the subject of sharp constitutional debate, the state plans to execute three more men by the end of the month, before its supply of the chemical expires.

Ledell Lee, who was condemned to death for the murder of Debra Reese more than 20 years ago in a Little Rock suburb, died at 11:56 p.m. Central time at the Cummins Unit, a prison in southeast Arkansas, after the reprieves he had won in federal and state courts were overturned. He received injections of three drugs: midazolam, to render him unconscious; vecuronium bromide, to halt his breathing; and potassium chloride, to stop his heart. State officials administered the lethal injection at 11:44 p.m., after Mr. Lee, who requested holy communion as his last meal, wordlessly declined to make a final statement. Sean Murphy, a reporter for The Associated Press who witnessed the execution, said Mr. Lee was not visibly uncomfortable as he was put to death. The prisoner, Mr. Murphy said, was not responsive when the authorities performed consciousness checks.

An evening of appeals kept Mr. Lee, 51, alive as his death warrant neared its midnight expiration. The United States Supreme Court, as well as a federal appeals court in St. Louis, issued temporary stays of execution while they considered his legal arguments. In Little Rock, the Arkansas capital, Gov. Asa Hutchinson monitored developments at the State Capitol.

At one point on Thursday night, the Supreme Court nearly halted Mr. Lee’s execution, but decided, 5 to 4, to allow the state to proceed with its plan, which had called for eight prisoners to be put to death over less than two weeks. The court’s majority — which included the newest justice, Neil M. Gorsuch — did not explain its decision, but in a dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer complained about how the state had established its execution schedule because of the approaching expiration date of Arkansas’s stock of midazolam.

“In my view, that factor, when considered as a determining factor separating those who live from those who die, is close to random,” Justice Breyer wrote. “I have previously noted the arbitrariness with which executions are carried out in this country. The cases now before us reinforce that point.”

Decision -- http://heavy.com/news/2017/04/neil-gorsuch-ledell-lee-death-penalty-execution-first-vote-us-supreme-court-arkansas/

-----

The main issue with using a midazolam/curare-like compound/potassium chloride process is that midazolam, even at 500mg IV, does not reliably cause true loss of consciousness. Its use as "twilight sedation", with IV Demerol, Dilaudid, or another opiate to synergistically increase effects, is specifically so the patient can be awake during the procedure, feeling pain, but not actually *remember* the pain once the midazolam wears off. Once the curare-like substance, to paralyze all muscles including those for breathing, is administered we have no idea if the subject is feeling pain or not because they can't move, speak, or breathe.

The use of curare-like compounds without proper drugs to reliably create unconsciousness is the cause of "anesthesia awareness" -- they have machines to breathe for the patient, but since they're paralyzed they can't tell the doctors during the procedure that they can feel them doing the surgery.

The description of the execution provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette doesn't confirm they even did an actual consciousness-check before administration of the vecuronium bromide for paralysis.

http://m.arkansasonline.com/news/2017/apr/21/state-carries-out-1-execution-20170421/

GRADY -- Arkansas killed a prisoner Thursday night for the first time in more than 11 years after the state high court spared another death-row inmate's life.

Ledell Lee, 51, who maintained his innocence to the very end, was pronounced dead at 11:56 p.m. after a three-drug sequence took 12 minutes to stop his heart.

Lee, his eyes open while strapped to a gurney with IV lines inserted into both of his arms, did not make a final statement from the execution chamber even though he was asked twice to do so.

Two minutes after Arkansas Department of Correction Director Wendy Kelley called for the execution to begin at 11:44 p.m., Lee's eyes began to slowly shut and he appeared to swallow multiple times before his eyes closed for the final time at 11:49 p.m. A coroner pronounced Lee dead seven minutes later after opening Lee's eyelids and checking his chest with a stethoscope.

It sounds like the paralytic was administered at 11:49 -- the swallowing sounds like classic fasciculations that happen on administration of a curare-like paralytic before it takes full effect. No one knows how those 7 minutes of suffocation felt like.

------

This wasn't considered a "botched" execution because the paralytic worked and fully disabled Ledell Lee's diaphragm and other muscles. The reason other executions were considered "botched" wasn't the level of suffering for the executed, but for the people who had to watch the actual effects of the drugs without the paralytic to hide the suffering of the human being in front of them and know they participated in causing it.

I've always believed that if people thought lethal injection was humane they would leave out the neuromuscular blocker. Oregon's Death With Dignity Act deaths don't require a paralytic. All the use of the paralytic does is hide the actual suffering from the people watching and performing the procedure, to make them feel better about "we the people" committing premeditated murder.

We might as well go back to having the condemned drink hemlock -- it works the same way.

[The99thTimeLord]

1. This is an atrocity

I'd love to team up together to try to stop the next inmate from being put to death "BECAUSE THE EXPIRATION DATE OF THE DRUG!".

Any ideas?