Not Like the Others, Part II: How Lethal Injection Is Nothing Like Pet Euthanasia
When people call for putting death row inmates down "like a dog," few understand it'd be an improvement.
As I mentioned last week, writing about lethal injection often elicits questions comparing our most popular execution method to similar-seeming procedures in legitimate medicine. Without a doubt, the most anxious questioners want to know one thing: is this what I did to my dog?
The question is understandable: nearly half of pet owners have chosen to euthanize at some point, and their veterinarian promised something that sounds a lot like the promise of lethal injection: a momentary injection preceding a deep sleep from which the subject doesn’t wake. It’s undoubtedly disheartening to hear how badly the process can fail in a different mammal is undoubtedly disheartening.
Nor is it something lethal injection practitioners haven’t thought about. Jay Chapman, the pathologist who conceived the first lethal injection formula, began work on the question after realizing that “we put animals to death more humanely than we do people.” When problems with the cocktail he proposed became apparent, lethal injection took a more serious look at veterinary medicine: in 2007, lethal injection defender Dr. Mark Dershowitz told Human Rights Watch that state prison officials had asked him about “the vet option,“ their term for a single-dose pentobarbital protocol (lethal injection states were all, at the time, using Chapman’s thiopental-vecuronium-p). None of them were interested—at the time—after finding out it would take far longer to complete the execution; Dershowitz noted that for corrections officials, “It’s not about the prisoner. It’s about public policy. It’s about the audience and prison personnel who have to carry out the execution.”
Prison officials would have their hands forced, however, when activist and regulatory pressure forced thiopental out of the US market. Suddenly forced to experiment, many states found themselves forced to adopt the option they’d previously rejected. Though results haven’t been that much better, the ready availability of pentobarbital led to its adoption as the sole execution drug by eight states and the federal government (Alabama and South Carolina use it as the sedative in three-drug protocols). Given its widespread use in both settings, methods involving pentobarbital form the best basis for comparison.1
Protocol & Site Selection in Animal Euthanasia & Lethal Injection
In some sense, protocolary differences are more justified this week. The Euthanasia Reference Manual of the Humane Society of the United States must suggest guidelines for humanely killing a host of different species, where lethal injection guidelines like Missouri’s only refer to humans. Even limiting the former to dogs, however, there’s an immediate and stark difference in the level of detail: the Humane Society spends three pages explaining the mechanism and expected clinical effects of the drug, nearly equal in length to Missouri’s entire protocol. If a veterinary practice chooses IV injection of pentobarbital, the Guide offers a diagram of 22 acceptable sites; while Missouri is more stringent than most states in requiring a physician to participate2, its only guidance on placement is to require two lines “unless the prisoner’s physical condition makes it unduly difficult” and to restrict central line placement to those with “appropriate training, education, and experience for that procedure” (an intentionally nebulous requirement).
Administration of Pentobarbital
If the difference in site selection is the most easily observed difference, the most jarring is in the methods of administration of the drug. The Humane Society recommends a euthanasia technician for drug administration; at minimum, this means that compliant euthanasia procedures are performed by a professional with 18 hours of education on the subject. By contrast, Missouri’s lethal injection administration is performed by prison staff with no prescribed level of training except that they be “under the observation of medical personnel.” It’s important to note here that pentorbarbital can cause burns and tissue damage if allowed to leak from the IV site, something that even experienced professionals can experience with a difficult IV.
The question of drug quality is also paramount here. While veterinary providers are required to adhere to the same controlled substance laws as their medical counterparts, Missouri and its peers are allowed to secretly purchase drugs and dodge questions about their quality, bolstered by a federal Justice Department ruling that when they’re used in executions, drugs aren’t actually drugs.
Capital Punishment: Not Fit for a Dog
There’s an important reason to note why single-drug pentobarbital executions are the only semi-realistic comparison to animal euthanasia: no other American execution method even resembles the veterinary standard of care. The American Veterinary Medical Association forbids the use of paralytics, as in the traditional lethal injection formula still used in a majority of death penalty states, in animals should there be any risk of delay between paralysis and euthanasia; Human Rights Watch noted as early as 2007 that deaths were taking significantly longer than promised. The AVMA also recommends nitrogen gas for euthanasia in rodents (which have similar nervous systems to humans) only if they’ve been otherwise anesthetized. The Association is a little more permissive with pigs, another human analog, but only if the animals can be put to death within seven minutes. As Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty Policy Project points out, the world’s only nitrogen execution to date lasted more than 22.
Chapman was correct that execution methods of the time were worse than the way we put animals to death. The trouble is that after nearly 50 years, that gap has only widened.
The Humane Society’s euthanasia guidelines were chosen for their focus on pentobarbital; Missouri’s lethal injection protocol was chosen because, as of press time, it will be the next single-drug pentobarbital protocol used.
In violation of the profession’s code of ethics.