An anesthesiologist testified that Ohio’s lethal injection procedure isn’t appropriate for dogs or cats, let alone humans.
Mark Heath’s testimony on Monday on behalf of two murder defendants came in a Lorain County hearing on the constitutionality of state’s method for putting prisoners to death.
Heath, an assistant professor of anesthesiology at Columbia University in New York City, said it’s possible to perform lethal injection of prisoners in a humane manner, but that Ohio’s method falls below the standard for euthanizing household pets.
Heath, who has testified on lethal injection in 11 states, also said he has not found an acceptable method for lethal injection of humans in any state.
Ohio requires executions be carried out “in a professional, humane, sensitive and dignified manner.’’
The two men who are facing murder charges say the state’s lethal injection procedure doesn’t give the quick and painless deaths required by state law.
Lethal injections are on hold nationally while the US Supreme Court considers a challenge in a case from Kentucky.
The major criticism of the three-drug execution procedure is that if the executioner administers too little anesthetic or makes mistakes during the injection, the inmate could suffer excruciating pain from the other two drugs.
DISPUTED WATERS: The Philippines accused China of building an artificial island on Sabina Shoal, while Beijing said Manila was trying to mislead the global community The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) is committed to sustaining a presence in a disputed area of the South China Sea to ensure Beijing does not carry out reclamation activities at Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Reef), its spokesperson said yesterday. The PCG on Saturday said it had deployed a ship to Sabina Shoal, where it accused China of building an artificial island, amid an escalating maritime row, adding two other vessels were in rotational deployment in the area. Since the ship’s deployment in the middle of last month, the PCG said it had discovered piles of dead and crushed coral that had been dumped
Experts have long warned about the threat posed by artificial intelligence (AI) going rogue, but a new research paper suggests it is already happening. AI systems, designed to be honest, have developed a troubling skill for deception, from tricking human players in online games of world conquest to hiring humans to solve “prove-you’re-not-a-robot” tests, a team of researchers said in the journal Patterns on Friday. While such examples might appear trivial, the underlying issues they expose could soon carry serious real-world consequences, said first author Peter Park, a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specializing in AI existential safety. “These
The most powerful solar storm in more than two decades struck Earth on Friday, triggering spectacular celestial light shows from Tasmania to the UK — and threatening possible disruptions to satellites and power grids as it persists into the weekend. The first of several coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — expulsions of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun — came just after 4pm GMT, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center. It was later upgraded to an “extreme” geomagnetic storm — the first since the “Halloween Storms” of October 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden and damaged
A Philippine boat convoy bearing supplies for Filipino fishers yesterday said that it was headed back to port, ditching plans to sail to a reef off the Southeast Asian country after one of their boats was “constantly shadowed” by a Chinese vessel. The Atin Ito (“This Is Ours”) coalition convoy on Wednesday set sail to distribute fuel and food to fishers and assert Philippine rights in the disputed South China Sea. “They will now proceed to the Subic fish port to mark the end of their successful mission,” the group said in a statement. A Philippine Coast Guard vessel escorting the convoy was