User:NorwegianBlue/BB minus debate

Lethal injection
Pancuronium bromide is one of the most horrible and inhumane poisons in existence, so doesn't its use in lethal injection make lethal injection unconstitutional? --70.247.248.43 (talk) 00:30, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
 * If used on a conscious entity, you'd have a point, but that is not the case in executions. It's the supreme court that decides what's constitutional and what isn't; in the U.S., they have thus far not found the use of that drug in execution unconstitutional. - Nunh-huh 01:14, 20 December 2009 (UTC)


 * It's not clear that it is "most horrible and inhumane poisons in existence"—it's a paralyzing agent with no hypnotic effects, so if you have that, AND THEN something awful, and you aren't made unconscious first with something else, then you can feel a lot of pain. But it isn't administered by itself—it is part of a "drug cocktail" designed, ideally, to knock you out and kill you without you feeling anything. The Supreme Court has ruled this does not violate the 8th Amendment when done "correctly." In the same ruling, though, they note that if a state continues to use potentially problematic means of killing inmates without sufficient justification in the face of feasible alternatives, that this might be considered an 8th Amendment violation. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:12, 20 December 2009 (UTC)