Sedating Inmates Before Executions: The Humane Thing to Do?

Imagine knowing the exact date and time that you will die. The mental anguish must be overwhelming. The anxiety, fear, depression are all part of the psychological torture. This is what an inmate who is about to be executed must feel.

When an inmate receives an execution date, they usually know months in advance when their execution will take place. Because most prisons have a specific time that they execute inmates, the time is also known to the inmate. The execution is the final debt to society the punishment for the crime, but the mental torture that leads up to the execution, is another punishment in itself.

Several states offer sedative to the inmates before executions. Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Montana ,Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah and Washington are among the states that practice this protocol. The remaining states out of the 38 execution states do not sedate inmates before executions.

The American Medical Association is not allowed to participate in executions because of the ethical code, but are allowed to assist in the sedating before the executions. It just seems like the humane thing to do. Although the condemned have caused great grief, and loss of life to be on death row to begin with, it is as cruel and unusual as the lethal injection procedure. It's unnatural to know exactly when your going to die.

Inmates have been know to have to be literally carried and placed on the execution gurney, out of sheer fright, and the will to live. The sedating of inmates would be not only easier on the inmate, but must help the execution team as well. A sedated inmate is more likely to go to their death chamber more peacefully.

The witnesses in the death chamber also have great stress. Witnessing an execution is not an easy thing, whether the witness be on the victims family side, or the inmates loved ones. To see your loved one shaking, crying, and in sheer fright and anguish alone is cruel to the witness. If the inmate was sedated, the whole execution process would be easier for the witnesses.

Each state can decide for themselves how they want the execution process to take place. Texas, a state which leads the nation in executions do not offer sedatives to the inmates about to be executed. Texas inmates rarely get a stay of executions. A petition is circulating the Internet to urge legislators to offer sedatives before executions, and can be read and signed here:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/administering-sedatives-before-execution