Tennessee's lethal injection challenged
Wanda Kay Walker sat through a day of court testimony Thursday on whether Tennessee's death-row inmates feel severe pain and suffering when they are executed.
The 55-year-old Grand Rivers, Ky., nurse doesn't care.
Twenty-four years ago, Stephen Michael West took three hours to rape and stab to death her mother, Wanda Romines, and her 15-year-old sister, Sheila Romines.
"Anything he goes through is going to be an easier death than my family had and will probably be an easier death than any of us will have," she said.
Ten days before West's Nov. 9 scheduled execution in a Nashville prison, the Tennessee Supreme Court delayed the convicted Union County murderer's death. West's lawyers brought to the court evidence they say shows that inmates are awake and in pain when given the drugs that paralyze the muscles and stop the heart.
The state constitution says there must be a "demonstrated risk of severe pain" to qualify as cruel and unusual punishment, which would be prohibited.
The state Supreme Court instructed Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman to hear the evidence for both sides of the case in a two-day hearing, which is expected to conclude today. The hearing will begin at 9 a.m. with the state attorney general's expert witness.
West was not in the courtroom Thursday but was represented by federal public defender Stephen Kissinger and a team of five other lawyers.
Dr. David Lubarsky, an anesthesiologist and Duke University professor, testified that autopsy reports and witness accounts of executed Tennessee inmates reveal that the condemned feel pain similar to what someone would feel when drowning or being buried alive.
In the state's three-drug execution cocktail, the first drug, sodium thiopental, is supposed to render the inmate unconscious. Next, the inmate is given pancuronium bromide to paralyze the muscles and then potassium chloride to stop the heart. Lubarsky said the level of sodium thiopental given to inmates in Tennessee is not enough. Kissinger submitted evidence to the court that one woman, a minister, who watched a recent execution saw the inmate first turn blue and then a deep blue as the drugs were being shot into him.
"It makes it very palatable to those observing," Lubarsky said. But, "it's extremely painful and disturbing" to the inmate.
The state, represented by Mark Hudson, is expected today to call its expert, Dr. Feng Li. According to court documents, Li will testify that Lubarsky's studies aren't accurate because the autopsies on the inmates were conducted hours after their deaths.
Lubarsky testified Thursday that time would not affect the levels of sodium thiopental in the bodies.
The hours of testimony were filled with jargon from doctors and lawyers.
Sitting in court with Walker and her husband, 39-year-old Regina Cooper Patterson sat clenching a three-page, handwritten note to the court.
In it, she describes her best friend, Sheila Romines, and the life that was taken away. She concludes her letter by saying: "Please remember Sheila and Wanda felt the pain while begging for their lives while he felt no mercy and spared them nothing."
Although a message from the victims' friend is not likely to be heard in an evidentiary hearing, she wrote the letter just in case.
West's execution has been rescheduled for Nov. 30.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20...50/1017/NEWS01
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