Bad timing

By Sam Lucero
News and Information Manager

While the eyes of the world were focused on Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Washington D.C. last Wednesday, another event took place not far from where the pope and President Bush were meeting.

The U.S. Supreme Court on April 16 issued a ruling that upheld Kentucky's use of lethal injection as a method of execution. It is ironic that on the same day Pope Benedict urged respect for human rights when confronting terrorism, the high court issued its 7-2 decision.

The court, ruling in Baze v. Rees, rejected a challenge by two Kentucky death-row inmates. They questioned the constitutionality of a three-drug lethal combination used in executions, saying that the method violated a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Lethal injection is used for capital punishment by the federal government and 36 states. At least 30 states use the same combination of the three drugs. (Wisconsin is one of 14 states without capital punishment.)

According to news reports, opponents of the three-drug lethal injection noted that if the initial drug, sodium thiopental, an anesthetic, did not take hold, the other two drugs - pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride - would cause excruciating pain. Pancuronium bromide acts as a paralytic and would prevent the inmate from expressing discomfort.

In rejecting the inmates' argument, the court said the state offers measures to ensure that inmates will not endure significant pain. A moratorium on executions had been in place since last September, when the court agreed to hear testimony in the Kentucky case.

Comments from the Supreme Court justices indicate that, while they could not find sufficient grounds to rule against lethal injections, the death penalty itself may need to be reviewed.

"Instead of ending the controversy, I am now convinced that this case will generate debate not only about the constitutionality of the three-drug protocol, and specifically about the justification for the use of the paralytic agent, pancuronium bromide, but also about the justification for the death penalty itself," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens.

With the court's decision issued, states now have the green light to resume executions by lethal injection. However, the growing sentiment, expressed by several of the justices, is that capital punishment is anathema to a civilized society.

Americans are also having a change of heart about capital punishment. According to a May 2006 Gallup Poll, overall support of the death penalty was 65 percent, down from 80 percent in 1994. When a life sentence without parole is mentioned, 48 percent of poll respondents chose this option over the death penalty (47 percent).

Worldwide, the United States is in the minority in using the death penalty. In 2007, five countries carried out the majority (88 percent) of known executions: China (470), Iran (317), Saudi Arabia (143), Pakistan (135), and the United States (42).

Last December, the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. Among the nations opposing the moratorium were the United States, China, Iran and Syria. Not exactly the kind of company a nation that espouses freedom and liberty wants to be associated with.

Pope Benedict's visit to America is a reminder of another papal visit in 1999. Pope John Paul II, while in St. Louis, challenged the notion of capital punishment as a deterrent for crime. He said that state-sanctioned murder was "both cruel and unnecessary," and noted that "modern society has the means of protecting itself without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also acknowledges that while governments have a right to protect their citizens, other means of protection, including life imprisonment for murderers, are possible.

Continued appeals by Pope Benedict and our bishops will help to some day abolish the death penalty in America. It's just a matter of time.