State public defenders watching lethal-injection case

Federal public defenders who represent more than half the inmates on Nevada's death row are watching closely as the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether lethal injections violate the protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

"This is a claim we will be putting in all our petitions," said Michael Pescetta, assistant federal public defender based in Las Vegas.

The high court has agreed to consider whether a Florida inmate was wrongly barred from pursuing a claim the lethal-drug cocktail causes extreme pain and therefore violates constitutional prohibitions. Pending that ruling, they stayed three executions in Florida and Missouri. That prompted petitions from prisoners in California and several other states seeking similar stays.

Pescetta said the claim is based on medical studies indicating inmates may actually still be aware of what is happening to them, and that they may be suffering extreme pain from the drug cocktail, which eventually stops their hearts - but renders them unable to move even a tiny bit to show that pain.

"If that's what's happening, it's pretty weird," Pescetta said. But he said that would justify claims lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.

He said his office is making sure that claim is in their challenges to the death penalty to preserve the issue on appeal. He said, however, everything will depend on what the Supreme Court does with the issue. The ruling could be anything from banning lethal injection to opening a window to challenge a specific procedure used in a state's executions or dismissing the claim altogether.

He said part of the problem is that the details of how much drugs are used, and the protocols in administering them are "conducted in secret."

"It's the sort of thing where you ask for discovery about the execution method, and the state says no because there's no saying this method will be used."

He said if the Supreme Court opens a legal argument defense attorneys can use, they would be able to raise that issue and demand information on exactly how Nevada conducts its executions.

Dr. Ted D'Amico, head of the prison medical operation, said Nevada's system is patterned after the lethal-injection process in Texas. But he doesn't know specifically how it compares in the drugs and amounts used and the procedures used in Florida and Missouri or other states.

He said Nevada offers inmates Valium to relax them before entering the death chamber. Then, he said, prison personnel administer an anesthetic very similar to those used in hospitals to put the inmates to sleep. He said once the inmates are unconscious, they administer a "curare-like medicine" which paralyzes the respiration and muscles.

The final step, D'Amico said, is potassium chloride which, in effect, causes a heart attack and death.

He said he has never seen signs of pain, convulsions or other violent reactions.

"They just go to sleep."

D'Amico emphasized that, as a doctor, he doesn't administer the lethal drugs.

"I have nothing to do with the execution," he said, adding that his job is, at the end, to pronounce the inmate dead.

Pescetta said he has seen no indication of severe pain, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening.

"We have to see what the court does. Then we can decide what our next move is."

-- Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.