The Needle and The Damage Done - NY TIMES OP_ED

On a warm spring day last June in Kansas City, a doctor identified only as John Doe No. 1 sat behind a screen to testify in the case of Michael Anthony Taylor v. Larry Crawford on his practice of executing prisoners by lethal injection for the State of Missouri. To protect the doctor’s identity, only five people were in the room — the judge, one lawyer for each side, the court reporter and John Doe No. 1. The Taylor case, which is still going on, pits a murderer against the director of the Missouri Department of Corrections.........On trial was the legality of the way lethal injection is being carried out, on the grounds that it violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. According to Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, legal challenges to lethal-injection procedures are taking place in virtually every state with an active death penalty. As a result of those cases, about 12 of the 38 states that have the death penalty have issued temporary bans on executions, and in one, New Jersey, a legislative commission recently recommended abolishing its death penalty altogether.

NY TIMES OP ED