One Shot Lethal Injection Issue

By Matthew Spinks (J#9)
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/08/biros-execution-kenneth-b_n_384409.html)

An Ohio inmate, convicted of killing and dismembering a 22-year-old woman in 1991, was executed Tuesday using a new, untested one-drug method of lethal injection, state officials said.
Biros' execution is the first in Ohio since September, when the governor and federal courts halted capital punishment in the state after a botched attempt to execute another prisoner, Romell Broom. The prison staff could not find a suitable vein for the injections.
The one-drug method had never been tried on a U.S. death row inmate. It relies on a single dose of sodium thiopental injected into a vein. A separate two-drug muscle injection was available as a backup, officials said. The one-drug method has been used to euthanize animals.
The same drug, sodium thiopental, at a much lower dosage, is the first ingredient in the three-drug method previously used in Ohio, as well as in all but one of the other 34 states that allow the death penalty.
Some capital punishment opponents claim the sodium thiopental, which renders the prisoner unconscious, can wear off too quickly and that some prisoners would actually be awake and able to feel pain as the procedure continues.
Biros was involved in litigation challenging the three-drug method and received a stay of execution in 2007 because of his involvement in the suit, according to minutes of a November parole board meeting posted on the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections' Web site.
Although most may view this as just another way of killing off dangerous criminals, some may view this as a means of social control, violating the terms of the constitution, claiming that the one injection method would be considered “Human experimentation” rather than justice. Although it is debatable, this article clearly follows standard social control through preservation by removing undesirables from society in order to protect the masses.