Letter to Governor Riley - 15 November 2007

15 November 2007

Governor Bob Riley

Dear Governor Riley,

This is my eighth letter to you. In previous letters, I invited you to answer me by email, if you should wish to do so. My offer remains open for you to either answer via email to justicefortommy@gmail.com or to post your answer as a comment on my blog at www.justicefortommy.blogspot.com. I doubt, however, that you would answer any of my letters.

Nevertheless, as also previously mentioned, I will keep on writing to you as my conscience compels me to do so. I cannot stand by idly, as many are doing, and watch injustice take place through inaction, grandstanding, grandiosity and greed for political power. I have seen this too much in various countries in past years and believe me; it never led to anything. Those guilty of this are evidently forgotten and their legacies scorned for ages to come.

In my previous letter I wrote to you regarding your lethal injection protocol. Can you now reveal it to your citizens, in order to prove that it is free of faults and failings and will not contravene the stipulations of the 8th amendment? In my view, I think it would be difficult for you to do so, as history shows that your and other State’s protocols were “borrowed” from the original experiment/protocol in Colorado in 1977 and that insufficient research was done by your State before you adopted your lethal injection protocol.

On the topic of research; what research did you do before you recently changed the protocol? Can you reveal this research to your citizens? Whilst on this topic and as mentioned in my previous letter, how will you ensure that a condemned inmate is unconscious when the pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride have entered his body, seeing as he would be paralyzed and would not respond to “pinching”, “sweeping of the eyelids” and “calling of his name”?

I recently read a study done by Seema Shah of your Department of Bioethics, entitled: “HOW LETHAL INJECTION REFORM CONSTITUTES IMPERMISSIBLE RESEARCH ON PRISONERS”. I will be posting this on my weblog (link) and will also ask Thomas Arthur’s daughter to post it on her website at www.thomasarthurfightforlife.com.

I would like to post a few excerpts from this report:

“This essay exposes how recent attempts at lethal injection reform have involved unethical and illegal research on prisoners. States are varying the doses and types of drugs used, developing methods designed for non-medical professionals to administer medical procedures, and gathering data or made provision for the gathering of data to learn from executions gone wrong. When individual prisoners are executed under these conditions, states are conducting research on them. Conducting research or experimentation on prisoners in the process of reform is problematic because it violates ethical frameworks and state laws.”

And that is just the first paragraph…

Shah goes further to say:

“Yet in the extensive litigation and debate over lethal injection, one important issue has been entirely neglected: attempts to reform lethal injection necessarily require states to experiment with different procedures and revise their lethal injection protocols, and thereby to conduct research on prisoners. The process of revision and reform therefore comes into conflict with regulations or policies governing research on prisoners, with which states must comply. Thus, attempts to develop appropriate lethal injection protocols in a manner that constitutes experimentation on prisoners could require the use of many prisoners as test subjects, in violation of state policies, regulations, and ethical precepts. Furthermore, this conflict may ultimately be irresolvable.”

“Research “refers to a class of activities designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.”56 By contrast, medical practice involves “a class of activities designed solely to enhance the well-being of an individual patient or client.”57 The critical distinction here is that standard medical practice typically requires a reasonable expectation of success and is aimed at improving the health of one particular patient, whereas research is aimed at developing knowledge that can be used to benefit society.”

“Thus, the changes in the protocol are designed to create procedures that can work for the lethal injection process as it is applied to future inmates and in accord with the law. In other words, the protocol is designed as an attempt to codify generalizable knowledge about the lethal injection process that can make the process effective and legal for all inmates who undergo it. Yet the method by which this reform is occurring offers no guarantee of success and relies on untested elements that may or may not work.”

“Proponents of lethal injection may argue that lethal injection should not be thought of as research, but rather as punishment. This distinction, however, ignores the fact that the arguments above relate to the process of reform of lethal injection, and not to the practice of lethal injection. Arguably, the administration of lethal injection prior to the attempts to reform the procedure would not be considered research. It is the changes described herein, such as alteration of dosages and data-gathering, that lead to the implication that Departments of Corrections are conducting research on prisoners.”

“Another objection may be that since doctors are not ethically permitted to perform lethal injection (or euthanasia in the United States), such an activity cannot be medical in the views of doctors themselves. This argument is flawed for at least three reasons. First, with regard to statutory interpretation, the relevant definitions of research are included in the statute, and what physicians might think is irrelevant. Second, lethal injection is a medical procedure, and physicians’ objections to lethal injection do not turn on whether the procedure is medical or not—they rely on the fact that, in these cases, a medical procedure is being employed to do harm. Third, as previously discussed, much of the debate about lethal injection has centered on the ability of a non-medical professional to perform a medical procedure in the absence of medical training. In fact, one of the seminal problems with the current administration of lethal injection is that the procedure is a medical one, but that the professional organizations governing the people with the relevant training have ethical qualms about their participation.”

In short, what Shah is saying, Governor, is that “when such a lethal injection protocol is changed, use thereof thereafter would be tantamount to “research” i.e. by using it thereafter you would be “experimenting” to see if it would work or not.

In other words, as Thomas Arthur is slated to be the first person to be executed under your revised protocol on 6 December 2007, which was “borrowed” from the start, he would merely be a “guinea pig” to see if the new protocol would work or not. After all, you would need to execute someone in this way to see if it would work or not, not so Governor? There is NO other way to say that it would work or not. You would have to “experiment” now, don’t you?

Reading the full report will open this up in a more comprehensive way.

I can understand that one could possibly do such “research” on someone who “volunteers” to be executed, as many do, but here we are dealing with a person, Thomas Arthur, whose case has many gray areas and who maintains his innocence and is begging for the opportunity to prove it by having DNA tested and presenting new evidence applicable thereto, but who is being denied it.

We live in a very sick world if this is going to be the case, Governor.

Lastly, as you have the power to change all this, I want to ask one vital question: “Why are you not doing so, Governor?”

Allow me to ask one more: “Why don’t you stand up and create a situation where generations hereafter can respect you, instead of seeing you as the tabloids are seeing your Attorney General, Troy King, where one says (The Huntsville Times 23 September 2007):

“Taken individually, none of this - except perhaps for the incidents involving the two-year college system - may rise to a level beyond a momentary lapse of reason or a slippery grasp of propriety. But taken as a whole, it casts a serious shadow over King's judgment and raises questions about his ability to represent the state's citizens. His subsequent decisions will certainly be watched closely. And because of his actions so far, the attorney general won't be getting the benefit of the doubt if there is a next time.”

In our country, during the 90’s, one man stood up and said “ENOUGH!” to segregation; Past President F.W. de Klerk. He ended a vile practise and suffered the scorn of his fellow countrymen who stood for “apartheid” but ultimately ensured that we could today live in a peaceful and democratic country. For this he was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was a man true to his convictions. He did the right thing. He did it for us, the people.

Today I ask you to be a man and to do the right thing, Governor. You might also suffer scorn in the short term but ultimately generation after generation will see you as the man who stood for justice and was true to his convictions. Do it for the people, Governor. They deserve to live in an environment of transparency, justice and peace, knowing that you are a leader worthy of his word.

I end my letter by AGAIN asking you, for the sake of decency, humanity, mercy and justice, to allow DNA testing to be done in Arthur’s case and to reveal to the citizens of Alabama the contents of the lethal injection protocol being used to execute condemned persons. Your Creator, who entrenches the right to life in Section 1 of your Constitution, demands it of you.

Yours Faithfully,

Dr. Thinus Coetzee
justicefortommy@gmail.com