Davidson County Chancery Court Judge Claudia Bonnyman has ruled unconstitutional the method the State of Tennessee uses when implementing the death penalty. Tennessee utilizes a three drug method for lethal injection comprised of:

  1. Sodium Thiopental – a very fast acting barbiturate which knocks the prisoner unconscious within seconds.  This is the primary drug which is at issue in the recent ruling.
  2. Pancuronium – fast acting muscle relaxant which causes complete paralysis.
  3. Potassium Chloride – causes cardiac arrest and is the ultimate cause of death for the prisoner.

Stephen Michael West filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of this method. He had been previously convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection for the murder of a Union County, Tennessee woman and her daughter. Presenting medical expert witnesses, he argued that the level of sodium thiopental was insufficient to render an individual unconscious. Thus, the inmates are likely awake during the second and third injections causing a cruel and unusual death in violation of the Eighth Amendment (applicable to the states through the Fourteenth amendment) and article 1, section 16 of the Tennessee Constitution. The Nashville judge specifically noted Tennessee’s failure to insert safeguards in 2007 when the lethal injection method was studied. West presented expert testimony which tested the integrity of the method and provided evidence sufficient to establish a risk which she believed to rise to the level of unconstitutional. In other words, if the drugs are administered properly, there should be no considerable risk that an inmate would experience significant pain during the execution process. The state of Tennessee attorneys argued the method of execution Tennessee uses is the same as is used by the state of Kentucky, which upheld the scrutiny of the United States Supreme Court 7-2 decision in 2008 (Baze v. Rees). The Nashville judge distinguished the case by asserting that in the Kentucky case, the levels of Sodium Thiopental were not at issue. The question in the Kentucky case was the method itself – the particular levels of the drugs administered were not at issue.

Stephen Michael West is scheduled to be executed on November 30, 2010. It is likely the Tennessee Supreme Court will issue a stay to hear an appeal.