AMERICAN states have an urgent problem with the death penalty. The issue is not whether it should be applied, but how.
On 21 February, officials in California delayed the execution of 46-year-old Michael Morales, sentenced to death for a 1981 murder. His lawyers argued that a lethal injection would constitute cruel and unusual punishment, prohibited under the US constitution. Their case was based on a study published last year in The Lancet (vol 365, p 1412) that suggested some inmates were given too little anaesthetic before receiving fatal doses of other drugs, and might therefore experience unnecessary pain.
At a…
