CHAPTER 2.
METHODS OF EXECUTION
Lethal injection.
Lethal injection is now virtually the universal method of execution in the United States, with all but one of the 65 executions carried out during 2003 being by this method. Of the 885 executions in the US to the end of 2003, 720 have been by lethal injection, including those of eight women.
Lethal injection was first considered as a means of execution in 1888 when New York's J. Mount Bleyer MD put it forward in an article in the Medico-Legal Journal suggesting that it would be more humane, cheaper and rob the prisoner of the hero status that often attached to hangings. He suggested the intravenous injection of six grains of Morphine. The idea did not catch on and New York introduced the electric chair instead.
The British Royal Commission on Capital Punishment (1948-1953) also examined lethal injection but decided against it, partly due to pressure from the BMA who were concerned about the ethics of doctors participating in executions.

It was again put forward in 1977 by Dr. Stanley Deutsch, who at the time chaired the Anaesthesiology Department of Oklahoma University Medical School. In response to a call by an Oklahoma state senator Bill Dawson for a cheaper alternative to repairing the state's derelict electric chair, Deutsch described a way to administer drugs through an intravenous drip so as to cause death rapidly and without pain. "Having been anaesthetised on several occasions with ultra short-acting barbiturates and having administered these drugs for approximately 20 years, I can assure you that this is a rapid, pleasant way of producing unconsciousness," Deutsch wrote to the senator in February 1977.

Oklahoma thus became the first to legislate for it in 1977. Texas introduced similar legislation later in the same year to replace their electric chair and carried out the first execution by this method on December 7th 1982 when Charles Brooks was put to death for the murder of second hand car salesman David Gregory in Huntsville Texas in 1976. Brook's girlfriend Vanessa Sapp witnessed the procedure, which began at 12.07 a.m. He was certified dead at 12.16 a.m. There was no apparent problem and Brooks seemed to die quite easily. At first he raised his head, clenched his fist and seemed to yawn or gasp before passing into unconsciousness.
37 American states now use lethal injection either as their sole method or as an option to one of the traditional methods. These being Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming. Alabama has allowed lethal injection from July 1st 2002 as an option to electrocution and has executed four people by this method up to the end of 2003.

Texas has carried out the vast majority of lethal injections in the US, with 313 to the end of 2003. Many states have modified their old execution chambers to save the cost of building a new facility - California carries out injections within the gas chamber at San Quentin and Washington under the gallows traps at Walla Walla State Penitentiary.
The Philippines have also decided to use lethal injection for future executions to replace the electric chair and carried out its first execution since 1976, when Leo Echegaray was put to death for child rape on the 4th of February 1999. A further 6 men have been executed by this method to the end of 2000 but there have been no executions since.

Guatemala has also switched to lethal injection after a botched firing squad execution in 1996 and has carried out three executions since then. The first occurred on the 10th February 1998, when Manuel Martinez, a 42-year-old peasant, was put to death for killing four children, their parents and their aunt in 1995 in a dispute over a small plot of land.
On the 29th June 2000 two members of a Guatemalan kidnapping ring were executed in consecutive and televised executions. Amilcar Cetino Perez and Tomas Cerrate Hernandez were members of a notorious kidnap gang believed to be responsible for death threats against the family of President Alfonso Portillo.
China also been experimenting with lethal injection and is moving to this method to replace shooting.

During early 2003 it has introduced a fleet of eighteen mobile execution vehicles. These are specially converted 24 seat minibuses, which will operate in the southern province of Yunnan and the cities of Harbin and Shanghai. The windowless execution chamber at the back contains a metal bed on which the prisoner is strapped down. The executioner presses a button that starts an automatic injection process which can be watched on a video monitor next to the driver's seat and be recorded if required. Efficiency and cost were apparently the main reasons for the introduction of these vehicle according to Yunnan officials. On was quoted as saying : "With lethal injection, only four people are required to execute the death penalty: one executioner, one member of the court, one from the procuratorate and one forensic doctor. A dozen guards are also required to keep watch around the van". Thailand has moved to lethal injection to replace shooting from December 2003.