Masking Cruelty
Current Situation:
- Although the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty, a number of its execution-related features continue to raise constitutional questions. A Supreme Court panel led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud asked the Centre to defend the law that allows hanging by the neck as a method of execution, reopening a debate that has been going on for decades about whether there can be a more humane and devout way to carry out the death penalty.
Is the death penalty constitutionally valid?
- In September 1983, when death row inmates in India were hanged, the Supreme Court last considered and upheld the constitutionality of hanging (Deena v. Union of India).
- The Law Commission of India recognised the unconstitutionality of executions by hanging in its 187th Report dated October 2003 and urged that India instead look about utilising lethal injections.
- Nevertheless in the two decades after the 187th LCI Report, there have been a number of botched lethal injection executions in the US.
- Earlier this week, the Supreme Court was called upon to reconsider its September 1983 decision on whether India could continue using hanging for executions.
- While the petitioner contended that moving to lethal injection would be a more merciful form of execution, the procedures also raise some serious constitutional questions about the execution of death row convicts.
- Nonetheless, since the death penalty is currently legal, any execution technique may be used by the state. It is the responsibility of the state to guarantee that whatever form of execution it chooses may comply with constitutional criteria.
Argument against the execution technique of hanging:
- There is currently plenty of evidence demonstrating that hanging is a cruel and harsh mode of execution that violates people’s dignity.
- In contrast to the assumption of “instantaneous death” by dislocating the cervical vertebrae, the documentation of hangings in the US and the UK reveals the painful “lingering” between life and death as victims undergo considerable anguish from asphyxiation before dying.
- Many incidents of shattered ropes, necks that slipped out of nooses, partial or complete decapitations, and delayed death from strangulation have been documented in research (instead of having the neck broken) (instead of having the neck broken).
- The immediate, painless death associated with hanging is the exception, not the rule.
- Numerous courts, like as the Privy Council, the Supreme Court of Uganda, and the High Court of Tanzania, have dismissed hangings as a humane mode of punishment by highlighting the pain they cause.
The other method is lethal injection:
- In its 187th report from 2003, the Law Commission recommended amending Section 354(5) CrPC to provide “lethal injection until the accused is dead.” It had been argued that the court should have discretion over the execution method and consult with the defendant before making a decision.
- Yet, the US has now provided indisputable evidence that lethal injection executions have a real and significant risk of going wrong and resulting in severe agony.
- Lethal injection executions had the highest percentage of errors of any procedure, according to a 2012 study by the British Journal of American Law Studies that examined 9,000 executions in the US between 1900 and 2010.
- A tri-drug regimen made up of potassium chloride, sodium thiopental, and pancuronium bromide is used in the majority of states.
- Sodium thiopental puts the prisoner to sleep while potassium chloride causes cardiac arrest and pancuronium bromide paralyses and prevents the prisoner from expressing any discomfort.
- The effects of pancuronium bromide mask any discomfort the prisoner could feel as a result of the cardiac arrest it provoked.
- However, some contend that society, as a buyer and supporter of the death penalty, does not want to see the excruciating agony that results from the execution of a death row inmate.
Conclusion:
- The petitioners in this case appear to have sought the court with the intention of minimising the anguish experienced by death row inmates during executions.
- The search for the “least painful approach” ultimately measures our tolerance for cruelty. It’s about our willingness as a society to act viciously towards others while acting falsely.
- Instead, it would be preferable if we admitted that concerns over the execution process represent yet another constitutional sticking point in the execution of the death penalty.
- It is significant that major constitutional problems have surfaced about every component of the death penalty’s administration without exception in the four decades since the validity of the death sentence was upheld, prompting further reform.
