Opinion ID: 1106451
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Lethal Injection Claim

Text: In his second issue raised on appeal, Rutherford asserts that the circuit court erred in denying an evidentiary hearing on his claim that the existing lethal injection procedure utilized in Florida violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution because it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. In support of this claim, Rutherford relies on a study entitled, Inadequate Anaesthesia in Lethal Injection for Execution, published in The Lancet in April 2005. See Leonidas G. Koniaris et al., Inadequate Anaesthesia in Lethal Injection for Execution, 365 The Lancet 1412 (2005). Rutherford claims that this study presents new scientific evidence that there is a possibility that Florida's lethal injection procedure creates a foreseeable risk of the gratuitous infliction of unnecessary pain on the person being executed. We recently rejected this claim in Hill v. State, 921 So.2d 579, 583 (Fla.2006). There, we concluded that this study did not require the Court to reconsider its holding in Sims v. State, 754 So.2d 657, 668 (Fla.2000), that the procedures for administering the lethal injection as attested do not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Hill, 921 So.2d at 582-83. This Court reasoned: As it clearly admits, the study is inconclusive. It does not assert that providing an inmate with `no less than two' grams of sodium pentothal, as is Florida's procedure, is not sufficient to render the inmate unconscious. Sims, 754 So.2d at 665 n. 17. Nor does it provide evidence that an adequate amount of sodium pentothal is not being administered in Florida, or that the manner in which this drug is administered in Florida prevents it from having its desired effect. [N.4.] And, in Sims, we rejected the claim that the mere possibility of technical difficulties during executions justified a finding that lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment. Id. at 668. [N.4.] In Sims, we recognized that Florida's procedures address some of the reasons given in the study for finding that two grams of anesthesia may be overly simplistic. The study attributes its results, in part, to the lack of medical training in the personnel and the inmate's high level of anxiety immediately before the execution. In Florida, both a doctor and a physician's assistant are present during the execution, and the inmate is provided with a Valium before the execution if necessary to calm anxiety. Sims, 754 So.2d at 665 n. 17. Hill, 921 So.2d at 583 n. 4. Accordingly, we conclude that the circuit court did not err in denying an evidentiary hearing on Rutherford's lethal injection claim. [8]