Execution changes occur without public scrutiny, input

[Draggingtree]

Austin American Statesman:

 

Posted: 6:48 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012

Execution changes occur without public scrutiny, input

 

By Mike Ward

American-Statesman Staff

On July 9, when Texas switched from three drugs to just one to execute its most heinous criminals, Rick Thaler, the state’s No. 3 corrections official, signed off on the change without fanfare after consulting with prison officials in other states.

No public hearings. No legislative action. No public vote by the prison system’s nine-member governing board, which routinely votes on tweaks to prison policies, such as hazardous-duty pay bumps for individual employees and donations of vegetable and Bibles.

Under a state law enacted years ago, Thaler — a former guard and warden with no medical training — alone decided the change on how Texas’ ultimate punishment is administered. His signature on the revised 10-page execution policy was all it took to upend almost three decades of precedent using three drugs in executions.

 

During one meeting, Chapman — who acknowledged no experience in executions — recalled dictating this suggestion to the lawmaker, who scribbled it on a yellow legal pad: “An intravenous saline drip shall be started in the prisoner’s arm, into which shall be introduced a lethal injection consisting of an ultra short-acting barbiturate in combination with a paralytic.”