- Feb 22, 2007
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I have to give the guy credit for coming up with this defense. You can't kill me with lethal injection, I'm allergic to the drugs !
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/15/lethal_injection/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/15/lethal_injection/
Darryl Durr (pictured) is sentenced to die next Tuesday for the 1988 rape and murder of 16-year-old Angel Vincent. He faces a single injection of thiopental sodium, rather than the traditional three-chemical cocktail used for such executions. Ohio last year became the first state to switch to the one-hit lethal anaesthesia method.
His lawyers, however, say that they've found evidence of Durr's allergy in his 800-page prison medical records. If correct, this compromises Ohio's commitment to suffering-free capital punishment.
Defense attorney Kathleen McGarry said: "One of the things the Ohio Constitution guarantees is that he has a quick and painless execution.
"If he's going to react to the anesthetic drugs in such a manner that he's going to have a violent reaction, either vomiting or seizures or whatever the spectrum is that could happen, then obviously the execution has problems."
US District Court Judge Gregory Frost has allowed Columbia University Medical Center anesthesiologist Mark Heath to review the records. Heath wrote in support of Durrs' request: "An allergic or other adverse reaction to some component of a general anesthetic might present a serious problem for an execution by lethal injection."
Heath did, though, say "it would depend on the drug that precipitated the reaction and the nature of the reaction".