John Oliver rails against lethal injection ahead of Missouri execution: ‘Protracted nightmare of suffering’
‘It’s never going to be okay, and we are kidding ourselves if we think taking someone’s life is actually going to lower the number of killers in the world’
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John Oliver has criticised the death penalty once more ahead of the execution of a Missouri man for a 2006 double murder, branding executions a “protracted nightmare of suffering.”
The comedian has spoken out against executions before on his show, the first time being in the second-ever episode of Last Week Tonight in 2014 and again five years later.
However, his stance has remained staunchly the same: “It is morally wrong, and there is no humane way to do it.”
Oliver’s discussion of the death penalty comes ahead of the execution of 52-year-old Brian Dorsey in Missouri, which is set to take place on Tuesday.
While the inmate’s attorneys have condemned the decision, Governor Michael Parson denied a last-ditch clemency request and said that the court’s order will “deliver justice and provide closure.”
Oliver has railed against the lethal injections used in executions for a third time due to some “grim developments,” with 91 people executed in the US since his last episode on the subject.
The comedian also pointed out that 13 of those executions were carried out by the federal government during the Trump administration, describing the former president as going on an “execution spree” before he left office.
“Our federal and state governments have continued to pursue questionably legal and definitely horrifying ways to do something that, again, I would argue they shouldn’t be doing at all,” Oliver claimed.
State and federal agencies have found obtaining the drugs used in executions difficult, simply because it is bad for the suppliers’ business, the host explained.
Lawmakers have called to put shield laws in place to protect businesses, but despite the secrecy laws, suppliers still see it as a bad business venture, he added.
“That has led states to source drugs from some pretty sketchy suppliers,” Oliver alleged.
“Which is a problem because when drugs are tainted or not formulated at the proper dosage, executions become a protracted nightmare of suffering.”
The Trump administration used a single shot of pentobarbital, Oliver claimed, but added that shutting down the use of this lethal shot would not stop executions taking place in the country: “Because elected leaders seem hell-bent on getting it done.”
Alabama became the first state to carry out an execution using nitrogen gas, on death row inmate Kenneth Eugene Smith, with UN experts even saying they “unequivocally condemned” how the execution was performed.
“All this secrecy is also meant to protect us, the people in whose name it is done, from confronting the horror of what the death penalty truly is,” Oliver added in the show. “Because whether it’s nitrogen gas, or an IV injection of drugs, or a firing squad, or an electric chair, or being pressed with weights, it’s all brutal.”
However, in one part of the episode, Oliver’s team claimed that they tracked down the alleged supplier to the Trump Administration, a company called Absolute Standards.
While the company makes chemicals for calibrated machines, Oliver also alleged that the company produced execution drugs.
“I know I’ve spent a lot of time over the last 10 years reassuring everyone that this show does comedy and not journalism,” he said, “but I think we can all agree that the most important thing we do here is stir s*** up.”
The comedian explained that a Last Week Tonight researcher filed a Freedom of Information request with the DEA on the company in 2020 and has repeatedly reached out to it for comment.
He claimed that the company have ignored them, “which is an odd thing to do when someone’s accusing you of making execution drugs.”
The agency’s liaison allegedly told them on two separate occasions, that the documents were taking so long because they were “related to the death penalty,” according to Oliver, who said, “what’s known in the government world as a ‘big, old whoopsie’”.
The host also claimed that a confidential source allegedly confirmed to the show’s researcher that Absolute Standards is the “company who made the drugs.”
“At this point, they might as well just update their real slogan of ‘we have the solutions’ to ‘we have the solutions that were secretly used in a bunch of government executions’,” the host joked.
A report by Reuters in 2020 also looked into this, but Stephen Arpie, the director of Absolute Standards did not respond for comment.
However, Reuters conducted interviews with Mr Aprie earlier that year, who at first said his company had no involvement in the government’s execution drugs.
Mr Arpie later said he did not always know what his customers did with his products, and so could not rule out involvement, Reuters stated.
"In many parts of our market, we don’t know what the final intended use is going to be," he said.
The Independent has contacted Absolute Standards for comment.
Aside from trying to figure out who supplies lethal drugs in executions, Oliver points out an irony about the whole death penalty process.
“It’s never going to be okay, and we are kidding ourselves if we think taking someone’s life actually lowers the number of killers in the world,” he said. “It literally, definitionally, creates more.”
Brian Dorsey will be executed on Tuesday, despite pleas from correctional officers that he has shown remorse for what he did and has made a transformation, his attorneys claimed in a statement.
Dorsey has not appealed on the grounds that he is innocent in the 2006 double murder, but that he received constitutionally flawed original legal representation, violating his 6th Amendment right to counsel.
His attorneys have also raised concern that due to Dorsey’s obesity, diabetes and being a former intravenous drug user, it could be more likely that a deep incision on the skin will be performed, called a cutdown, to place an IV line to deliver execution drugs.
His attorneys compared this to “surgery without anaesthesia.”
Oliver called on the government to “just stop doing it”, and said President Joe Biden could commute death sentences and regulate lethal drugs.
“If the government is going to give itself the power to execute its own citizens,” he proclaimed, adding that, however, he believes it should not, “then I want to see where the drugs come from, who’s making them, and relentless scrutiny on every part of the process.”
The Independent and the nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ) have launched a joint campaign calling for an end to the death penalty in the US. The RBIJ has attracted more than 150 well-known signatories to their Business Leaders Declaration Against the Death Penalty - with The Independent as the latest on the list. We join high-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson as part of this initiative and are making a pledge to highlight the injustices of the death penalty in our coverage.