Flavia Monteiro Colgan: WHY DO WE TREAT DOGS BETTER THAN HUMANS?

IN Tennessee and Texas, when animals are being put down, the chemical pancuronium bromide has been outlawed due to the excruciating pain it subjects the dying animals to.

Yet in lethal injections administered to death-row inmates, Texas, Tennessee and dozens of other states use pancuronium bromide, which stops breathing and causes paralysis before a final injection causes the heart to stop.

Leaving aside your feelings about the death penalty for a moment, surely this is a terrible example for a nation as advanced as ours to set. During lethal injections, proponents of the method say, prisoners are first euthanized, so they can't feel the effects. Not so, not all the time.

In a number of cases, says Amnesty International USA, lethal injections took from 20 minutes to an hour to kill, leaving inmates grimacing, gasping for air and convulsing. Mistakes are often made and prisoners are not "put under" deeply enough, suffering a long and cruel death.

Additionally, severe foot-long chemical burns to the skin and abandoned needles have been found in the autopsies, with the initial paralysis masking the prisoner's ability to show the pain that was caused.

For all these reasons, the American Medical Association and the Society of Correctional Physicians have urged their members not to administer lethal injections. The American College of Physicians calls it "unethical."

Why is this important?

Because the use of lethal injections was in front of the Supreme Court last week, with almost no coverage. But I was there to hear the arguments in Baze v. Rees loud and clear.

The case is fascinating because the two prisoners, Ralph Baze and Thomas Bowling, aren't challenging their convictions, or even their death sentences. Rather, they're challenging the method that the state of Kentucky uses to kill by lethal injection.

They argued that there is a well-demonstrated risk of the process going wrong, subjecting them and others to cruel and unusual punishment.

They also argued that there are other chemicals that are more effective and less painful, and that courts should step in to evaluate the procedure. Basically, they're asking to be killed in a way with as little risk of drawn-out, excruciating pain as is possible.

While the court never has outlined which procedures are constitutional and which aren't, when it did rule the death penalty constitutional, it noted that the methods used were not to be "contrary to evolving standards of decency" and may not inflict "unnecessary pain." Indeed, over time, we've changed the way we execute people based on both of these standards, moving from firing squad and hanging to electric chair to poison gas to lethal injection.

That's why it's laughable on its face that Kentucky would argue not just against changing its method of execution - but against even setting a standard that courts can use to review cases such as this. It's in our tradition to always, at the very least, continually reassess execution methods, their risk of unnecessary pain and whether there are other alternatives.

There was one other troubling outcome from the Supreme Court hearing.

Justice Antonin Scalia, while hearing arguments, mused that if the court took too long to consider this case, or sent the case back down to lower courts for additional consideration, there could be "a national cessation of executions" that could last for years.

"You wouldn't want that to happen," he said.

Heaven forbid! Putting a hold on executions while we examine the methods we use to ensure they are as humane as possible? What a cruel, cruel world!

Twelve states have halted (but not outlawed) the use of lethal injection while they study it. The court also held up and eventually ruled it unconstitutional to execute juveniles and the retarded.

New Jersey just outlawed the death penalty, and other states are considering the same. Maybe that's why Justice Scalia is in such a rush to get back to some killin'.

IHOPE THIS TREND toward slowing and eventually ending the death penalty continues because I don't believe it's our place to play God.

But, at the very least, I hope the court and the American people think deeply about whether we can consider ourselves an advanced nation when a method of execution deemed too cruel to subject dogs to is perfectly acceptable for killing humans.

Kentucky and Justice Scalia might not be so happy to

see us think so deeply, but maybe that's why we must do exactly that. *

Flavia Colgan is a member of the Daily News editorial board.

Check out her blog, CitizenHunter, at www.citizenhunter.com.