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Study Scrutinizes Lethal Injection Method
Prisoners who are executed by lethal injection may die by “chemical asphyxiation” while still conscious, but unable to vocalize or communicate their pain, according to a new review of North Carolina and California executions.
The study, published in the San Francisco medical journal PloS Medicine, questions whether lethal injection—the adopted form of execution in most states—is any more humane than electrocution or the gas chamber or just another form of “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Three-Drug Method
The three-drug method of lethal injection typically involves intravenously injecting an inmate with overdoses of: sodium pentothal to anesthetize the inmate; pancuronium bromide to halt respiration; and potassium chloride to stop the heart.
However, Dr. Leonidas Koniaris, lead author of the study and surgeon at the University of Miami, states that the amount of sodium pentothal injected into inmates may not be enough to actually render him/her unconscious while the other drugs kill, resulting in immense pain and suffering.
“It would cause a burning sensation that would be extremely painful,” Koniaris said.
The study authors concluded that in cases where an inmate’s death is ultimately caused by the third drug, which paralyzes the lung, “death by suffocation would occur in a paralyzed inmate fully aware of the progressive suffocation and the potassium-induced sensation of burning.”
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