New Lethal Injection Procedure Used to Execute U.S. Inmate

A man sentenced to death for the 1994 slaying of a woman during a robbery was executed last month in Oklahoma under a new state lethal injection process that administers a larger dose of sedatives decreasing the chance the inmate will wake up and feel pain.

Forty-nine-year old Eric Allen Patton filed a lawsuit seeking to stop his impending execution, claiming that condemned inmates may suffer pain during lethal injection procedures in Oklahoma.

While the federal judge in Patton’s case rejected his allegations, the Department of Corrections revised the process to include a double dose of anesthesia before the fatal drugs are delivered.

The old method called for the second dose of the sedative to be administered after two shots of sodium chloride had already caused the inmate’s heart to stop.

The U.S. Supreme Court, earlier this year, halted a Florida execution when the state’s injection procedure was challenged. In South Dakota, Governor Mike Rounds blocked the state’s first lethal injection execution in almost 60 years only hours before it was planned, stating that the 1984 law that details the administration of lethal drugs is outdated. 

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