Executions
Lethal Injection
Though lethal injection has been used for a majority of the executions carried out in the modern era, it is plagued by problematic executions and controversy.
DPIC Report: Behind the Curtain
Secrecy and the Death Penalty in the United States
Overview
All states and the federal government use lethal injection as their primary method of execution. Jurisdictions use a variety of protocols typically employing one, two, or three drugs. Most three-drug protocols use an anesthetic or sedative, followed by a drug to paralyze the inmate, and finally a drug to stop the heart. The one and two-drug protocols typically use an overdose of an anesthetic or sedative to cause death.
Although the constitutionality of lethal injection has been upheld by the Supreme Court, the specific applications used in states continues to be widely challenged prior to each execution. Because it is increasingly difficult to obtain the drugs used in earlier executions, states have resorted to experimenting with new drugs and drug combinations to carry out executions, resulting in numerous prolonged and painful executions. States are also turning to previously discarded forms of execution, such as the electric chair and gas chamber, in the event that lethal drugs cannot be obtained.
At Issue
Even though the issues surrounding lethal injection are far from settled, states are attempting to cut off debate by concealing their execution practices under a veil of secrecy. Recently passed laws bar the public from learning the sources of lethal drugs being used, making it impossible to judge the reliability of the manufacturer or the possible expiration of these drugs.
What DPIC Offers
DPIC has state-by-state summaries of the methods of execution currently in place and the types of drugs used in each execution in the past ten years. A recent DPIC report covers the execution secrecy laws that have been imposed in many states. Statements from various pharmaceutical companies barring the use of their drugs in executions are also provided.
Jul 27, 2018
Public Health Experts, Generic-Pharmaceuticals Association Warn Lethal-Injection Policies Put Public Health at Risk
State lethal-injection practices may have collateral consequences that place public health at risk, according to briefs filed in the U.S. Supreme Court on July 23, 2018 by public health experts and an association representing generic drug manufact…
Read MoreNews & Developments
Jan 08, 2021
ProPublica Investigation Reveals Irregularities in Federal Executions
The federal government’s historically aberrant execution spree has been fraught with irregularities and “has trampled over an array of barriers, both legal and practical,” according to an investigative report by the non-profit news organization,
Dec 15, 2020
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine Calls Lethal Injection A Practical Impossibility, Says State Will Not Execute Anyone in 2021
Saying that “[l]ethal injection appears to us to be impossible from a practical point of view today,” Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (pictured) told reporters it is “pretty clear” that the state will not execute anyone…
Dec 09, 2020
New DPIC Podcast Discusses the Consequences and Cruelty of Lethal Injection
In the December 2020 episode of Discussions with DPIC, anesthesiologist Dr. Joel Zivot from Emory University Hospital speaks with Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham about his discoveries fro…
Dec 02, 2020
Citing State’s Lack of Execution Drugs, South Carolina Supreme Court Stays Richard Moore’s Execution
Saying that the state lacked the ability to carry out a lethal injection, the South Carolina Supreme Court has stayed the scheduled December 4, 2020 execution of Richard Moore (pictured). With no state executions …
Nov 30, 2020
Department of Justice Issues Lame-Duck Regulations to Broaden the Range of Available Federal Execution Methods
The range of methods available to the federal government to carry out executions could be expanded under a new Department of Justice regulation published on November 27, 2020. The regulation, one of numerous last-minute changes in federal…
Oct 22, 2020
World and European Day Against the Death Penalty: Expert Panel Discusses Systemic Flaws in U.S. Death Penalty
Expressing the hope “that we’ll be able to celebrate very soon, together with the American people, the abolition of the death penalty in the United States,” European Union Ambassador to the United States Stavros Lambrinidi…
Oct 16, 2020
Ohio Supreme Court to Review Validity of State’s Execution Protocol
A divided Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeals of two death-row prisoners who are challenging the legality of the state’s execution protocol. By votes of 4 – 3, the court on October 13, 2020 accepted for review appeals …
Sep 25, 2020
NPR Investigation of Lethal-Injection Autopsies Finds Executed Prisoners Experience Sensations of Suffocation and Drowning
A new National Public Radio (NPR) analysis of more than 200 autopsies of death-row prisoners executed by lethal injection has found that 84% of those executed showed evidence of pulmonary edema, a condition in which a person’s lun…
Sep 08, 2020
News Brief — New Set of Reprieves Push Back First Three Ohio Executions of 2021 Until 2023
NEWS (9/4/20) — Ohio: Citing an unwillingness to endanger public health, Governor Mike DeWine has issued a new set of reprieves that will push back the first three executions scheduled in Ohio for 2021 until at least 2023. In a
Aug 26, 2020
Autopsy Results Provide ‘Virtual Medical Certainty’ that Prisoners will Experience ‘Excruciating Pain’ During Federal Executions
As the federal government began to carry out the second round of executions it has scheduled for 2020, autopsy results from the first round of executions in July suggest to a “virtual medical certainty” that federal death-row prisoners will experi…
