The norm in the US – lethal injection – is apparently to essentially knock someone out, then stop their heart. I don’t imagine that one feels anything.
In most states, the intravenous injection is a series of drugs given in a set sequence, designed to first induce unconsciousness followed by death through paralysis of respiratory muscles and/or by cardiac arrest through depolarization of cardiac muscle cells. The execution of the condemned in most states involves three separate injections (in sequential order):
Sodium thiopental or pentobarbital: ultra-short-action barbiturate, an anesthetic agent used at a high dose that renders the person unconscious in less than 30 seconds. Depression of respiratory activity is one of the characteristic actions of this drug. Consequently, the lethal-injection doses, as described in the Sodium Thiopental section below, will—even in the absence of the following two drugs—cause death due to lack of breathing, as happens with overdoses of opioids.
Pancuronium bromide: non-depolarizing muscle relaxant, which causes complete, fast, and sustained paralysis of the striated skeletal muscles, including the diaphragm and the rest of the respiratory muscles; this would eventually cause death by asphyxiation.
Potassium chloride: a potassium salt, which increases the blood and cardiac concentration of potassium to stop the heart via an abnormal heartbeat and thus cause death by cardiac arrest.
The companies that make the drugs used to perform lethal injection have refused to participate in the death penalty any longer which is why other forms are being explored.
The drug companies didn’t exactly decide to step away from the death penalty fully on their own initiative. They were threatened with criminal prosecutions in Europe for abetting executions in the United States.
I fully support drug companies not wanting their medications to be used to kill people. On the other hand, we give our dogs and cats painless deaths with their drugs and, if we’re going to be killing people, they deserve the same dignity.
The problem with that is dosages. First drug knocks you out, second drug paralyzes you, third drug stops your heart.
But if you fuck up the dosages, the first drug wears off while the second drug is still in effect. So you are awake but paralyzed and can’t move, so nobody knows you are awake. That leaves you conscious while your heart dies which is quite painful.
There are a few states that differ. Last time I looked it up, one state still permitted the condemned to request hanging, but it looks like they stopped that, probably because it was a pain to do. I recall reading that the last one that was done, the state had to dig around in old records to figure out how the heck you compute drop length for a given weight and such.
In the following states, death row inmates with an execution warrant may always choose to be executed by:
Lethal injection in all states as primary method, in South Carolina as secondary method or unless the drugs to use it are unavailable
Nitrogen hypoxia in Alabama
Electrocution in Alabama, Florida, and South Carolina (primary method)
Gas chamber in California and Missouri
In four states an alternate method (firing squad in Utah, gas chamber in Arizona, and electrocution in Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee) is offered only to inmates sentenced to death for crimes committed prior to a specified date (usually when the state switched from the earlier method to lethal injection). The alternate method will be used for all inmates if lethal injection is declared unconstitutional.
In five states, an alternate method is used only if lethal injection would be declared unconstitutional (electrocution in Arkansas; nitrogen hypoxia, electrocution, or firing squad in Mississippi and Oklahoma; firing squad in Utah; gas chamber in Wyoming).
Apparently Vermont technically still has electrocution on the books for treason.
All 26 states with the death penalty for murder provide lethal injection as the primary method of execution. As of 2021, South Carolina is the only autonomous region in the United States of America to authorize its 1912 Electric Chair as the primary method of execution, citing inability to procure the drugs necessary for lethal injection. Vermont’s remaining death penalty statute for treason provides electrocution as the method of execution.
However, given that very few people in the US have ever been convicted of treason at all – despite people liking to claim that something is “treason”, it’s actually an extremely narrowly-defined crime – much less under Vermont state law, that’s probably largely academic.
Treason is defined on the federal level in Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution as “only in levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” Most state constitutions include similar definitions of treason, specifically limited to levying war against the state, “adhering to the enemies” of the state, or aiding the enemies of the state, and requiring two witnesses or a confession in open court. Fewer than 30 people have ever been charged with treason under these laws.
Death sentences for treason under the Constitution have been carried out in only two instances: the executions of Taos Revolt insurgents in 1847, and that of William Bruce Mumford during the Civil War.
Constitutionally, U.S. citizens who live in a state owe allegiance to at least two government entities: the United States of America and their state of legal residence. They can therefore potentially commit treason against either, or against both. At least 14 people have been charged with treason against various states; at least six were convicted, five of whom were executed. Only two prosecutions for treason against a state were ever carried out in the U.S.: one against Thomas Dorr and the other after John Brown’s conspiracy. It has often been discussed, both legally and in matter of policy, if states should punish treason.
Neither of those was in Vermont – one was in Rhode Island and the other Virginia, and the only instance of the two in which a death sentence was applied was in Virginia, after the John Brown uprising.
The norm in the US – lethal injection – is apparently to essentially knock someone out, then stop their heart. I don’t imagine that one feels anything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethal_injection
The companies that make the drugs used to perform lethal injection have refused to participate in the death penalty any longer which is why other forms are being explored.
The drug companies didn’t exactly decide to step away from the death penalty fully on their own initiative. They were threatened with criminal prosecutions in Europe for abetting executions in the United States.
I fully support drug companies not wanting their medications to be used to kill people. On the other hand, we give our dogs and cats painless deaths with their drugs and, if we’re going to be killing people, they deserve the same dignity.
I agree…. If it’s their choice. Not as punishment
The problem with that is dosages. First drug knocks you out, second drug paralyzes you, third drug stops your heart. But if you fuck up the dosages, the first drug wears off while the second drug is still in effect. So you are awake but paralyzed and can’t move, so nobody knows you are awake. That leaves you conscious while your heart dies which is quite painful.
There are a few states that differ. Last time I looked it up, one state still permitted the condemned to request hanging, but it looks like they stopped that, probably because it was a pain to do. I recall reading that the last one that was done, the state had to dig around in old records to figure out how the heck you compute drop length for a given weight and such.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States
Apparently Vermont technically still has electrocution on the books for treason.
However, given that very few people in the US have ever been convicted of treason at all – despite people liking to claim that something is “treason”, it’s actually an extremely narrowly-defined crime – much less under Vermont state law, that’s probably largely academic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_laws_in_the_United_States
Neither of those was in Vermont – one was in Rhode Island and the other Virginia, and the only instance of the two in which a death sentence was applied was in Virginia, after the John Brown uprising.