Despite the effort to medicalize executions, the history of lethal injection has been anything but smooth, sterile and predictable. In fact, my research reveals that of the 1,054 executions carried out from 1982 to 2010 using the standard three-drug lethal injection protocol, more than 7% were botched.

Since then, owing in part to difficulties death penalty states have had in acquiring drugs for the standard three-drug protocol, things appear to have gotten worse. States have turned to questionable drug suppliers, including compounding pharmacies that are not subject to extensive regulation by the Food and Drug Administration.

In the last decade, states have used no less than 10 different drug combinations in lethal injections. Some of them were used multiple times, while others were used just once.

As states have experimented in the hope of finding a reliable drug protocol, my research shows that botched executions have occurred as much as 20% of the time, depending on which of the newer drug protocols is employed.

During some of those executions, inmates have cried out in pain and repeatedly gasped for breath long after they were supposed to have been rendered unconscious.

In September 2020, an NPR investigation helped explain the high rate of bungled executions. It found signs of pulmonary edema fluid filling the lungs in many of the post-lethal injection autopsies it reviewed. Those autopsies reveal that inmates’ lungs failed while they continued to try to breathe, causing them to feel as if they were drowning and suffocating.

Alabama now joins Ohio and Tennessee as states that have paused executions and launched investigations after lethal injection failures. Other states have resurrected previously discredited methods of execution – like electrocution or the firing squad – and added them to their menu of execution options on the books.

Lethal injection’s problems also have contributed to the decision of 11 states to abolish the death penalty since 2007.

Reviewing the history of the different execution methods used in this country, Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote in 2017: “States develop a method of execution, which is generally accepted for a time. Science then reveals that … the states’ chosen method of execution causes unconstitutional levels of suffering.”

And, referring specifically to lethal injection and its problems, she observed, “What cruel irony that the method [of execution] that appears most humane may turn out to be our most cruel experiment yet.”

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Austin Sarat, Amherst College. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

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Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.