The pain of execution

last updated 8 January 2015

New York

Execution by lethal injection may cause “excruciating pain,” according to a Human Rights Watch report. The group said it’s possible that the condemned don’t express their agony, because they are paralyzed with another drug before being injected with potassium chloride, which stops the heart. More research is needed, the report contends, to rule out the possibility that the executed are in pain before they expire. Lethal injection has come under increased scrutiny since a February execution in California was halted when anesthesiologists refused to participate. A judge ordered officials to monitor the brain waves of a North Carolina man executed last week to ensure that he felt no pain. Death penalty proponent Dudley Sharp of Justice Matters called the new report “blind speculation by a group that wants to stop all executions, painful or not.”