Deborah Denno was quoted in a Daily Cougar article about lethal injection as a form of capital punishment.
Lethal injection in the form of a triple-drug cocktail was proposed in 1977. The primary method of execution in the United States is now lethal injection, accounting for 88 percent of all executions in the past 41 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
From 1890 to 2010, 7.1 percent of executions by lethal injection resulted in prolonged or painful death, which is the highest rate among forms of capital punishment, according to Statista.
According to Deborah W. Denno, a death penalty expert at Fordham University, there has always been a shroud of secrecy around what drugs are being used, in what proportions they are being given and the qualifications of the doctors conducting these executions. This information is only revealed during the investigation of a botched execution.
Many executioners are doctors who have malpractice claims at other hospitals and often have nowhere else to practice.
Many cases of botched lethal injections have been solely from human error because executioners couldn’t find a usable vein. Oftentimes, executioners don’t have the experience to deal with the physiology of inmates, who often become muscular while in prison or have collapsed veins from past drug addiction.