Lethal Injections

Capital punishment sets the U.S. apart from all other developed democracies except Japan. The U.S. ranked seventh in number of executions in 2018, behind China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Iraq and Egypt. In recent years, pharmaceutical companies have made it harder for officials in the U.S. to carry out executions by refusing to supply the drugs commonly used in them. That’s forced the 29 states that have the death penalty on the books to find new sources and types of lethal drugs. Botched executions that resulted raised the question of whether the U.S. was running out of acceptable ways to kill people. But after appearing to head toward extinction, the death penalty may be poised for a resurgence in the U.S.

Attorney General William Barr announced in July that the U.S. would resume enforcing death sentences for federal crimes in December. While U.S. states have put more than 300 people to death in the past decade, the federal government hasn’t executed anyone since 2003. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is indicating an increased receptiveness toward capital punishment now that two justices appointed by President Donald Trump are on the bench. In 2015 the death penalty was under so much pressure that then-Justice Antonin Scalia said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if his colleagues outlawed it. One source of that pressure: three problematic 2014 executions in which inmates injected with the sedative midazolam writhed, groaned or gasped for air, and took as long as two hours to die. In June 2015, a divided U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of the drug, rejecting arguments that it puts inmates at risk of a painful death. In April, the court cleared the state of Missouri to give a lethal injection to a man who said his rare medical condition meant he would probably choke on his own blood. The opinion was one of several indicating the court in its current configuration would be more resistant to last-minute filings by inmates than the court had been previously.