In 2022, 18 people were executed in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Alabama, Missouri and Mississippi, all by lethal injection. Many of the difficulties encountered this year were related to the difficulty of inserting an intravenous line. in the arm of the condemned selon NPR.
Arizona executioners had trouble inserting an IV line into a death row inmate and had to be guided by the prisoner himself on how to do it. And in Alabama, the execution team would have struggled for hours to find a vein.
These cases are among seven botched executions recorded in 2022. Death penalty researchers have found that mishandled incidents accounted for more than a third of the total number of execution attempts – a record high.
While most states allow a doctor to participate in an execution, all medical associations say it is unethical to do so. As a result, it is prison staff who administer the deadly drug.