US considers alternative execution methods amid shortage of lethal injection drugs
Dwindling supplies of the chemicals required to administer lethal injections is forcing those US states that use the death penalty to consider alternative methods
Electric chairs, gas chambers or firing squads? American states that retain the death penalty are mulling a return to long-abandoned execution methods as they grapple with a shortage of the drugs they use for lethal injection.
A handful of officials in Virginia, Wyoming and Missouri are proposing to return to methods of execution from a bygone era, horrifying abolitionists who want to see the death penalty scrapped altogether.
Since 1982, lethal injection has gradually become the execution method of choice across the 32 states that practice the death penalty.
But as European manufacturers have stopped selling their drugs to US states if they were to be used to put humans to death, officials have been forced to find other suppliers, often turning to non-federally regulated US compounding pharmacies.
That has prompted an increasing number of lawsuits which allege the new drug cocktails amount to “cruel and unusual punishment” for those condemned to die – a violation of the US Constitution.
Deborah Denno, a professor of law at Fordham University, believes any return to old execution methods will be difficult.