Arizona has carried out most executions with lethal injection since 1992, but with a litany of changing protocols and problems, which ultimately halted executions in the state for eight years. Photo courtesy Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry
Death by lethal injection looks like the condemned person just went to sleep. But looks can be deceiving.
Anesthesiologists know that an overdose of pentobarbital, the barbiturate used for executions by lethal injection in Arizona and other states, renders the prisoner unresponsive — but not necessarily fully anesthetized — before it kills by “flash pulmonary edema.”…