A. Because it was chosen with the sensibilities of the observer primarily in mind.
If appearance is what you are after, lethal injection seems perfect. One of the drugs usually given is a paralytic, which renders the inmate unable to show pain. “The modern death chamber has come to resemble a hospital room,” Sarat writes — the condemned prisoner is strapped to a gurney as an emergency medical patient would be, and the execution is carried out by medical personnel. The complications — obesity, vein obscurity — are medical complications. Oklahoma was the first state to install lethal injection as a technology of execution, and the legislators pushing the initiative spent significant time courting the state’s medical association, which refused to participate. “The legitimacy of capital punishment depends upon the ability to say that what we are doing as a state is different and better than those we condemn,” Sarat told me.
Continue reading Q. Why is lethal injection such a poor method of execution?