Another perverse reaction to the campaign to end the death penalty. Like other states, Tennessee is facing shortages of lethal injection chemicals like sodium thiopental. Manufacturers have stopped producing the drug in response to global anti-death penalty activism.

Unfortunately, rather than put a hold on executions or re-evaluate the practice, TN has decided to take a step backward and reinstate the electric chair.

Other states have opted to experiment with other chemical cocktails with horrifying results. I’m not sure what’s worse.

Read more from the Prison Reform Movement below:

The AP has another horrific botched execution story — the third one this year — this time out of Arizona. Records show that executioners “injected Joseph Rudolph Wood with a lethal combination of drugs 15 times during the nearly two hours it took for him to die.”

Arizona execution protocol states that prisoners are to be injected with 50 milligrams of hydromorphone and 50 milligrams of midazolam. Wood was injected with 750 milligrams of each drug. Wood was only the 2nd inmate to be executed using this drug combination. The first died after 25 excruciating minutes in an Ohio execution chair.

Continue reading →