In a replayed More Perfect segment, Karen Duffin explains the three-drug lethal injection protocol. She says the paralytic is the drug that could make an execution most torturous while also hiding that suffering from witnesses.
The thing that I find really interesting is that if you look at the modern lethal injection cocktail, it's three drugs. The first
drug's supposed to anesthetize you, the second drug paralyzes you, and the third drug is the acid that stops the heart and kills you.
And in this drug cocktail, you kind of see everything that we want and need from the death penalty just kind of all mixed together. The third drug, the drug that stops your heart, that's kind of our sense of justice. The first drug, the anesthetic, that's kind of our sense of humanity or kindness. That second drug, the one that paralyzes their muscles. The second drug is purely cosmetic. It serves no medical purpose. The reason it was put into the lethal injection cocktail in the first place was so that if the first drug doesn't work effectively, the second drug will mask any signs of visible suffering and it would be extremely significant because the potassium chloride is this potent acid that people have described as being like fire going through your veins and being sort of burnt alive from the inside. She says, just imagine that that's happening to you, but something goes wrong with the anesthetic and you become conscious. You have this burning acid going through your body and you are paralyzed. All your voluntary muscles are…
witnesses, the viewers, the public, wouldn't know that it was torture because we weren't supposed to know that. So does she end up going after that second drug, the paralytic?
No, actually, she goes after the first drug, the anesthetic. And it's a total coincidence. This is just the one that had manufacturing problems that started the arms race. But it turns out that this drug is the one that's the most constitutionally important drug. Because in 2008, when the Supreme…
parties agree that successful delivery of the first drug is necessary to prevent the prisoner from experiencing severe pain. So if there's no anesthetic, there's pain, which would be too severe and then therefore what, an Eighth Amendment violation? Cruel and unusual punishment?