A paralytic was part of the original lethal injection cocktail, which was essentially the Oklahoma medical examiner plagiarizing basic anesthesiology without much consideration for what he was doing (he had no toxicological or anesthesiologic background). 14 states (not counting abolition or moratorium) still use such a protocol; 7 have switched to one-drug pentobarbital executions.
Notably, anesthesiologist Joel Zivot—looking for anatomical signs from autopsies rather than witness accounts, although naysayers could point out that has reliability issues of its own—found pulmonary edema in significantly higher rates when midazolam (which is always paired with a paralytic) than pentobarbital (which is typically used alone), though it's a majority in either case. The rate of botched lethal injection executions can therefore be somewhat safely said to be between...7% and 80%.
I've wondered recently about paralytics in executions but hadn't looked into it yet. Thanks for including that detail.
A paralytic was part of the original lethal injection cocktail, which was essentially the Oklahoma medical examiner plagiarizing basic anesthesiology without much consideration for what he was doing (he had no toxicological or anesthesiologic background). 14 states (not counting abolition or moratorium) still use such a protocol; 7 have switched to one-drug pentobarbital executions.
Notably, anesthesiologist Joel Zivot—looking for anatomical signs from autopsies rather than witness accounts, although naysayers could point out that has reliability issues of its own—found pulmonary edema in significantly higher rates when midazolam (which is always paired with a paralytic) than pentobarbital (which is typically used alone), though it's a majority in either case. The rate of botched lethal injection executions can therefore be somewhat safely said to be between...7% and 80%.