Investigation Uncovers Racial Bias in Execution Errors, Prompting Demand for Suspension of Lethal Injections

In Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Georgia, 75% of botched executions involved Black persons, although Black people accounted for only 33% of executions there.

Reprieve, a non-profit organization, conducted a review of over 1,400 lethal injections carried out in the United States since 1977 and discovered that botched executions are racially skewed. The study found that discrepancies in the criminal justice system extend to the execution of jailed people.

According to NPR, the pattern is worse in the southern states. In Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Georgia, 75% of botched executions affected Black persons, even though Black people represented 33% of executions in those states. Complicating matters, there is no established criterion for what constitutes a botched execution. Reprieve categorized executions that included expressions of suffering, an incarcerated person remaining conscious after a drug (or medications, in some circumstances), and execution staff struggling to locate a person’s veins to administer the drugs as botched executions.

The investigation also discovered that it made no difference which medicines were employed in a cocktail; the outcome, in terms of a botched execution, was consistent. Reprieve’s Executive Director, Maya Foa, told NPR that changing the formulas isn’t going to solve the problem.

“Botched executions occur often, regardless of the drug or cocktail used. “Continuing to tinker with the machinery of death will not make this better,” Foa stated. “The analysis shows not only are we botching these executions and causing people to torture more often than with many other methods.”

She went on to say, “But we are doing that to Black prisoners far, far more frequently than we are to white prisoners.”

Jeff Hood, a spiritual counselor who has seen the death chambers of three white people and three Black people in Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama, told NPR that he believes there are disparities in how Black people are handled when strapped to a gurney. “I can tell you that the restraints that I have seen on Black folk have been unquestionably tighter than the restraints that I have seen on white folk,” he said.

Hood went on to say, “If you assume that the condemned person will resist, you will take far more liberties with the body than if you feel that the individual will be completely calm. When you begin to take liberties with someone’s body, you abandon protocol and best practices. When you abandon protocol and standard practices, you will undoubtedly have a botched execution.

Based on its results, the research advises an immediate halt on fatal injections at both the state and federal levels. It also suggests that governors in states that carry out executions, such as Virginia, Ohio, and Arizona, conduct independent investigations of lethal injections and the difficulties that result from them.

It also urges the FDA and DEA to enforce their existing guidelines against individuals who break their restrictions in secret and take action against those responsible. Foa told NPR that the death sentence in its current form in the United States is racist. And we cannot keep doing this.