Word: pancuronium
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Then, in 1977, an Oklahoma medical examiner named Jay Chapman proposed that death-row inmates be executed using three drugs administered in a specific sequence: a barbiturate (to anesthetize inmates), pancuronium bromide (to paralyze inmates and stop their breathing) and lastly potassium chloride (which stops the heart). A simpler, barbiturate-only procedure was rejected on the grounds that the public would not support a killing method for humans modeled after that used for animals, according to Ty Alper, a lawyer who represents death-row inmates and is associate director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California...
...fundamental right. Capital punishment by lethal injection does have a history of cases in which severe writhing and convulsions have taken place following the injection. Currently Kentucky, one of the 36 states that still use the death penalty, employs a cocktail of three different drugs, one of which is pancuronium bromide, a paralytic drug that is intended to prevent convulsions when the lethal chemical is inserted intravenously to the victim. Because the drug induces a paralysis, the executioners cannot determine if the inmate is undergoing any sort of pain. He is rendered unable to move, let alone scream?...