One shot: US state tries new lethal injection

RussiaToday
December 09, 2009
An Ohio man was executed with a new way to kill: a single injection of a drug called "sodium thiopental". The common method of executing death-row inmates was through a three-drug cocktail of sodium pentathol, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. But many experts and capital punishment opponents believed the customary process of lethal injection was inhumane because the last two drugs paralyzed the inmate and induced a heart attack. Although the new method administers a sedative to the inmate, thereby seemingly lessening the pain, capital punishment opponents believe it is unconstitutional because the method is still untested and inmates should not be used as test cases for the single-injection method of execution.