A report reveals that Black prisoners facing death penalty by lethal injection undergo a higher rate of unsuccessful procedures compared to white inmates.
In the analysis released this month, researchers at the anti-death penalty group Reprieve found that Black people had a 220 percent greater chance of undergoing an unsuccessful lethal injection execution than white people, regardless of whether a one-drug or a three-drug protocol was used.
“It is well-established that the death penalty is affected by racial bias at every stage of the process,” the report states. “This report reveals that the racial differences in capital punishment extend all the way into the execution chamber.”
In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty in three cases was unconstitutional, and as a result halted executions until clarifying the ruling in 1976. Since then, at least 1,582 individuals have been executed.
Lethal injection was first introduced as a legal execution method in Oklahoma in 1977. Proponents argued it was a painless process that would take about five minutes, and the person would die less than two minutes after the final injection.
But Reprieve’s study found that more than a third of unsuccessful lethal injection executions lasted more than 45 minutes, and more than a quarter lasted for more than an hour. In 2022, a Black man in Alabama suffered the longest unsuccessful execution, more than three hours.
“Proponents of lethal injection have long declared it to be quick, peaceful, and painless,” the report reads. “This new analysis of unsuccessful lethal injection executions in the modern era comprehensively debunks this claim, finding unsuccessful lethal injection executions to be both prolonged and painful. Many unsuccessful executions were found to have spanned hours, with people choking, vomiting and bleeding in the execution chamber.”
Reprieve’s report found that out of 465 executions of Black inmates, 37 — or about 8 percent — were unsuccessful, compared to only 28 out of 780 executions of white inmates, or about 4 percent.
The report highli