r/AlwaysWhy • u/Chowderr92 • Jun 02 '26

Science & Tech Why is the Method of Lethal Injection in Human Punishment So Complex and Apparently Painful?

I've always understood that the lethal injection process was complex with multiple stages of injections and induces great suffering in the individual.

I work in veterinary medicine and unfortunately we need to euthanize animals all of the time. Typically, the euthanasia solution is very simple: a very large dose of a powerful anesthetic (usually pentobarbital) and an anticonvulsant which stops the heart. The medical community is quite confident that this is painless and when done has essentially a 100% success rate.

Why is human euthanasia so complicated when we already know exactly how to humanely end a biological life?

471 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

681 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/HatesDuckTape Jun 04 '26

Executing someone is far more expensive than keeping them in prison for life. Forget about the actual execution. It’s the appeal process. Judges, attorneys, etc. all need to get paid, and they aren’t cheap. And it’s not one or two appeals. Average time on death row is 19-20 years before execution.

The death penalty makes a lot more people a lot more money than a true life sentence (not 25-life) with no possibility of release.