Fourth and final Arkansas inmate Kenneth Williams executed
Source: The Guardian
Friday, April 28, 2017
Arkansas has carried out its fourth execution within a week, bringing to a troubling end the states controversial attempt to run a conveyor belt of death in an aggressive burst of killings unseen in the US for more than half a century.
Kenneth Williams was pronounced dead at 11.05pm local time at the end of a 13-minute lethal injection that resulted in disturbing signs of distress on the part of the prisoner.
At about 10.55pm he was reported by media witnesses to be breathing heavily and gasping. Then he went into at least 10 seconds of convulsions, in which his body was described as shaking, he lurched forwards quickly multiple times, and he moaned and groaned.
Two minutes later, a consciousness check was carried out by rubbing his sternum and lifting his eyelids. Members of the execution team were sufficiently certain that he was unconscious to at that point administer the second drug, vecuronium bromide, that paralyses the muscles and stops all movement.
But according to the witnesses, he was still breathing heavily and he issued a further moan and a groan at 10.59pm two minutes after the paralytic would have been given.
...Lawyers representing the death row inmates had warned repeatedly that were the prisoner not fully unconscious they could be subjected to excruciating pain as a result of the third drug potassium chloride that stops the heart, yet no-one would know because the second drug vecuronium bromide is a paralytic that makes the individual incapable of any movement.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/27/arkansas-executions-kenneth-williams-fourth-final
What I don't understand is that in the states that have legal assisted suicide, the patient is given an oral medication to take home. When they take the lethal medication, it is a peaceful transition to death with dignity at home on their own terms. No pain. No drama.
Hmmmm... has no one in the prison system heard of it? It is just barbaric this drug cocktail and step by step killing them, painfully.
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Did I get THAT wrong, too? 
"Now we know this guy will never escape and hurt anyone else..."
Which itself would be a statistical improbability when contrasted against the much higher probability that someone completely different will do the exact same regardless of the existence of the death penalty.
We rationalize simple vengeance as actual justice, pat ourselves on the back for our self-defined righteous behavior while continuing to enable a thing which does zero practical good, and implicitly pretend anyone who disagrees with us lacks care for the innocent.
Self-validation, indeed.
