Lethal injection

For the 1993 album, see Lethal Injection (album).

Usage of lethal injection for the death penalty by jurisdiction in the United States in 2025
With the death penalty

  Jurisdiction uses only this method (12)

  Jurisdiction uses this method primarily but has other methods (14)

  Jurisdiction uses this method as a secondary method (1)

Without the death penalty

  Jurisdiction once used this method, but no longer does (8)

  Jurisdiction once adopted this method, but never actually used it (4)

  Jurisdiction has never adopted or used this method (11+)

Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium chloride) for the express purpose of causing death. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broader sense to include euthanasia and other forms of suicide. The drugs cause the person to become unconscious, stop breathing, and develop a heart arrhythmia, in that order.

First developed in the United States, the method has become a legal means of execution in China, Thailand, Guatemala, Taiwan, the Maldives, Nigeria, and Vietnam, though Guatemala abolished the death penalty for civilian cases in 2017 and has not conducted an execution since 2000, and the Maldives has never carried out an execution since its independence. Although Taiwan permits lethal injection as an execution method, no executions have been carried out in this manner; the same is true for Nigeria. Lethal injection was also used in the Philippines until the country re-abolished the death penalty in 2006.

Although primarily introduced as a more "humane" method of execution, lethal injection has been subject to criticism, being described by some as cruel and unusual. Opponents particularly critique the operation of lethal injections by untrained corrections officers and the lack of guarantee that the victim will be unconscious in every individual case. There have been instances in which condemned individuals were injected with paralytics and then with a cardiac arrest-inducing agent while still conscious; this technique has been compared to torture. Proponents often say that there is no reasonable or less cruel alternative.