A failed execution in Tennessee has thrust the United States’ death-penalty system back into the spotlight, renewing questions about methods that range from lethal injection to firing squads.
Methods used in the US
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Execution practices differ from state to state. State authorities carry out the overwhelming majority of executions, while federal executions remain uncommon.
Lethal injection, authorised in 28 states and by the federal government, has remained the dominant method since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976.
Of the 47 executions conducted in 2025, 39 involved lethal injection.
Three others were carried out by firing squad in South Carolina, the first use of that method in the United States since 2010.
Yet several states have faced difficulties securing the drugs needed for lethal injections as pharmaceutical companies seek to distance themselves from capital punishment.
South Carolina, Utah and Indiana all encountered that problem. Each resumed executions in 2024 after more than a decade without carrying them out.
Electrocution and gas inhalation are each authorised in nine states, making them the next most widely permitted methods. Firing squads are allowed in five states.
A litany of botched executions
No method of execution has eliminated the possibility of a grave and highly public failure.
In Alabama in 1983, John Evans’s leg caught fire after the first electric shock as smoke billowed from his hood. Three shocks were ultimately administered before the condemned man’s heart stopped.
In Ohio in 2009, Romell Broom spent two hours enduring attempts by three members of the state’s execution team, who inserted needles into his arms, hands and legs 18 times while trying to deliver the lethal injection.
He became the first condemned prisoner in the United States since 1946 to survive an execution attempt. Broom later died of Covid-19 in his cell in December 2020.
Firing squads, often portrayed as a more straightforward alternative, can also go wrong, Laura Porter, director of a coalition of US organisations campaigning to abolish the death penalty, told AFP.
During Mikal Mahdi’s execution in South Carolina in 2025, the shooters “missed the target of the heart, and so it took longer for [him] to die”, she said, referring to the autopsy findings.
Nitrogen inhalation was carried out “with severe, severe problems in Alabama” and is “temporarily on hold”, she said.
“I don’t believe that there is a perfect way to kill people,” Ms Porter said.
“Participating in execution is incredibly stressful and harmful to corrections officers,” she added.
Botched execution consequences
After the most serious failures, US states typically impose a moratorium to review execution procedures or turn to a different method.
Tennessee declared a moratorium in 2022, then resumed lethal injections in 2025 under a revised protocol.
Alabama introduced nitrogen inhalation in January 2024, following a botched lethal injection in November 2022.
But Ms Porter argued that no durable remedy will be possible while executions remain shrouded in secrecy.
“When there are problems with protocols, or when there are problems with the drugs, or there are problems with the competency of the execution team, it is very, very difficult to obtain any information until after the problem has happened because we are given no information about the execution process,” she said.
