Disgracefully, this botched execution was entirely predictable. Since 2011, when the makers of the sedative sodium thiopental, formerly the first drug in the three-drug combinations that were used in almost all lethal injections, stopped producing it, states have been scrambling to fill the gap — with more questionable drugs and sources. As The Post’s Mark Berman reported this year, “the first four executions [of 2014] were carried out using four different combinations of drugs. ‘That certainly smacks of an experiment,’ said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.” And that experimentation has had stomach-churning results, most notably in the case of Dennis McGuire, killed by Ohio in January: “Horrified witnesses watched as the 253-lb McGuire ‘repeated cycles of snorting, gurgling and arching his back’ and appeared to ‘writhe in pain,’ according to a subsequent lawsuit filed by his family.” McGuire’s execution used the same sedative, midazolam, that Oklahoma used Wednesday, with similarly awful results.

And this wasn’t the first execution-gone-wrong in Oklahoma this year. On Jan. 10, Michael Lee Wilson was executed using a cocktail including pentobarbital, a less-effective substitute for sodium thiopental; witnesses report he cried, “I feel my whole body burning,” suggesting the drug wasn’t working. Oklahoma admitted that the pentobarbital used was bought from a compounding pharmacy it refused to identify. Compounding pharmacies are poorly regulated, even though contaminated pentobarbital can lead to excruciating deaths. (“Experts say it can feel as though the insides of a person’s veins are being scraped with sandpaper.”)

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