In 1790, Thomas Bird became the first person to be executed under the United States Constitution. Bird was convicted of murder and piracy, and the total cost of his hanging was five dollars and fifty cents (for the construction of a gallows and a coffin). Since then, the U.S. state and federal governments have executed thousands of people by hanging, firing squad, electric chair, lethal gas, and lethal injection. The map below illustrates the progression of death penalty execution methods by state since the beginning in the late nineteenth century. The Supreme Court effectively put executions on hiatus in its 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision, but states immediately began working around the ruling and the Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976’s Gregg v. Georgia decision.

Please click on the image for a larger map.

By 2009, all death-penalty states had made lethal injection the sole or primary execution method for death row inmates, despite problems with the method that have been evident since the 1950s. Now, the death penalty is transforming once again, due to a shortage in the drug used in the three-drug protocol to paralyze the inmate during his execution. As a result, states have resorted to hunting for a replacement in unusual places, such as domestic compounding pharmacies. Some have changed their protocols to use just one drug, or tried to replace the missing drug with new drugs. Others have put executions on hold. In states such as Louisiana, Tennessee, and Wyoming, there’s even been talk of reintroducing the electric chair. This has led to a spate of ethical problems and legal challenges.

I spoke with Dr. Deborah Denno, professor at Fordham University School of Law, about the problems with lethal injection and how they fit into the death penalty’s broader history.

Lane Florsheim: Your paper “Lethal Injection Secrecy Post-Baze” catalogs the numerous issues with lethal injection as an execution method. Are the drawbacks of lethal injection at odds with the public’s perception of the method?

Dr. Deborah Denno: I think the public is becoming more educated about the drawbacks of the method, because there’s been so much media coverage about these lethal injection challenges. That said, I still think there’s quite a bit of public ignorance about all the problems associated with lethal injection. Most people are used to seeing these pictures of an inmate serenely on a gurney, looking like the inmate’s going to sleep. I think that for the most part that might be the larger public perception. And we all know, that person is paralyzed, at least the people who are sort of ensconced in this issue. It’s hard to know, but I think that might still be the overwhelming public perception.