Susan Berger

The badly botched, attempted execution of #ChristaPike in #Tennessee yesterday rings a bell. I witnessed 10 federal executions by the same lethal drug, #pentobarbital, as a then-AP reporter during #DonaldTrump's first term, and I’m currently finishing a book about #Trump and the #deathpenalty. In half the executions I saw, inmates’ stomachs shook, shuddered and rolled after the pentobarbital injections _ possible signs of #PulmonaryEdema, a condition akin to drowning or waterboarding when fluids rush into airways. The drug was also supposed to kill in under 10 minutes. In practice, it often took at least twice as long. Inmates wouldn't suffer, Trump officials also said. But I saw at least one condemned prisoner, Cory Johnson, grimace and complain of an intense burning sensation immediately after he received his injection. Whether the dramatic rolling of prisoners' midsections caused them pain wasn't clear. Critics of its use, though, say pentobarbital can paralyze the body while condemned inmates are still conscious, making it impossible for them to convey that they are in pain. Pentobarbital, commonly used in euthanizing pets was, and still is considered experimental in #executions. But the U.S. government and many states reverted to it after pharmaceutical companies started barring the use of their drugs in executions, saying their products were designed to save lives, not to take them. Pike’s survival after two ostensibly #lethalinjections of pentobarbital once again demonstrates that killing fellow humans in a controlled environment, whether it’s by hanging or by electric chair or by pentobarbital is, at best, an inexact science. Secrecy, too, was a hallmark of the Trump executions, including about where the administration secured its pentobarbital or whether doses were beyond their expiration dates. That meant there was never a full public accounting of snafus behind closed doors in the pre-execution prep. Worse, executioners and their supervisors consistently misled courts about how the Trump executions were going. In statements to judges, they consistently omitted the disturbing jerking motions of inmates' stomachs that I and other media witnesses saw with our own eyes. (One government expert went on the record to say we didn't see what we saw.) As far as I can tell, the Trump executioners never conceded a single, notable error or oversight. (See attached article I wrote for the #AP at the time about the apparent deception by Trump executioners.) The current Trump administration is expected to try to execute the last few men still facing federal death sentences, including Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar #Tsarnaev. Despite the documented problems with pentobarbital, that's expected to be the drug of choice for a Round 2 of Trump executions. ap.org/news-highlights/best-…