Lethal injection

What if it's something, like, that'd be so funny if it's something, like, adjacent to Death Row.

Lethal Injection record.

Not Lethal Injection.

Pirate Squad

record.

It is.

So you know what? What you should instead do is lethal injection.

Look, it seems to be the most humane way that you can extinguish life.

And the easiest way of doing it.

She's at a hospital.

And they're trying to work out what to do next.

And there's also an inquiry now as to how they boxed an execution with lethal injection.

You know what?

When they try to kill somebody, they die every single time, 100% of the time.

You know what I'm talking about? Even with a lethal injection.

Not this last

time.

And they don't need to be fucking it up by having some botched death by...

Let's talk about that.

That botched death by lethal injection.

And Tennessee...

It's a case out of Tennessee.

At the end of last month, Tennessee officials gave a woman named Krista Pike what was supposed to be a lethal injection.

Now, that's a form of execution where they put drugs into someone's system and those drugs are supposed to kill the person.

But Pike survived.

She was supposed to be executed and then she didn't die.

So are we just not able to execute people? That the country that put men on the moon, the country that thanks to Elon Musk has invented flying cars, are we not able to execute people? Is this something that just cannot be done? All right, let's have a pause point.

Are there no lethal injection drugs available in the world? Is it a case where they've just been deemed too dangerous to be produced? Hmm.

What do you think? What do you think? Now, this is a really interesting question, because if you follow other bits of news, you will know that lethal injection drugs, very sadly, are widely available in certain states, in some countries, in the form of physician-assisted suicide.

Mm-hmm.

He died by lethal injection, and that is the most common one.

Lethal injection is pretty much the standard in most states, and sometimes it's the only option depending on what state you live in.

For example, Texas only uses lethal injection.

Nevada only uses lethal injection.

South Carolina only uses lethal injection.

Georgia only uses leth- lethal injection.

I have a little chart if you guys wanna see it.

Kelly Gleason and Steve Farrell are two of Krista Pike's attorneys.

On Wednesday, September 30th, 2026, the state of Tennessee attempted and failed to execute Krista Pike by lethal injection.

It was a scenario both Krista and her lawyers had been warning about for months.

But the magnitude of what had actually transpired was still hard to grasp.

She was trying to do everything she could to help them kill her.

So much so that while they were doing multiple sticks on her left arm in particular, she knew that she's got veins up towards her shoulder on both sides that were the best point of access.

Krista and her lawyers had long argued that, because of her small veins and blood disorder, her death by lethal injection was likely to be unsuccessful and even result in torture.

She had asked instead to be killed by hanging.

Also, this is at least the third way in recent days that the death penalty has been in the news.

There was the botched execution by lethal injection of Christa Pike, and California Governor Gavin Newsom, if you haven't heard this yet, said he may now commute the death sentences of all 563 people on the state's death row.

With me now, Justin Mazzola, Deputy Director of Research at Amnesty International USA.

For transparency before we start, their position is Amnesty opposes all executions.

Looking at the last 10 years or so, um, you know, since about 2014, on average, there was, like, 20 to 30 executions a year in the United States, and it was really driven by a huge spike here in the United States from Florida, uh, where usually they carry out anywhere from two to three, maybe six at most over the last, uh, few years of the DeSantis administration, to 19 last year, and he's on pace this year to meet or probably exceed those numbers again, even though we're seeing nationally less and less of a number of executions, uh, from other states.

Typical states like Texas, Oklahoma, who, you know, consistently carry out executions every year, he's dwarfing those numbers, um, by carrying out the, the-- basically an execution every two to three weeks, uh, both last year and this year.

Listener writes, "Ask your guest why we've been able to put down animals reliably for decades but have trouble euthanizing a death row inmate with lethal injection." What would you say to that listener?

Uh, do you know everything that your, your pet is going through when we euthanize [laughs] them, is what I would say.