Arizona’s botched execution of Joseph Wood violated the Eighth Amendment and highlighted the U.S. lethal-injection problem—dwindling drug supplies and too much secrecy

Last week saw the controversial execution in Arizona of Joseph Wood by lethal injection. Nancy E. Millar argues that the procedure, which lasted for two hours, illustrates the major problems with the way that executions are now carried out in the U.S. She writes that the growing reluctance of pharmaceutical companies to provide the required drugs, in combination with the secrecy laws enacted by states over them and the staff who carry them out, puts those to be executed at risk of undergoing cruel and unusual punishment – a violation of the Eight Amendment to the Constitution.