How does lethal injection work and what drugs are used?
LETHAL injection is the preferred method of execution in 28 US states that have the death penalty, but the drugs used can differ across the country.
Lethal injections are also used in federal executions, and a man named Brandon Bernard in Indiana on December 10.
How does lethal injection work?
Lethal injection was first adopted in Oklahoma in 1977 because it was considered cheaper and more humane than other methods of execution.
Texas was the first state to administer a lethal injection, executing Charles Brooks, Jr, in 1982.
A prisoner given a lethal injection is first strapped to a gurney.
The prisoner is then injected with a series of drugs.
Until 2009, most states used a three-drug combination for lethal injections, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
New methods have been implemented in recent years due to drug shortages.
What drugs are used?
Some states use one drug to execute a prisoner, while others use two or three.
The three-drug protocol uses an anesthetic or sedative, usually followed by a paralytic like pancuronium bromide followed by a heart-stopping drug like potassium chloride.
Eight states have used a single-drug method - a lethal dose of an anesthetic, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
What are the alternatives to lethal injection?
If lethal injection fails in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia then the electric chair will be used.
Nitrogen gas as a form of execution can be used in Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
Hanging can be used in Delaware, New Hampshire and Washington, while the firing squad can be offered if lethal injection and electrocution are found unconstitutional in Oklahoma and Utah.
Who is Brandon Bernard?
Brandon Bernard, , has been sentenced to death for a brutal crime he committed in 1999.
is backing a campaign to stop his execution which was scheduled to take place on December 10.
He was involved in the killing of two youth ministers in 1999 when he was a teen.
Campaigners say that, at the time of his conviction, both prosecutors and jurors had an incomplete picture of Bernard and his background.
The group, all teenagers at the time, held the Bagleys at gunpoint and robbed them before shooting them.
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They then placed their bodies in the trunk of their car and torched it.
A federal jury found Bernard guilty in 2000 of two counts of murder.
He was then placed on death row.