I live in one of the "formally suspended" states (Oregon). Capital punishment is entrenched in the state constitution, but state officials have done their darn best to get around that. The governor commutes all death sentences to life imprisonment. The execution chamber and death row were both dismantled, and the state has no way to procure the drugs needed for lethal injection, the only approved method of execution. A "temporary" moratorium has been in effect for over a decade.

There hasn't been an execution in Oregon in almost 30 years.

Ironically that opening sequence culminates in everyone on the wagon being brought to their planned execution.

I feel like regardless of where you stand on the issue of capital punishment, everyone should agree that if the drugs got administered and it didn’t work that’s a double jeopardy kind of situation. But alas.

If she weighs as much as a duck

I heard god was a rapist and a terrorist and an abuser

The drug protocol was a massive single dose of pentobarbital, which is a barbiturate. Followed by a second backup dose of the same size if required.

This is a different and simpler protocol than the 3 drug combo of, like, midazolam, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. The barbiturates work solely off of sedative-like effects, and lethality is achieved by using a massive overdose.

This is what I've pieced together from news and court filings:

This drug works well if it gets into the blood stream. If it goes into the muscles and other parts of the body besides the veins, it doesn't have its psychoactive sedative effects. The drug is very basic, as in high pH, so it causes burns.

Injecting not into vein also causes pain and swelling simply from mechanically forcing a largish volume of liquid into the body where there's not a lot of free space to accept it.

So the story seems to be that the execution people struggled for a long time to get a good needle stick into a vein. The victim had prewarned them and the court that she has tiny veins, like a lot of people. It seems like they possibly gave up on the vein and just dumped two whole vials into what was effectively an intramuscular injection.

There was a witness report that one of the multiple needles that were removed from her arm was bent at a 90 degree angle.