David CookAfter nearly five years of zero executions, Tennessee has resumed its death penalty system, announcing plans to execute one man in January and another in April.
Like most states, Tennessee uses lethal injection as its primary method of execution. A prisoner is led into the execution chamber before a small group of witnesses. He or she is then strapped down by restraints to a gurney while an IV is started in one arm, and then the other, in case of malfunction in the first.
Then, after giving the prisoner a chance to speak his or her final words, officials inject a three-drug cocktail into the prisoner’s arm.
The first drug — sodium thiopental — is a sedative-anesthetic that makes the prisoner unconscious.
The second — pancuronium bromide — paralyzes the lungs and diaphragm.