This is the first post in a series to discuss lethal injection as a humane method of execution.

Currently, several states are practising a de facto moratorium on executions due to doubts about the efficacy of the chemical cocktail administered, both its adequacy for the job, and the qualifications of the personnel present to monitor the experience of the condemned person being executed to ensure that the execution could not be defined as cruel under the constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. In this series of posts I want to investigate the search for humane methods of execution, the execution protocol, evidence of botching, the nature of the choice prisoners make when methods in their state change and they are allowed to choose the method by which they will be executed, and some of the evidence from Oregon related to this issue including perspectives gleaned from the Listening Project.

I will welcome questions and comments.

My name is Rachel Cunliffe Hardesty. I live in Oregon, USA and have been involved in a project to discover the meaning of the death penalty to Oregonians for the past 8 years.

My primary methodology is a variation of a listening project, where I meet in a variety of venues with people to whom the death penalty matters.

This is my blog. Here I will tell you some of the stories I have heard in my travels around the state, ponder some of the ideas that have come to me as a result, and relate my work on the ground to the wider national and international context experienced through media, study, and connections with people involved in that bigger milieu.

My aim is to use this writing space to further my thinking, and to broaden the dialogue about the death penalty through knowledge of the impact it has on one particular community in America.