What do they follow protocols like alcohol swabs and sterile needles when performing a lethal injection? The subject is about to die.
In: Biology
For one it’s a humane practice. If something goes wrong with the execution you don’t want the person suffering from a horrible infection etc. There’s many reasons why an execution might be stopped at the last moment and giving someone a disease or infection could be considered torture under those circumstances.
The US has a constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishments and while you might argue about the merits of capital punishment or even the prison system itself, using dirty needles or causing unnecessary harm and injury during an execution would be considered cruel by the courts.
The simple answer though is the needles and medical equipment are sterilized at manufacturing and it would cost more to create specialized non-sterile equipment for that purpose.
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