Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person by a government for the express purpose of causing immediate death. While Nazi Germany was known to execute enemies of the state using an injection of lethal drugs, the first country to legalize and formally implement what is referred to today as lethal injection was the United States. The state of Texas adopted it as its form on capital punishment in 1977 and executed the first person by it, Charles Brooks Jr., in 1982.[1] The practice was subsequently adopted by the other US states using capital punishment.[2] As of 2025, the method is available for use by 27 US states, as well as by their federal government and military.[3]
Lethal injection was proposed and adopted on the grounds it was more humane than the methods of execution in place at the time, such as the electric chair and gas chamber.[2] Opponents of lethal injection reject this argument, noting multiple cases where executions have been either painful, prolonged, or both.[4][5][6] According to the Death Penalty Information Center, lethal injections have the highest rate of botched executions of any method used in the US, with 7.12% of executions using this method between 1982 and 2010 considered to have not gone according to plan.[7][8] A study published in The Lancet in 2005 found that in 43% of cases of lethal injection, the blood level of hypnotics was insufficient to guarantee unconsciousness.[9] The Supreme Court of the United States ruled 7–2 in 2008 (Baze v. Rees), 5–4 in 2015 (Glossip v. Gross), and 5–4 in 2019 (Bucklew v. Precythe) that lethal injection does not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.[10][11]
Lethal injection was also adopted as a method of execution by Guatemala in 1996, China in 1997, the Philippines in 1999, Thailand in 2003, Taiwan in 2005, Vietnam in 2013,[12] the Maldives in 2014[13] and Nigeria in 2015.[14] The Philippines abolished the death penalty in 2006.[15] While the death penalty still exists in the Maldives and Guatemala, no executions have been carried out there since 1954 and 2000 respectively.[16] Taiwan has never actually used the method, instead carrying out all executions by single gunshot.[17] The US and China are the two biggest users of this method of execution. The US had executed 1,448 people via lethal injection as of August 2025.[3] The number of people executed annually in China is thought to surpass all other countries combined, though the actual number is a state secret,[18] and the percentage of people killed via lethal injection and the other method of execution used there, firing squad, is also unclear.[19]
This alphabetical list features notable executions up to July 2025, and only those where lethal injection can be reliably sourced to be the method used. The criterion for notability is either an article on the individual, the crime they were executed for, or a court case related to their execution, in the English Wikipedia.
Executions
In December 2020, Brandon Bernard became the 9th federal prisoner to be executed in the US, following the Trump administration's reinstatement of federal executions six-months earlier, after a 17-year hiatus.[20]The execution of Dustin Higgs was controversial. Higgs was sentenced for coercing someone to commit murder; the man who committed the murders later denied Higgs had influenced him.[21]At 76, Clarence Ray Allen is one of the oldest people to be executed in the US.[22]Stephen Wayne Anderson was executed in California in 2002 for murder.Alojs Andritzki, a Catholic priest, was executed by the Nazi regime at Dachau concentration camp.[23]Andrée Borrel, a member of Britain's Special Operations Executive, was executed by the Nazis with an injection of phenol.[24]Gary Ray Bowles, also known as the I-95 Killer, was executed in 2019 for the murders of six men in 1994.[25]Titus Brandsma, a Catholic priest, was executed for opposing the Nazi regime.Richard Cartwright was the main contributor to Uncensored from Texas Death Row until his execution.Oba Chandler, executed in 2011 for three murders, maintained his innocence.[26]John Errol Ferguson was executed in 2013 for committing the Carol City murders.Both the Vatican and Jewish groups asked for Martin Grossman to be spared the death penalty.[27]Serial killer David Alan Gore was executed in 2012.Bobby Joe Long was executed in 2019 for the 1984 murder of Michelle Denise Simms.[28]In 2021, Lisa Marie Montgomery became the first female federal prisoner executed in the US in 67 years, and only the fourth overall.[29]Thai national Jaturun Siripongs was executed in 1999 in California for two murders. He always maintained he was involved in the crime but was not the actual killer.Terry Melvin Sims was the first person executed by lethal injection in the state of Florida.Mark James Asay was the first person executed by lethal injection using the drug etomidate.Robert Lee Massie was California's longest-serving death row inmate prior to his execution in 2001.Donald Dillbeck was Florida's 100th execution since the reinstatement of the death penalty.Louis Gaskin was executed in Florida in 2023 for a double murder.James Barnes was Florida's 60th execution via lethal injection.
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