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Because the main ingredient of the injection cocktail, sodium thiopental is no longer manufactured in the US. The EU has also banned the drug. So states are now trying to "score" an alternative, pentobarbital which works similarly to sodium thiopental, but is slower acting, resulting in a few botched executions in Texas.

https://www.inverse.com/article/4100-the-growing-black-marke...

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And to be quite clear (while I am personally against all applications of the death penalty), a botched execution is far more expensive, legally, and even medically (if there are increased healthcare costs for that timeframe), and also, a botched execution is generally considered "cruel and unusual punishment".

>a botched execution is generally considered "cruel and unusual punishment".

Not any longer. The Supreme Court ruled this term that prisoners sentenced to die have no right to a comfortable death.

I wouldn't expect that ruling to survive this particular SCOTUS. They've broken years of precedence and created law from thin air that don't exist prior. It's not likely to survive when the pendulum swings on the court again, justice like judicial overreach on anti trust with the previous liberal majority was generally overturned.

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