Joseph Rudolph Wood was pronounced dead by way of lethal injection at 3:49pm on Wednesday. His execution was initiated an hour and fifty seven minutes earlier. Wood was “gasping and snorting” for so long that his lawyers filed an emergency appeal during the execution.

+ Vox explains why it took so long.

+ Days before the botched execution, U.S. 9th Circuit Court Chief Judge Alex Kozinski argued that executions should be carried out by firing squads: “Using drugs meant for individuals with medical needs to carry out executions is a misguided effort to mask the brutality of executions by making them look serene and beautiful — like something any one of us might experience in our final moments. But executions are, in fact, brutal, savage events, and nothing the state tries to do can mask that reality. Nor should we. If we as a society want to carry out executions, we should be willing to face the fact that the state is committing a horrendous brutality on our behalf.”