How can any civilised nation - never mind one that presumes to lecture the world on human rights - tolerate this sort of thing?

Botched execution takes two hours

OK this one was in Arizona, and it's predominently the southern states that indulge in this disgusting stuff. But they are signed up to a federation that seems content to have them on board, and indeed the (federal) Supreme Court paved the way for this latest atrocity. Is there any point at which states that shame the union (Texas is the egregious example) will be kicked out of it?

If judicial killing is still deemed necessary in this day and age, what's wrong with hanging? In the method perfected in the UK, there was no blood, no suffocation, and the condemned individual was dead within 20 seconds of leaving the cell, by dint of a snapped neck.

We've moved on in the UK of course, but for the US, which is still on a learning curve, it's surely worth considering?