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A botched execution in the state of Oklahoma on Tuesday has drawn criticism from the White House, infuriated the ACLU and — practically overnight — reignited the death penalty debate in America.

Clayton Lockett, convicted of raping and murdering a 19-year-old girl, was due to be executed at the state penitentiary in McAlester, Okla., Tuesday night when things went shockingly awry.

It began when Lockett was given a powerful anesthetic at 6:23 p.m. CDT, the New York Times reported, and was pronounced unconscious moments later. After a few minutes, Lockett reportedly tried to sit up in his chair, trembled, shook his foot, said “man, something’s wrong” and gasped, before officials closed the curtains to the execution chamber.

Prison officials later said Lockett died of a heart attack about 40 minutes after a doctor administered the initial drug, and stated the botched execution was a result of a “vein failure” that had “burst.”

A second execution scheduled for later Tuesday was postponed pending an investigation.

Speaking from the White House on Wednesday, Press Secretary Jay Carney said, “We have a fundamental standard in this country that even when the death penalty is justified, it must be carried out humanely.”

“I think everyone would recognize that this case fell short of that standard.”

Gov. Mary Fallin (R.-Okla.) has promised to investigate the state’s lethal injection protocol.

The brutal mishap has again put a spotlight on the morality of the death penalty and has called into question the cocktail of secret drugs administered to Lockett. Below, Mashable answers some basic questions about the death penalty and how the process of lethal injection is carried out.

Which countries have the death penalty?

The United States is one of 58 nations that still practices capital punishment, along with Ethiopia, Afghanistan and North Korea. Japan and India are the only other major democratic nations that carry out this form of punishment.

Of the 198 countries recognized by the Death Penalty Information Center, 98 forbid capital punishment. Seven of those countries allow it only in the case of “exceptional crimes,” such as one committed under military law. Thirty-five others allow it for “ordinary” crimes such as murder, but have not carried out an execution in at least 10 years and “are believed to have a policy or established practice of not carrying out executions,” according to the center’s website.

In the map below, click “legend” in the top left corner to see what the colors designate.

How many states in the U.S. have the death penalty?

Capital punishment is still legal in 32 states. Maryland was the latest to outlaw the death penalty in 2013, though the ruling was not retroactive; the five inmates on death row there are still due to be executed.

The same is true for Connecticut and New Mexico, which outlawed the death penalty in 2012 and 2009, respectively. Connecticut’s 11 death row prisoners and New Mexico’s two are still up for execution by the state.

Click “legend” at the top left corner of the map below to see what the colors represent.

Where in the U.S. do most executions take place?

As you can see in the map above, Texas has carried out the most executions in the U.S. since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, executing 515 people.

Virginia and Oklahoma have executed 110 people each over the same time frame, with Florida executing 86 inmates and Missouri executing 74.

Texas, it should be noted, has executed more people than all those states combined.

Do Americans support the use of capital punishment?

More than half of all Americans support the death penalty (55%), marking a significant decline from 1996, when 78% of the U.S. favored capital punishment, according to Pew Research Center.

Today, 37% of Americans oppose it.

Though the population as a whole is slightly in favor of capital punishment, the Death Penalty Information Center says some prominent minority groups are not. Just 40% of Hispanics support the death penalty, as opposed to 50% who oppose it. For African Americans, those numbers are an even greater contrast to the general population. Only 36% favor it, compared with 55% who oppose it.

How many states use other methods of execution, aside from lethal injection?

Lethal injection is the only means of execution for 20 of the 32 states that practice capital punishment. It is the primary option in all of those states but four. Some states allow alternative execution methods, should the state not have the means to administer the lethal drugs or if an inmate requests a different punishment.

• Florida, South Carolina and Virginia allow inmates to choose between lethal injection and electrocution.

• Missouri allows death by lethal gas — although the statute doesn’t specify who gets to choose the method.

• Inmates on death row in Alabama can request the electric chair.

• In California and Wyoming, they can ask for lethal gas.

• If there’s nobody to administer a lethal injection in New Hampshire, prisoners can be hanged.

• Death row inmates in Washington can ask for the gallows, too.

• Oklahoma allows electrocution should lethal injection ever become unconstitutional. Utah has a similar clause, but favors a firing squad instead of the chair.

How does someone wind up on death row?

In states with the death penalty, a person who is convicted of first-degree murder or treason is likely to wind up on death row. But depending on the state, crimes including severe sexual battery, capital kidnapping, aircraft hijacking, “drug crimes,” arson and resisting arrest could also send a convict to the death chamber.

The vast majority of states, though, accept only a murder charge to consider capital punishment.

How does lethal injection actually cause death?

Lethal injection usually starts by rendering a person unconscious with a powerful anesthetic, followed by a cocktail of drugs that halt key bodily functions. In theory, the inmate shouldn’t feel any pain.

However, that didn’t appear to be the case in Oklahoma.

In Tuesday’s botched execution, the drug cocktail given to Lockett was a mix of midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

The process, in Lockett’s execution, began with midazolam.

Midazolam can be used to produce loss of consciousness before and during surgery, according to Mayo Clinic’s website, a non-profit medical research organization and practice based in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida. “This may allow the patient to withstand the stress of being in the intensive care unit.”

Ten minutes after the midazolam injection, Lockett was declared unconscious, and a doctor began to pump the other two drugs into the prisoner’s body.

Vecuronium bromide is a neuromuscular blocking agent, according to the website of the FDA. Like midazolam, it is also used in hospitals and can be administered in tandem with general anesthesia as an additional relaxant. Surgeons can use it to relax a patient’s muscles during surgery, especially when they are required to stick a tube down a patient’s throat, the FDA says. When used for lethal injection, the dosage is increased, making it enough to stop a patient’s breathing.

Potassium chloride is then used to stop the heart.

Though potassium chloride can be taken in supplements by an otherwise healthy person with low levels of potassium, a high dosage of this chemical compound is deadly.

This method of execution is essentially death by overdose, and the latter two drugs can reportedly cause extreme pain if the person taking them is not unconscious.

This particular cocktail has been used in Florida along with Oklahoma, though the dose of midazolam — which was supposed to render Lockett unconscious — is much higher in Florida prisons.

Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/04/30/questions-death-penalty-debate/