Sidebar With an Expert Capital Litigator
As we discussed before, there has been a challenge to the use of drugs purchased overseas in executions undertaken by various states. (Specifically, the use of sodium thiopental purchased by Georgia from a questionable British supplier.)
However, news this week has it that in response, the federal government has been going around and…
Back in 2009, there was a three part series of posts here on the Death Penalty Blog, discussing the lethal injection cocktail as it was commonly used at the time: in Florida, this meant a combo of first, thiopental sodium ; second, pancuronium bromide; and lastly, potassium chloride.
From that series (please go to …
As usual, Texas is in the spotlight regarding capital punishment, as a big victory was had at the United States Supreme Court this week in stopping the execution of Cleve Foster, who was scheduled to make history as the first person to die in Texas under their new lethal injection cocktail. Texas would be substituting…
Georgia has halted its execution schedule now that the federal government has swooped in and taken its stash of sodium thiopental. Seems that the Drug Enforcment Administration (DEA) believes that the State of Georgia violated federal law when it bought sodium thiopental from a British supplier for use in its three-drug lethal injection execution cocktail. …
Today, there is an understandably large amount of news coverage aboutthe state of Illinois abolishing the death penalty – with the Illinois governor waiting until the eleventh hour to make his decision on whether he would stand on the matter. It’s big news and it should be.
However, in Ohio there is also very …
Seems Tennessee can’t find a supplier for its lethal injection executions using a three drug cocktail that includes sodium thiopental (guess they haven’t called Besse Medical), so pentobarbital is apparently being considered as a substitute.
According to its state website, Tennessee has a long execution history, with hanging and the electric chair as…
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) became the defendant in a civil suit filed this week by six Death Row inmates who face execution in Arizona (3 plaintiffs), California (2 plaintiffs), and Tennessee (1 plaintiff) as they seek a declaratory judgment from the federal judge presiding over the United States District Court for the District…
On Tuesday, we learned the Associated Press had used the power of the press last week to discover that Besse Medical had been the supplier of sodium thiopental to Texas for use in its executions. Good work, AP.
The State of Texas fought to keep the identity of its new supplier secret – purportedly to protect the…
On January 21, 2011, via its website, Illinois drug manufacturer Hospira, Inc. fired a shot heard ’round the world as it announced in a short and sweet press release that it would no longer be making sodium thiopental (product name, Pentothal™). According to Hospira:
Hospira had intended to produce Pentothal at its Italian plant. … [W]e cannot
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Last week, John David Duty was executed by the State of Oklahoma and in doing so, Mr. Duty made the history books – we may all remember his name for many years in the future as the first man to be executed in the same way that vets put down beloved pets.
Because, while other…