Two years has passed since we posted about the shortage of sodium thiopental in Florida and Texas and elsewhere, and how this necessary component of the three-drug "cocktail" used in death penalty executions was causing all sorts of problems with criminal justice officials in different parts of the country.

See:  Pentobarbital in Florida Executions: What’s…

The Food and Drug Administration has filed an appeal of the judicial opinion entered by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon for the District of Columbia that blocks the use of sodium thiopental in executions. 

• Read Judge Leon’s order here.
• Read Judge Leon’s memorandum opinion here.

In the decision, 21 Death Row inmates from…

Right now, the Florida House of Representatives has before it a bill that would end lethal injections as a method of execution.  This bill doesn’t end the death penalty, though (that’s a different bill): this proposed legislation, if it becomes law, will return Florida to its prior methods of carrying out capital punishment.

That’s right.  Old …

Mike Thomas of the Orlando Sentinel wrote an editorial earlier this month that gives a good overview on where the State of Florida is (and was) in its methods of executing inmates on Death Row.  In "The death penalty: A dead end in Florida,"  Thomas discusses the various methods that the state has used…

Now, not only is the U.S. Department of Justice going state-by-state and scooping up any remaining supplies of sodium thiopental (see our earlier post for details), it has informed the State of Arizona that Arizona cannot legally use its sodium thiopental supply because it is the opinion of the Justice Department that Arizona got that…

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…