Jan. 28
TEXAS:
Report: Texas bought seized execution drugs from India
Texas prison officials in 2015 arranged to buy lethal-injection drugs from a
company in India that was busted for selling psychotropic drugs and opioids
illegally to people in Europe and the United States, a new report claims.
When that deal fell through, they bought $25,000 worth of execution drugs from
another supplier in India, a shipment seized in Houston by U.S. drug enforcers
as an illegal importation, according to the report in BuzzFeed News.
BuzzFeed, in a detailed story posted late Thursday, said Texas Department of
Criminal Justice officials notified the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on
Jan. 8, 2015 that they would be importing a large amount of sodium thiopental,
Texas' execution drug, as required by a DEA license the agency holds.
"TDCJ will be importing Thiopental Sodium in 1 gram vials for a total of 500 to
1,000 grams per purchase/importation," a DEA investigative report published
with the article shows. "TDCJ will be importing from the following supplier:
Provizer Pharma."
Before the sale could be completed, however, Indian drug enforcement
authorities raided Provizer Pharma's offices in the city of Surat, arrested
five employees and seized an assortment of drugs, many of which are used as
"party pills" in the United States,
India's Narcotics Control Bureau called the raid a "significant seizure."
Weeks later, Texas turned to another supplier in India -- identified in leaked
DEA documents as Chris Harris -- and that shipment was seized in July 2015 at
Houston's Bush Intercontinental Airport. A second shipment bound for Arizona
was seized at the same time.
The seizures came after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had warned Texas
and its supplier, along with Arizona and Nebraska, that attempts to import the
drugs would be illegal and that the shipments would be confiscated, officials
earlier confirmed. A federal court at one point blocked its importation.
The BuzzFeed report provides new details about the source of Texas' execution
drugs, long a secret that the state has battled in courts to keep out of public
view, and of the lengths to which Texas and other states have gone to obtain
them.
In recent years, as most companies in the United States and Europe have stopped
making the drugs used in U.S. executions or prohibited their sale for lethal
use, Texas and other states have had to resort to secondary suppliers where
purchases have proven to be much more difficult.
Critics of the death penalty also have questioned whether the quality of those
drugs can more easily be compromised, and whether they will kill condemned
inmates without pain and suffering -- a key element in whether the use of those
drugs could compromise the legal administration of the death penalty.
The Texas-bound executions drugs seized in July 2015 remain in DEA custody.
Earlier this month, Texas sued the FDA seeking to release the drugs, accusing
the agency of "gross incompetence or willful obstruction," according to court
filings.
In its lawsuit, Texas referred to the source of the lethal drugs only as a
"foreign distributor."
While the source of Texas' execution drugs used to be publicly available, state
officials in recent years have made information about their suppliers a guarded
secret as suppliers for the drugs dried up, some driven by pressure from death
penalty opponents in the United States and Europe.
Attorney General Ken Paxton ordered the information secret, and state officials
have fought since then to keep as many details as possible under wraps,
including a threat against the DEA not to identify the supplier in the pending
lawsuit over the confiscation.
Texas prison officials declined late Thursday to discuss any details in the
BuzzFeed story, other than to say they had "not engaged in any transaction"
with Provizer. They declined further comment.
"The story is highly speculative and inaccurate," said TDCJ spokesman Jason
Clark, declining to discuss any details.
"TDCJ has a statutory responsibility to carry out court ordered executions in
Texas," Clark said. "All drugs used in the lethal injection process are legally
purchased and are tested by an independent lab for both potency and purity to
ensure they meet national standards."
(source: Houston Chronicle)
************************
Texas Sought Banned Death Penalty Drugs From Overseas Party Dealers----In the
future, President Trump's lifelong fanaticism for capital punishment could make
such shady deals unnecessary.
Lethal injectionBrian Baer/ZUMA Press/NewscomThe state of Texas - hell bent on
procuring banned drugs to be used in lethal injection executions - nearly
completed a deal with 5 party drug dealers in India before the men were
arrested.
According to an absolutely bonkers report in Buzzfeed, Indian court documents
reveal Provizer Pharma - the company equally owned by 5 Indian men in their
twentires - was selling "psychotropic drugs and opioids illegally to people in
the US and Europe," but also had a deal in principle with Texas' Department of
Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to sell the agency sodium thiopental, a drug used in
lethal injections.
The TDCJ wrote in a statement, "The agency has not engaged in any transaction
with this company," which would technically be true, because the 5 men from
Provinzer Pharma were arrested by India's Narcotics Control Bureau while
picking up returned packages loaded with illegal drugs at a FedEx store in
Surat before Provinzer's sale of sodium thiopental to the state of Texas could
be completed.
But per a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) report obtained by Buzzfeed, the TDCJ
tipped off the DEA of the planned purchase, and even named Provinzer Pharma as
the vendor.
Buzzfeed adds, "It's unclear how the Texas Department of Criminal Justice found
this small company in India that made the rounds on Internet message boards for
teens and 20-somethings looking to buy drugs without a prescription," but an
American named Chris Harris ended up replacing Provinzer Pharma as Texas' drug
supplier. Harris has made sales of death penalty drugs to 4 states - earning
over $100,000 - but each time the drugs have been detained by the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA).
As we've reported at Reason, death penalty states have had a hell of a time in
recent years trying to get their hands on drugs used in executions, partially
due to a European Union (EU) ban on the sale of such drugs to state governments
that allow capital punishment, but also due to public backlash over the many
executions which were botched because of drugs of questionable provenance and
quality.
The final status of the FDA-impounded shipments of sodium thiopental from India
is still unsettled. The U.S.'s lone manufacturer of the drug stopped producing
it because of its use in executions, and for a time, the Obama administration's
FDA allowed states to import the drug, but the agency was eventually ordered by
a federal court that it had "a mandatory obligation" to keep the "the
misbranded and unapproved drug, thiopental" out of the U.S.
That ruling came down in 2012, and has served as the FDA's go-to reasoning for
refusing to release the detained shipments of drugs paid for by certain states'
dollars.
Earlier this month, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice filed suit against
the FDA, demanding the release of the drugs. Ars Technica reports Texas
Attorney General Ken Paxton accused the FDA of "gross incompetence or willful
obstruction" in refusing to make a final decision on the fate of the impounded
drugs. Paxton's main argument is that the state has a "responsibility to carry
out its law enforcement duties" - which includes executions - and thus should
be granted a "law enforcement exemption" and be permitted to import sodium
thiopental.
President Donald Trump might be the most enthusiastic proponent of capital
punishment ever to inhabit the White House. It's one of the few policy
positions on which he has never wavered, having taken a full-page ad in 4 major
New York newspapers back in 1989 demanding "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY", as
well as writing in his 1997 book Trump: The Art of the Comeback, "I believe in
an eye for an eye." In 2010, Trump said the punishment for WikiLeaks'
publishing of classified documents provided by Chelsea Manning should be "the
death penalty or something."
When Trump gets around to appointing a new FDA commissioner, he could direct
the agency to stand down on its opposition to importing the drugs, which could
theoretically help states like Texas make the case that the current
court-imposed injunction should be done away with in deference to the FDA's
wishes.
(source: Anthony Fisher, reason.com)
********************
With Executions Down, Will the Death Penalty Disappear?
Public radio stations from across the state collaborated on this series looking
at the death penalty in Texas - its history, how it has changed, whom it
affects and its future.
The death penalty has been slowly on the decline in the U.S. But would it
surprise you to know that tough-on-crime Texas has also seen a decline in its
use? What could that mean for the future of the penalty here?
If you watch a lot of cop shows and courtroom dramas, you might think capital
punishment remains popular. But in reality, public support has waned.
"In the late 1990s, Pew measured support for the death penalty at 78 %," Robert
Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said. "Its
poll last year placed support for the death penalty down at 49 %. You're
looking at a 29 % point decline."
He points beyond that Pew Research Center national poll to one out of Houston
last year. Rice University's annual survey of attitudes in the city asked
people what they thought the appropriate punishment for murder was. Only 27 %
said the death penalty.
Dunham says he thinks the attitudes of people in Harris County provide a good
snapshot of attitudes in large urban centers.
"Harris is even more significant because it has produced more death sentences
than any other county in the United States, except for Los Angeles," he said.
After the 2016 presidential election, the next question has become: Are the
polls right? In this case, Jordan Steiker, who directs the Capital Punishment
Center at the University of Texas School of Law, said there???s pretty good
real-life evidence that yes, the death penalty is losing popularity.
When there are 15,000 to 20,000 homicides a year, but only a couple dozen death
sentences, he said, "no one can seriously argue that the death penalty is a
significant part of the criminal justice system."
"It's not a significant part of how we respond to crime. It's not a significant
part of how we respond to murder."
In 2016, there were only 4 new death sentences issued in Texas - none from
Harris County. Compare that to 1999, when 48 people were sentenced to death.
What changed? A lot - everything from botched executions to inmate
exonerations, which weakened public trust. Death penalty cases are also
exponentially more expensive than regular murder trials. And starting in 2005,
Texas juries were able to consider life without parole instead of death.
Steiker said he believes jurors are more sophisticated now. They take into
account the criminal's life before the murder was committed. That includes a
much better understanding of mental illness. Take for example, the 2012 mass
shooting in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater.
"[There was a] huge loss of life, incomprehensible, terrible crime, but you
also had a defendant who also had a very significant mental illness," he said.
"And that prosecution did not produce a death sentence."
So the death penalty appears to be on its way out. But as long as Texans want
to use the death penalty, it won't go away - so don't get too excited or upset
about any bills filed to end capital punishment in the 2017 legislative session
or any subsequent session.
Could the courts intervene to eliminate the death penalty? They haven't so far,
even when presented with new arguments on whether the current drug cocktail
used to carry out executions is constitutional.
"The Supreme Court hasn't been very welcoming of challenges to the drug
protocol," Steiker said. "The Supreme Court has issued two significant
decisions addressing challenges to the use of drugs and the risk of unnecessary
pain given particular protocols and has rejected both of those challenges."
So if the death penalty dies in Texas, it may be in the way many old laws die:
They remain on the books, but just aren't used.
(source: kera.org)
VIRGINIA:
Judge says prosecutors can seek death penalty for Welch
A Virginia judge has ruled that prosecutors may seek the death penalty against
a man accused of killing 2 young Maryland sisters who disappeared more than 40
years ago.
News outlets report that Bedford County Circuit Judge James Updike Jr. denied a
motion on Tuesday by Lloyd Lee Welch Jr.'s attorneys to rule out the death
penalty ahead of Welch's 1st-degree murder trial in April.
The defense said Virginia didn't allow capital punishment when 12-year-old
Sheila Lyon and 10-year-old Katherine Lyon disappeared in 1975, but the judge
ruled that wasn't the case.
Updike also found that Welch breached his 2013 immunity agreement with Maryland
prosecutors by changing his story several times.
The sisters were last seen walking to a mall in Washington's Maryland suburbs.
Their bodies have never been found.
(source: Associated Press)
GEORGIA:
Rethinking Georgia's death penalty
A group of Georgia conservatives are calling for a "re-think" of the death
penalty. At this point, however, they don't have plans to call to end it. In
2016, the amount of people put to death was the lowest it's been in 25 years in
the U.S., but Georgia and Texas accounted for 80 % of the nation's deaths, with
Georgia executing more prisoners than any other state.
Rep. Brett Harrell (R-Snellville), a member of the group called Georgia
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, listed some of his reasons for
being part of the group in a statement. He said, "Many individuals have been
wrongly convicted and sentenced to die. Meanwhile, taxpayers are forced to pay
for this risky government program, even though it costs far more than life
without parole."
The death penalty does cost far more than life without parole. In a 2008 case
in Georgia, the decision to seek the death penalty cost the state more than 3
million dollars.
On average, pursuing the death penalty in court costs taxpayers twice as much
as life in prison including the prison time. A study in Oregon found that "61
death sentences handed down in Oregon cost taxpayers an average of $2.3
million, including incarceration costs, while a comparison group of 313
aggravated murder cases cost an average of $1.4 million."
Georgia's death row, like many across the nation, is also disproportionately
African American - 50 % of death row convicts are black.
States without the death penalty have consistently had less murders. One
suggestion is that government-sanctioned murder legitimizes violence,
especially as the solution to a problem. Arguments have been made that the
death penalty leads to desensitization and imitation, which also encourage
violence in society.
In 2015, Georgia executed an African American man who had been on death row
since 1995. As he was given lethal injection he mouthed the words "didn't do
it." His lawyers argued there was never any physical evidence linking him to
the murder. The way he was treated was heinous and inhumane.
Executing even one innocent person is unequivocally a crime against humanity.
However, some studies show that as many as 1 person in 25 executed, are
innocent. We can't claim to be civilized and treat people that way.
It isn't enough to simply "re-think" the death penalty. We need to end it.
(source: Opinion, Shelby Steuart; Better Georgia)
FLORIDA:
Murder trial of Kimberly Lucas put on hold until state's death penalty resolved
With prosecutors seeking the death penalty against Kimberly Lucas, the 4th
District Court of Appeal on Friday stayed the 43-year-old Jupiter woman's
upcoming trial on charges that she drowned her estranged partner's 2-year-old
daughter and tried to kill her 10-year-old son in May 2014.
The trial, set to begin next week, will be delayed until the Florida Supreme
Court decides 2 cases spurred by the controversy that was unleashed when the
U.S. Supreme Court last year struck down the state's death penalty as
unconstitutional, the West Palm Beach-based appeals court ordered. A bill has
also been filed with the Florida Legislature to resolve the problems.
The nation's high court said the state law was flawed because it allowed
judges, not juries, to sentence someone to death. Under a decades-old system, a
jury's recommendation was purely advisory. The legislature last year passed a
measure mandating that 10 of 12 jurors must recommend the death penalty before
it could be imposed. The state supreme court struck down that measure, saying
the juror's decision must be unanimous.
Attorneys representing Lucas said they plan to use an insanity defense in her
trial on charges of murdering toddler Elliana Lucas-Jamason and attempting to
murder Ethan Lucas-Jamason by drugging him.
(source: Palm Beach Post)
*****************************
Death penalty possible in upcoming trial of Brevard convicted felon----Judge
rules death penalty law can be applied to case
The death penalty will be in play in the upcoming trial of a Brevard County
convicted felon.
That was the ruling Friday from a county judge hearing prosecution and defense
arguments in the double-murder case of 34-year-old Marcus Royal.
Royal is accused of murdering 81-year-old Faye Jones and 55-year-old Michael
Fallon in 2013.
Prosecutors say Royal stabbed Jones to death inside her Cocoa home and then
fatally attacked Fallon, who was her neighbor.
Royal is already serving life for violating his probation from a 1993 rape
case.
Friday, his defense team requested from a judge a speedy trial for their client
without the possibility of a death sentence.
While the judge agreed to start trial in February, he dismissed the notion that
the death penalty should be off the table.
"The death penalty as a penalty is a constitutional penalty," said Judge Jim
Earp.
The state Supreme Court says Florida's death penalty law, requiring a unanimous
decision from a jury to send someone to death row, is constitutional.
Judge Earp accepted that in Friday's hearing.
"We're talking about something that's completely procedural," said the judge.
The defense wanted Royal to face life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, said they're satisfied to now be building a
case calling for death.
"Our role in this is to show them what happened and the circumstances and
character issues that he has and then ask a jury is life enough in this case or
is this so bad he should be executed," state attorney Bill Respess told News 6
following the hearing.
(source: clickorlando.com)
OHIO:
Judges should stop interfering with executions
Ohio's death penalty survived past challenges from people opposed to killing
the worst of the worst in the state, eliminating rapists and murderers deemed
impossible to rehabilitate.
Can it survive a blow by a Dayton magistrate judge who thinks he knows better
than the U.S. Supreme Court?
Magistrate Judge Michael Merz in Dayton put a hold on the planned Feb. 15
execution of Ronald Phillips, who was sentenced to die for raping and killing
his girlfriend's 3-month-old daughter, Sheila Marie Evans, in 1993.
Merz's reason focused on the sedative midazolam, the 1st step in a 3-drug
cocktail Ohio plans to use to sedate, paralyze and then stop the hearts of
condemned inmates.
Merz wrote the drug couldn't pass a constitutional bar of causing "substantial
risk of serious harm" already set by the U.S. Supreme Court.
We're saddened to see Merz is trying to rewrite what the U.S. Supreme Court
already said. In reality, last year the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of
midazolam in an Oklahoma case.
We're also believe it's the correct move that the state immediately appealed
the case to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
This feels like a case of legislating from the bench to us. Yes, some people
object to executions. Still, they're the law of the land in Ohio and a tool to
curb bad behaviors.
Executions have become complicated enough in the state, ever since the
prolonged death of Dennis McGuire in 2014. It took 26 minutes, the longest
execution since the death penalty returned to the state in 1999.
Since then, Ohio changed its 2-drug method, including now using a dose of
midazolam that is 50 times more powerful to humanely end the life.
The state had trouble finding supplies of drugs, as drugmakers placed them
off-limits for executions. Records show the state still has enough drugs on
hand for dozens of executions, depending on when the drugs expire.
So when we see defendants' attorneys and the judge suggesting the state should
use a different drug, the anesthetic pentobarbital, it seems they're trying to
dictate how Ohio handles its prisoners deserving death. After all,
pentobarbital, used frequently for animal euthanizations, can't be imported
into the U.S. for human executions, thanks to a ban by the European Union.
The constitution demands they avoid cruel and unusual punishments. A powerful
sedative answers that call, humanely letting condemned prisoners drift off to
an eternal rest in a way their victims never got to enjoy. Then the proposed
paralysis eliminates much of the pain for the witnesses watching as the
heart-stopping medication takes effect.
There haven't been any executions since January 2014. There are 140 people on
Ohio's death row, including Allen County's Jeronique Cunningham and Cleveland
Jackson, awaiting the end of their lives. More importantly, there are victims
of 140 people still awaiting justice, a justice being held off by a ruling by a
judge who ignored the Supreme Court's own words.
We urge the court of appeals to have a swift ruling, to put these horrid cases
behind us and give the victims' families the justice they're owed.
(source: Editorial, limaohio.com)
******************
State Rep. Antonio Calls For An End To Ohio's Death Penalty In Wake Of Recent
Legal Barriers----Ohio's new 3-drug lethal injection method has been ruled
unconstitutional.
Ohio's new 3-drug lethal injection has been under fire recently, resulting in
the indefinite suspension of 3 planned executions of Ohio inmates, including 1
scheduled in February.
Today, House Democratic Whip Nickie Antonio, from Lakewood, responded to a
ruling by U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Michael Merz declaring Ohio's
new 3-drug lethal injection process unconstitutional.
"When the proposed drugs for lethal injection are found to be unconstitutional
because they may cause 'substantial risk of serious harm', it is immoral for
the state to continue to fight to use them," Antonio said in a press release.
"I believe it is long past time we abolish the death penalty in Ohio and
replace it with a sentence of life without parole."
Antonio has repeatedly introduced legislation to end capital punishment and
replace it with life without parole, citing research that shows the death
penalty does not deter violent crime and is administered with disparities
across economic and racial lines. In the 131st General Assembly, she sponsored
Ohio House Bill 289 with Dayton-area Rep. Niraj Antani, a Republican from Miami
Township, and plans to reintroduce the bill in the coming months.
Antani would not talk about his sponsorship of Ohio House Bill 287 or why he
appears to be against the death penalty.
(source: patch.com)
*************************
A look at the status of the death penalty in several states
The stop-and-start nature of U.S. executions in recent years hit another speed
bump this week when a federal judge found Ohio's latest lethal injection
procedure unconstitutional.
The ruling by Magistrate Judge Michael Merz went far beyond nitpicking the
state's procedures, and on one point raised potential problems for at least 3
other states that use the disputed sedative midazolam.
States have struggled for years now to find lethal drugs that pass
constitutional muster after pharmaceutical companies and distributors banned
their use in executions.
Some states turned to midazolam to replace anesthetics and barbiturates used
more successfully in the past, but that led to problematic executions and
numerous court challenges.
Alabama, Oklahoma and Virginia are among the states whose protocols have called
for midazolam, though the prison departments in those states may not currently
have the drug.
In the Ohio ruling, the judge agreed with attorneys for 3 condemned killers
that midazolam, the 1st drug in Ohio's process, couldn't pass a constitutional
bar of causing "substantial risk of serious harm" previously set by the U.S.
Supreme Court in a 2008 ruling out of Kentucky.
The judge also barred Ohio from using the 2nd and 3rd drugs in the states'
protocol, which paralyze inmates and then stop their hearts. Instead, the state
should look to use a compounded version of pentobarbital, a barbiturate, the
judge said.
Ohio has been unable to obtain pentobarbital, although other states such as
Missouri and Texas have been able to without saying where it's from.
Ohio said it had enough drugs in its latest 3-drug method to carry out 4
executions.
Struggles by states to find drugs and put inmates to death amid legal
challenges come as death sentences and executions continue to decline sharply.
Only 30 people were sentenced to death in the United States last year, the
lowest number since the early 1970s. Just 20 people were executed in 2016, the
fewest since 1991, and a far cry from 1999, when there were 98 executions.
Some of the country's historically most active death penalty states and their
outlook for executions:
---
ALABAMA
-- Inmates on death row: 183.
-- Scheduled executions: None. State is currently seeking an execution date
for Robert Melson, sentenced to die for the 1994 shooting death of 3 fast-food
workers.
-- Execution method: Lethal injection unless inmate requests the electric
chair. In past executions, the state used midazolam; rocuronium bromide, a
paralytic; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
-- Supply and source: The state is presumed to have a supply of execution
drugs since the attorney general's office is seeking an execution date. The
Department of Corrections refuses to disclose the source of drugs or how they
were obtained.
-- Last execution: Dec. 8, Ronald Bert Smith Jr., for killing a convenience
store clerk in a 1994 robbery. Smith coughed and his upper body heaved
repeatedly for 13 minutes as he was being sedated.
---
FLORIDA
-- Inmates on death row: 383.
-- Scheduled executions: None.
-- Execution method: Inmates can choose between lethal injection and the
electric chair. The lethal injection drugs are etomidate, an anesthetic;
rocuronium bromide; and potassium chloride.
-- Supply and source: The state refuses to name the source of its drugs or
other details.
-- Last execution: Jan. 7, 2016, Oscar Ray Bolin Jr., sentenced to die for
killing 3 Tampa Bay-area women.
---
GEORGIA
-- Inmates on death row: 57.
-- Scheduled executions: None, but several inmates are close to exhausting
appeals. Georgia law requires that execution dates be set no more than 20 days
in advance and no less than 10.
-- Execution method: Lethal injection using compounded pentobarbital, a
barbiturate.
-- Supply and source: A compounding pharmacy the state won't identify under a
2013 secrecy law. Records show the drug has been manufactured about a week
beforehand, delivered 1 to 2 days before an execution, and has a shelf life of
about 30 days.
-- Last execution: Dec. 6, William Sallie, for killing his father-in-law in
1990.
---
LOUISIANA
-- Inmates on death row: 73.
-- Scheduled executions: None scheduled. A federal lawsuit challenging
Louisiana's lethal injection method has delayed executions since 2014 with no
resolution expected until at least 2018.
-- Execution method: Newest method calls for midazolam and hydromorphone, a
painkiller.
-- Supply and source: State does not currently have a supply or source of
lethal injection drugs.
-- Last execution: Jan. 7, 2010, Gerald Bordelon, sentenced to die for killing
his 12-year-old stepdaughter in 2002.
---
MISSOURI
-- Inmates on death row: 25.
-- Scheduled executions: Jan. 31, Mark Christeson, sentenced to die for
killing a woman and her 2 children in 1998.
-- Execution method: Single dose of pentobarbital.
-- Supply and source: Believed to be manufactured by a compounding pharmacy.
The Associated Press and other news organizations are involved in a lawsuit
over the secrecy of Missouri's process, including how it obtains the execution
drug.
-- Last execution: May 11, Earl Forrest, for killing 2 people in a drug
dispute and a sheriff's deputy in a subsequent shootout in 2002.
---
OHIO
-- Inmates on death row: 138.
-- Scheduled executions: 29.
-- Execution method: The current method calling for midazolam; rocuronium
bromide; and potassium chloride, is on hold following a federal judge's ruling
Thursday rejecting that process.
-- Supply and source: A 2015 secrecy law and court rulings allow the Ohio
prisons department to shield the source of its drugs. Records show the state
had enough of its 3 drugs on hand for multiple executions. The state says that
doesn't take into account the drugs' expiration dates and other factors.
-- Last execution: Jan. 16, 2014, Dennis McGuire, for the 1989 killing of a
woman. McGuire was put to death with a never-tried 2-drug combination including
midazolam and hydromorphone, a painkiller, and snorted and gasped during the 26
minutes it took him to die.
---
OKLAHOMA
-- Inmates on death row: 48.
-- Scheduled executions: None. Executions are on hold until a new set of
lethal injection protocols are approved. If that happens, 13 inmates have
exhausted their appeals and could be executed.
-- Execution method: Lethal injection; if unavailable the other methods
allowed are nitrogen gas, the electric chair and the firing squad.
-- Supply and source: Oklahoma does not currently have a Drug Enforcement
Administration license, and according to a prison system spokesman is not
legally able to store execution drugs at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in
McAlester, where death row is located. Oklahoma previously obtained drugs from
an unidentified pharmacy.
-- Last execution: Jan. 15, 2015, Charles Warner, for the 1997 killing of his
roommate's infant daughter. "My body is on fire," he said after receiving
midazolam, the 1st in a 3-drug method, though he showed no other signs of
distress. 9 months later, it was learned that prison officials used the wrong
3rd drug in the state's execution protocol - potassium acetate instead of
potassium chloride - to execute Warner.
---
TENNESSEE
-- Inmates on death row: 63.
-- Scheduled executions: None.
-- Execution method: A single dose of compounded pentobarbital, or the
electric chair. Executions are on hold pending a state Supreme Court decision
on a challenge by inmates to the single dose, which replaced a 3-drug method.
-- Supply and source: The Tennessee Department of Correction doesn't have any
lethal drugs currently but officials "are diligently working to secure them."
-- Last execution: Dec 2, 2009, Cecil Johnson, sentenced to die for killing 3
people during a 1980 convenience store robbery.
---
TEXAS
-- Inmates on death row: 242. -- Scheduled executions: John Ramirez, on Feb.
2, for killing a convenience store clerk in 2004; and Tilon Lashon Carter, Feb.
7, for killing an 89-year-old man in 2004.
-- Execution method: Lethal injection using pentobarbital.
-- Supply and source: An unidentified compounding pharmacy provides the drugs,
but all information about the drug is shielded by state law.
-- Last execution: Thursday, Terry Edwards, sentenced to die for killing 2
people in a 2002 robbery in Dallas.
---
VIRGINIA
-- Inmates on death row: 6.
-- Scheduled executions: None.
-- Execution method: Inmates can choose between the electric chair and a
3-drug combination of midazolam or pentobarbital or thiopental sodium in the
1st step; rocuronium bromide or pancuronium bromide for the 2nd step; and
potassium chloride.
-- Supply and source: Before the state's last execution, on Jan. 18, prison
officials said they had enough lethal drugs for 2 executions. They obtained
midazolam and potassium chloride from a compounding pharmacy whose identity is
confidential under state law. They also have rocuronium bromide from Cardinal
Health, an Ohio-based pharmaceutical wholesaler.
-- Last execution: Ricky Gray, Jan. 18, for the 2006 slayings of 9- and
4-year-old sisters and their parents at their Richmond home.
(source: Associated Press)
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