Just as North Carolina is facing new litigation over lethal injection challenges, the issue is alive in Kentucky. AP has this report via Kentucky.com.
Three Kentucky Death Row inmates claim in a lawsuit filed
Wednesday that lethal injection violates federal laws because a doctor doesn't
obtain or administer the drugs.
The inmates claim the federal Controlled Substances Act and the Food, Drug and
Cosmetic Act require a doctor to buy and prescribe sodium thiopental, one of
the three drugs used in an execution.
American Medical Association guidelines bar doctors from taking part, directly
or indirectly, in executions. Kentucky requires doctors to follow AMA ethical
guidelines.
Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in
Washington, D.C., said the inmates are using a different tactic than most to
challenge lethal injection.
"This is untested because the death penalty is so unique," Dieter said. "The
death penalty is the only place where we use drugs to kill people."
The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Frankfort is the latest by Death Row
inmates Thomas Clyde Bowling, Ralph Stevens Baze and Jeffrey DeVan Leonard.
Bowling and Baze challenged lethal injection as cruel and unusual punishment
in a 2004 lawsuit. Leonard is on his final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kentucky has not declared a moratorium on executions but has not scheduled any
since the 2004 lawsuit.
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