"3-chemical process to be used twice more; Arizona plans to switch to single-drug executions," is the AP report written by Paul Davenport. It's via the Arizona Daily Star.
Arizona plans to switch to using just one execution drug, dropping a three-drug protocol used since the 1990s, Corrections Director Charles Ryan said Friday.
Ryan told The Associated Press in an interview that the state would make the switch after two executions scheduled in the next two weeks.
The switch is in the works to "minimize or mitigate any perceived concerns that a three-drug protocol represents any type of concern or risk," he said.
Oklahoma, Ohio and Texas, the nation's busiest death penalty state, have switched to one drug, the sedative pentobarbital. Critics have said the three-drug protocol might result in an inmate being painfully suffocated if a knockout drug doesn't work.
Ryan said Arizona may use pentobarbital, the sedative used by the three states - Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas - that have switched to a one-drug protocol.
However, the state will still use the three-drug protocol for executions scheduled for Eric John King on Tuesday and Daniel Wayne Cook on April 5 "because it is the protocol that is recognized by the court now."
Also, Deputy Director Charles Flanagan said the switch is being made because of "perceived concerns."
"We don't have concerns. This is tried-and-true process," he said.
Arizona has used the three-drug protocol to execute 23 inmates since 1993, mostly recently Jeffrey Landrigan on Oct. 26.
Dale Baich, a lawyer for the federal Public Defender's Office for Arizona, said its lawyers would want to review the state's proposed new protocol.
An updated AP report notes, "Arizona killer's lawyers seek to delay execution amid drug change," via the Arizona Republic.
Lawyers for a death-row inmate have filed another motion seeking a stay from his scheduled execution next week, citing Arizona's plan to switch to a one-drug execution protocol.
The state announced Friday that it was changing from the three-drug cocktail, but only after the scheduled executions of Eric John King and another inmate April 5 "because it is the protocol that is recognized by the court now."
Federal public defenders for King said Saturday that the state should "wait until the (one-drug) process is in place rather than rush forward with the two scheduled executions."
Arizona has used the three-drug protocol to execute 23 inmates since 1993.
Friday evening, Michael Keifer posted, "Arizona: Execution drug mislabeled; use of substance may end soon," at the Arizona Republic and Tucson Citizen.
Arizona Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan on Friday blamed clerical errors by employees of a local import broker and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for misstating on federal documents that the agency was importing animal drugs to execute murderers.
In an exclusive interview, Ryan also told The Arizona Republic that after upcoming Arizona executions on Tuesday and April 5, the department will consider retooling the state’s lethal-injection method to use a single drug instead of the current three-drug method that depends on an anesthetic that is no longer available.
Ryan reacted to a Republic report Thursday about two drugs, sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide, which were imported from England for an Arizona execution in October and for the two upcoming executions.
FDA documents that U.S. Customs and Border Protection use to approve imports stated that the drugs were for animal use, raising questions as to whether they were being carried out with animal drugs or if the imports had been misidentified.
“The chemicals employed in the execution, then and now, and what we possess, are only for the purpose of human consumption,” Ryan said. “It has nothing to do with animals.”
Ryan ordered an investigation into the misrepresentation Friday morning, and the private import broker retained by the department took responsibility for the drugs being misidentified. Ryan pointed out that correspondence between his department and the federal agencies clearly stated that the drugs were to be used for inmate executions.
And:
Some states with three-drug protocols have already switched to another barbiturate, pentobarbital, a drug similar to what is used to euthanize animals, as a substitute for thiopental.
Ohio uses a single drug to execute its death-row prisoners, and since thiopental became unavailable, switched to pentobarbital. The one-drug protocol sidesteps defense-attorney claims that the executed people could suffer the effects of the other drugs.
“After these two executions, we’re looking at going to another protocol,” Ryan said. “I’m thinking of a one-drug protocol. Or, if it remains a three-drug protocol, it would be substituting (thiopental) with another barbiturate.”
Earlier coverage from Arizona begins at the link.
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