Reuters reports, "Mississippi switches to new drug for executions." It's by Leigh Coleman and Colleen Jenkins.
Mississippi will switch to a different sedative drug for three executions the state is seeking to carry out in the next month, state Attorney General Jim Hood told Reuters on Tuesday.
The state will join several others that have substituted pentobarbital -- a sedative often used to euthanize animals -- for sodium thiopental in their execution protocols.
Sodium thiopental is in short supply in the United States after an Illinois company bowed to European Union pressure and stopped making it.
Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio already have made similar changes.
Hood had asked the state Supreme Court to schedule executions for April 20, April 27 and May 4.
And:
Mississippi Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said the state has ordered the new lethal injection drug and has been rehearsing for the expected executions.
"Attorney general requesting 3 execution dates in span of 15 days," appears in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.
The attorney general's office plans to ask the state Supreme Court to set an execution date that could mean three death row inmates would be executed in 15 days.After the U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal from Mississippi death row inmate Benny Joe Stevens, Attorney General Jim Hood's office said that he'll petition the court to set a May 4 execution date for Stevens.
And:
Hood's office earlier had asked the state's high court to set an April 20 execution date for Robert Simon Jr. and an April 27 date for Rodney Gray after the U.S. Supreme Court had declined to hear their appeals without comment.
Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said his staff is prepared to carry out the court's order in all three cases.
"In my staff meetings, we spend a lot of time on this issue," Epps said Monday. "We have a policy change. We have ordered a new drug. We have to get our rehearsals. We are making sure the schedules are straight for everything."
Epps said his department normally does three test runs before each execution.
"We had one last Tuesday," he said.
Related posts are in the lethal injection index.
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