Today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, "Georgia has lethal injection drugs; execution ordered." It's written by Bill Rankin.
Now that Georgia has obtained a new supply of a key lethal-injections drug, a judge has ordered an execution go forward for a man on death row for killing a Savannah woman 33 years ago.
State Department of Corrections spokeswoman Kristen Stancil on Monday said the agency had received a supply of the barbiturate pentobarbital, which will be used as one of three drugs in the state's new lethal-injection process.
Executions in Georgia have been on hold since March when the Drug Enforcement Administration seized the state's supply of sodium thiopental. Lawyers for a death-row inmate had questioned whether the state illegally obtained its stockpile of that drug, which is no longer made in the U.S., from a pharmaceutical company in London last year.
Corrections recently announced it is substituting pentobarbital for sodium thiopental. Pentobarbital, used as a sedative, will be used as the first of three lethal-injection drugs, followed by pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxer that stops breathing, and potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest.
The agency disclosed its recent purchase of pentobarbital after Chatham County Superior Court Judge Michael Karpf ordered the execution of Roy Willard Blankenship, who sits on death row for the March 2, 1978, burglary, rape and murder of Sarah Mims Bowen, 78.
The state Board of Pardons and Paroles had stayed Blankenship's execution in February to allow for DNA testing. After the tests proved inconclusive, Karpf signed the order, directing Blankenship's execution to be carried out between June 23 and June 30.
Other orders are expected to be signed soon, setting execution dates for inmates such as Troy Anthony Davis, sentenced to death for killing an off-duty Savannah police officer in 1989, and Andrew Grant DeYoung, condemned to die for killing his parents and 14-year-old sister at their Cobb County home in 1993.
The Arkansas News Bureau reports, "Beebe sets execution dates for two death-row inmates," by Rob Moritz.
Gov. Mike Beebe today set execution dates for condemned killers Jason Ferrell McGehee and Bruce Earl Ward.
And:
In April, Beebe set execution dates for two death-row inmates. One of those, however, was stayed last month by the Arkansas Supreme Court.
On July 12, Marcel W. Williams is scheduled to be executed for the 1994 death of 22-year-old Stacy Errickson of Jacksonville. The mother of two was found in a shallow grave near the Arkansas River with her hands bound behind her. She had been abducted two weeks earlier after stopping to get gasoline on her way to work. The coroner ruled she had been suffocated.
Williams was convicted of capital murder, rape, kidnapping and aggravated robbery in the case.
Frank Williams Jr, who was scheduled to be put to death June 22 for the 1992 slaying of Lafayette County farmer Clyde Spence, had his execution stayed by the state Supreme Court on May 5.
The high court said it granted the stay because Frank Williams is involved in a lawsuit with three other death-row inmates that challenges the constitutionality of lethal injection in Arkansas and another lawsuit that challenges the state Department of Correction’s policies on visitors mail and other privileges.
Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said today the governor decided to set the execution dates even though several previous dates have been stayed.
“Once we get the letter from the attorney general that the inmate has exhausted his appeals, then the governor has a duty to go ahead and set those dates,” DeCample said. “We understand there are still some things to be resolved in the courts and we never know what the courts are going to do, but the governor has a legal duty to carry out.”
Death row inmates Don William Davis, Jack Harold Jones Jr. and Terrick Nooner are currently challenging the state’s new execution procedures and questioning the quality of the state’s supply of a key execution drug. Beebe previously set execution dates for all three, but the dates were later stayed by a federal judge.
Earlier coverage from Georgia and Arkansas begins at the links. Related posts are in the lethal injection index.
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