Today's Rapid City Journal carries the editorial, "State needs clarity on lethal injection."
The Department of Corrections last month announced it would alter its execution procedures to allow for a one-, two- or three-drug lethal injection process.
In September, the Drug Enforcement Agency advised South Dakota against using the sodium thiopental it purchased from a company in Mumbai, India. The change to the state’s lethal injection protocol allows DOC to switch to a different drug.
South Dakota used a three-drug lethal injection method when it executed Elijah Page in 2007 for the 2000 torture murder of Chester Allan Poage near Spearfish.
The change in the state’s lethal injection process is a sound decision on the part of the Department of Corrections. We recall that Page was originally scheduled to be executed in August 2006, but Gov. Mike Rounds postponed the execution, almost literally at the last moment, because state law required the use of two drugs when the DOC planned to used a three-drug mix that was standard in states that use lethal injection.
The state Legislature changed the law in 2007 to give the Department of Corrections the latitude to decide the lethal injection method.
Earlier coverage of lethal injection issues in South Dakota begins at the link.
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