Today's Omaha World-Herald reports, "Ruling not expected to prevent executions," written by Paul Hammel.
Officials with the Nebraska Attorney General's Office expressed confidence Wednesday that a judge's ruling in Washington, D.C., won't preclude the state from carrying out an execution.
And:
But while death-penalty opponents hailed the ruling and said it would halt executions in Nebraska for several months, a spokesman for the Nebraska Attorney General's Office said it should have no impact here because other court rulings have stated the FDA doesn't have jurisdiction over sodium thiopental used for executions.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled Arizona can use non-FDA approved sodium thiopental for executions, and that decision still stands," said Shannon Kingery, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jon Bruning.
Much legal wrangling remains, including on whether the FDA would appeal the ruling or carry it out.
Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center said the judge minced no words in condemning the FDA for failing to check foreign-produced sodium thiopental for its "safety or effectiveness."
Dieter said the ruling was a clear message that states that, like Nebraska, still use the anesthetic should switch to another death-penalty drug, pentobarbital, as have at least 14 other states. That drug has been used in almost all executions carried out during the past two years, he said.
Nebraska has no scheduled executions, but at least three inmates on death row are nearing the end of their legal appeals, and one might get a date with the needle before the year is over.
Earlier coverage of the Nebraska reaction to Beaty v. FDA begins at the link.
The Memorandum Opinion in Beaty v. FDA and the District Court's Order are available in Adobe .pdf format.
Related posts are in the international and lethal injection indexes.
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