"Death penalty expert: Nebraska must change lethal injection drug," is the Lincoln Journal Star report written by Kevin O'Hanlon.
A national death penalty expert says a federal appeals court ruling means Nebraska will be forced to change its lethal injection protocol if it wants to continue using capital punishment.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit ruled Tuesday that the anesthetic sodium thiopental — acquired overseas by Nebraska and several other states for use in executions — was imported illegally.
"Nebraska, like every other state to carry out an execution in the past two years, will have to change its protocol for executions," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "There are no simple solutions to this problem."
And:
Nebraska went to lethal injection after the state Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the electric chair amounted to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. Its three-drug protocol calls for a dose of sodium thiopental to knock out the inmate, followed by pancuronium bromide to cause paralysis, then potassium chloride to stop the heart.
Dieter said many states have switched to pentobarbital, commonly used for animal euthanasia. But Danish manufacturer Lundbeck has said it would block sales to states that want to use it to execute people.
In 2011, Oklahoma changed the language of its law to remove the reference to specific drugs. Nebraska's protocol, formulated by prison officials and vetted in public hearings, could be changed but not without some effort.
The Omaha World-Herald reports, "Ruling on execution drug energizes foes of Nebraska's policy," by Paul Hammel.
If Nebraska wants to keep a viable death penalty, it needs to change the drugs used to chemically end someone's life, an expert on capital punishment said Wednesday.A federal appeals court ruling Tuesday effectively ruled out the use of a key drug used in lethal injections and will add momentum to the movement to repeal capital punishment, said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center.
“This is another delay,” Dieter said. “It makes the death penalty ineffectual.”
State Sens. Ernie Chambers and Brad Ashford, leading death penalty opponents, agreed.
“It shows that the whole death mechanism is fraught with so many flaws that the prudent thing for the state to do is to abolish the death penalty,” Chambers said. “The only reason for maintaining it is political.”
And:
The ACLU of Nebraska called on the state Tuesday to voluntarily surrender its supply of sodium thiopental.
Chambers also called on the state to give up its drugs and avoid the time and expense of a court challenge “it is certain to lose.”
The ACLU said Wednesday it was filing a public records request to see whether Nebraska had obtained other supplies of sodium thiopental. A corrections department spokesman said it had not.
"ACLU seeks info about Neb. lethal injection supply," is by Grant Schulte for AP. It's via the Danbury News-Times.
The ACLU of Nebraska on Wednesday called on the state to surrender its supply of a key drug used for lethal injections, a day after a federal appeals court ruled that the foreign-made drug requires FDA approval.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration shouldn't have allowed the sodium thiopental into the country without inspection for use in executions.
The court said its ruling only applied to three states — Arizona, California and Tennessee — and allowed Nebraska to keep its current supply. But the ACLU said the ruling makes it unlikely that the state's existing supply would withstand a legal challenge from a death row inmate.
Nebraska TV posts, "State's Stock of Lethal Injection Drug May Not Be In Compliance With FDA," by Emily Roehler.
"The court's decision should be a warning to the state of Nebraska: don't purchase drugs without going through the FDA," said Amy Miller, Legal Director for the ACLU of Nebraska.
"If Nebraska tries to use unapproved drugs from fly-by-night dealers, it once again shows that the death penalty is broken beyond repair and cannot guarantee it achieves real justice," she said.
And:
"Resorting to illegal practices and black-market drug distributors isn't what the people of Nebraska should expect from their government," said Miller. "We're asking Nebraska to come clean about its supply of sodium thiopental. If the state did not seek FDA approval then officials should dispose of the supply immediately."
Earlier coverage of Nebraska lethal injection issues and the FDA ruling begins at the link.
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