"TN chooses new execution drug," is by Brian Haas at the Tennessean.
Tennessee on Friday announced that it had come up with a new way to execute prisoners sentenced to die.
The Tennessee Department of Correction will now use pentobarbital, a drug used to euthanize dogs, to execute prisoners on death row. The state had been forced to abandon a three-drug cocktail used for years to execute prisoners when the sole supplier stopped producing it in 2010. The state plans to use just the one drug to execute death row inmates.
For years, the state had used the three-drug protocol.
And:
Tennessee has 79 people currently on death row. It has put to death six prisoners since 1960. In 2009, triple murderer Cecil Johnson became the last person to be executed by the state.
The Republic posts AP coverage, "Tenn. switches from three-drug method to execute death row inmates to single-drug method," written by Lucas L. Johnson II.
The new protocol now calls for using the sedative pentobarbital only to put an inmate to death, according to the news release issued by spokeswoman Dorinda Carter.
Tennessee's supply of sodium thiopental, one of three drugs used in lethal injections, was turned over to the federal government in 2011 over questions about how it was imported. The short supply of sodium thiopental in the U.S. has led many states with the death penalty to seek out other drugs.
Arizona, Idaho and Ohio already have carried out executions using pentobarbital, a barbiturate that is most commonly used to euthanize animals and treat seizures.
In addition to the shortage of sodium thiopental, records obtained by The Associated Press through an open records request indicated that Tennessee has also been unable to get pancuronium bromide, a strong muscle relaxant given to the inmate before the final injection of potassium chloride, which stops the heart.
A memo dated February 2012 stated that the pharmaceutical distributor Morris & Dickson informed the state that pancuronium bromide was recalled in May 2010 and will not be reissued.
Carter said in an email to the AP on Friday that the state has no supplies of either sodium thiopental or pancuronium bromide.
The last major revision to the state's execution protocols came in 2007, when then-Gov. Phil Bredesen issued an executive order to review the policies and procedures and ordered a moratorium on executions.
The article also notes that the state's last execution was in 2009. Earlier coverage of Tennessee lethal injection issues begins at the link.
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